Numlock News: April 14, 2025 • Screws, Moana, Caviar

Apr 14, 2025

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Box Office Savior

A Minecraft Movie made $80 million domestically in its second week of release, bringing its total box office to $550 million globally. It’s resurrected the box office: 2 weeks ago, the American box office was 11 percent behind its cumulative total compared to the same time last year, but as of now, we’re running 0.5 percent ahead of 2024. Speaking of resurrections at the box office, the hottest piece of I.P. ever told also launched a brand-new installment for the devoted fans of the Christianity franchise, with Angel Studios’ The King of Kings pulling in a strong second place with $19 million. The film features a new take on the popular story of Jesus, who appears prominently in several of the later books of the franchise’s source material but nevertheless has one of the more robust fan bases.

Rebecca Rubin, Variety

Efficiency

The Department of Energy’s efficiency targets for appliances are being rolled back or challenged, despite plenty of evidence of their success. Consumer Reports has consistently found that more water-efficient shower heads are just as effective as their more wasteful forebears. Dishwashers and washing machines are, in fact, better today when it comes to water and energy efficiency than they were back in the day, and the transition to LED bulbs alone cut American energy bills by $3 billion a year and obviated the need for 30 large power plants. A scrubbed report from the Department of Energy found that Americans save $576 per year on utility bills thanks to the changes and have cut the nation’s water consumption by 12 percent.

Peter Elkind, ProPublica

Caviar

Fish eggs are more popular than ever on American menus, and it’s thanks to a massive shift in how they’re sourced. Russian caviar from wild-caught sturgeon is no longer on the menu (in no small part because of a couple of ethical quandaries with regards to its sourcing), and farm-raised Chinese caviar is relatively accessible and is altogether solid quality. The average price for a kilogram of imported caviar into the United States was $240 in 2020, down from $440 in 2014, thanks to the rise of caviar aquaculture in China in particular. Prices range a lot, from $400 per kilogram at the low end of retail to anywhere from $500 to $1,500 per kilogram wholesale when you’re talking to restaurants. The consistency and quality is solid, which means chefs roe the day that the brisk trade with China is jeopardized.

Madison Darbyshire, Bloomberg

Pills

Hims & Hers is the app-based pharmacy that made its initial splash selling treatments for stuff that gets emails sent to spam, but has set its sights considerably higher and now aims to be a dominant force in health care. One somewhat shocking stat about the company is the percentage of revenue that it dumps directly back into marketing every year. In 2024, the company made $1.5 billion in revenue, of which $678.8 million was plowed right back into podcast ad reads, subway ads and online ads. That year was, incidentally, the first time in 3 years that Hims & Hers hadn’t spent more than half of their revenue back on marketing; in 2023, the $446.4 million spent marketing the pharmacy was more than half of its $872 million revenue, as was also the case in 2022 and 2021.

J. Edward Moreno, Sherwood News

Diamond

A bankruptcy court has settled a matter that the entire comics industry was watching: the fate of Diamond Comics, which for several decades was the sole intermediary connecting all the people who make comics with the thousands of comic book shops selling them to readers. After an auction that ended with Diamond contesting the winning bid, the sale will indeed proceed to Alliance Entertainment, which has dropped its lawsuit. The purchase price won’t be finalized for a little while, but based on the asset purchase agreements, Alliance will pay a base of $36,865,000 for Diamond subsidiary Alliance Game Distributors and $21 million for comic distribution, Diamond Select and the CGA card grading business. When all is said and done with creditors, Alliance settled its final purchase price at $85,368,053, well higher than the $39 million stalking horse bid. Altogether, it’s a good outcome given the complexities of the situation.

Milton Griepp, ICV2

Everything’s Better Down Where It’s Wetter

Moana 2 finally hit Disney+ in mid-March after grossing over a billion dollars globally, and the initial data completely supports Disney’s decision to convert what was intended as a direct-to-streaming series into a fully developed, theatrically released sequel. Despite fears that such a move might eat into eventual streaming performance, Moana 2 put up some pretty breathtaking numbers in its first week of release, coming in at 33.3 million hours streamed and easily securing the No. 1 spot in its release. Of interest to the streaming wars is that the movie pulled off this feat in the week that Netflix released its $320 million action-adventure movie The Electric State, which came in at No. 3 with 19.7 million hours according to the umps at Nielsen. What’s also interesting from the Nielsen report? A little data from back when: around the time they reported Moana 2 was No. 8 all-time in weekduring the first week of its release, they also dropped a number nobody’s seen before. Nielsen reported that the Martin Scorsese movie The Irishman apparently racked up 45 million hours in its first week of release to get the No. 2 all-time slot.

Entertainment Strategy Guy

Planetary Roller Screws

If you want to make a robot that can look or function similar to a human, one critical component is the planetary roller screw, which is the cutting edge replacement for the classic ball screws, and which is able to handle more weight with higher endurance. Tesla’s Optimus robot has 4 of them in its calves, and most of the major contenders use them. The total market for the special screw is already $1.8 billion at this point, and the business for such robots is considered to be just a fraction of its ultimate size, projected to grow a compounding 30 percent over the next 5 years. The average screw goes for $1,350 to $2,700, and generally account for about 33 percent of the materials bill when comes to humanoid robots. With each robot potentially needing dozens, these screws are a key piece of equipment for the future of robotics, especially given China’s dominance in the actuator manufacturing space, and the U.S. sources most of its parts for the pricey screw there.

Chris Stokel-Walker, Fast Company

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