📈 'Inside Out 2' is making box-office history

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TOP STORY
📈 ‘Inside Out 2’ is making box-office history

As you’d expect, the meteoric rise started at the very beginning. “Inside Out 2” had the biggest box office preview of 2024, raking in a hefty $13 million.

In addition to surpassing the preview numbers of other films released this year, Inside Out also earned more than:

• Toy Story 4 (2019): $12 million

• The Little Mermaid (2023): $10.3 million

• Incredibles 2 (2018): $9.7 million

It was a great way to start the party and a great preview (get it) of what was to come.

In its official opening weekend, the film grossed $295M at the worldwide box office, which was Pixar's biggest-ever global opening.

This past weekend, its second weekend on the market, the film grossed over $100M, bringing the grand total at the worldwide box office to $724M.

• It was the 7th film ever to earn over $100 million in its second weekend.

• It was also the first animated film to achieve this milestone.

• ‘INSIDE OUT 2’ is on track to be the first 2024 film to earn $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

If (and when) they hit the billion-dollar mark, they will be part of an elite Pixar company:

• Incredibles 2: $1.24 billion

• Toy Story 4: $1.07 billion

• Toy Story 3: $1.07 billion

• Finding Dory: $1.03 billion

There is really no stopping this turbocharged hype train.

HOSPITALITY
🏨 LVMH takes a ride on the ‘Orient Express’

Buckle up, Bernard (Arnault), LVMH is taking a ride on the Orient Express.

Earlier this week, the nearly $400 billion luxury goods conglomerate LVMH announced a partnership with Accor, owners of the legendary Orient Express train, and other famous brands.

On paper, LVMH has officially made a "strategic investment" in the Orient Express brand, including the company that will operate the future hotels and trains and the entity that will own the two sailing ships.

The companies are looking to create a luxury brand fit for royalty, a brand that even the Sultan of Brunei would deem worthy of using.

That'd be a pretty sick train ride.

But hey, even if they can’t recruit the royal family, the Orient Express brand will be in the best hands possible for a luxury company.LVMH is like the Berkshire Hathaway of luxury goods.

Here’s a glimpse at some of LVMH’s holdings:

• Louis Vuitton

• Dior

• Fendi

• Givenchy

• Celine

• Sephora

• Bulgari

• TAG Heuer

• + more

Not to mention the more relevant (to this article) LVMH-owned Cheval Blanc and Belmond brands, renowned for their exclusive hotels in destinations like Courchevel, St. Barth, and the Maldives.

Oo la la!

What comes next? The next steps include restoring the historic train and launching the first-ever Orient Express sailing ship in 2026.

Because every luxury brand needs a sailing ship, or is it even a real luxury brand?

At the same time, Orient Express will open its first hotels in Rome and Venice, continuing to expand its global destinations.

OIL & GAS
 ❌ Anti-oil activist group strikes again: A 4,500-year-old monument and Taylor Swift’s jet?

To start the week, a duo of “activists” decided to spray-paint Stonehenge, you know, the United Kingdom’s 4,500-year-old historical monument.

Nick Merriman, the chief executive of the national body that cares for hundreds of national properties and sites, including Stonehenge, condemned the protest as “vandalism to one of the world’s most celebrated ancient monuments.”

In recent months, the group has targeted a series of cultural institutions, including disrupting a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall, damaging a case around the Magna Carta at the British Library, and throwing tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery.

Actions that are truly changing the world for the better. And that was just the beginning of the group’s eventful week for the group.

Just 24 hours after the Stonehenge incident, two fellow activists from Just Stop Oil (JSO) tried vandalizing Taylor Swift’s private jets.

The activists reportedly cut a fence to the private airfield and attempted to target the superstar’s jet, which has been scrutinized for having record-high carbon emissions.

Damn, these guys really move quickly.

Who even are they? JSO is a “nonviolent civil resistance group demanding the UK Government stop licensing all new oil, gas, and coal projects.”

We would think the airfield fence and Stonehenge would beg to differ with the nonviolence part, though.
 
The group is funded entirely by donations, with most of its money coming from the Climate Emergency Fund.

The goal of this fund is to help grow the disruptive nonviolent climate movement.

Well, if disruption is your goal, then the mission has very much been accomplished.