Numlock News: December 15, 2025 • Star Wars, Ella McCay, Shaboozey

Dec 15, 2025

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Zootopia, Too

Zootopia 2 passed the $1 billion global box office milestone after just 17 days in theaters, the shortest amount of time for any PG-rated or Hollywood animated film ever. The film has now made $259.6 million domestic and $877.8 million globally for a $1.08 billion global cume. Disney’s other movie at the box office this weekend was Ella McCay from James L. Brooks, which opened to $1.9 million. That is a brutal number and among the worst-ever for any movie that released in over 2,500 theaters. But if you invent The Simpsons, the company that owns The Simpsons will clearly give you a freebie whenever you want (as long as it means they get to keep owning The Simpsons).

Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter

Art

The painting by Tom Jung that became the poster for Star Wars sold for $3.875 million, a new record for Star Wars memorabilia and beating the $3.654 million price of Darth Vader’s lightsaber. The work, Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) Half-Sheet Original Artwork for a Key Poster by Tom Jung, belonged to the family of the film’s producer, Gary Kurtz, and was painted on a 21-inch by 34-inch board in airbrush and acrylic, featuring the whole cast.

Jeffrey Dohm-Sanchez, ICV2

Mercury

In 2013, two wolves from the Alexander Archipelago in Alaska made a swim to Pleasant Island, which is 50 square kilometers. The wolves thrived and grew to a population of 13, but wiped out all the deer on the island in doing so. What happens to the wolves next attracted the interest of biologists, who anticipated the animals would probably make the arduous swim back to the mainland. Instead, the wolves adapted and started hunting sea otters, which came to represent 60 percent to 70 percent of their diet. There is an issue, though, one of the wolves died in 2020, and a postmortem analysis found that the wolf had the single highest level of mercury ever recorded in a wolf. Yes, the wolves of Pleasant Island are mad as hatters. They had mercury concentrations 278 times the level found in wolves in the Alaskan interior, which coincided with adding sea otters — aggregators of heavy metals in shellfish — to their menu.

Gennaro Tomma, bioGraphic

NASCAR

NASCAR has been locked in a lawsuit with Michael Jordan over the power imbalance between the individual racing teams (one of which is owned by Jordan) and the larger racing company. Teams invest millions into the sport, but they don’t actually own any stake in the NASCAR business, which has been controlled by a single powerful family. Teams hold charters that guarantee them spots on the races; however, the deal is generally pretty mediocre for the actual teams. This discrepancy led to a suit lodged by 23XI and Front Row Motorsports against the system. With Jordan’s deep pockets and somewhat notorious competitive spirit, the plaintiffs ultimately prevailed in the antitrust suit, resulting in a settlement that grants the teams a larger share of the NASCAR revenue. The organization needed a shot in the arm; from 2005 to 2024, average viewership for NASCAR races fell from 8.5 million to 2.45 million. Perhaps dealing with Michael Jordan can help get more eyeballs on the ovals.

Adam Minter, Bloomberg

Fire

Volunteer fire departments are feeling the squeeze from private equity firms rolling up the niche software and suppliers that a fire department relies on, jacking up the prices for the services. Volunteer fire departments account for 85 percent of the 30,000 fire departments in the United States. About 20,000 of those fire departments use some of the services from ESO — one of three software suppliers (alongside ImageTrend and First Due) that serve fire departments and make the specialty software for inventory, hydrant management and so on. When ESO acquired Emergency Reporting — which served 7,500 departments — ESO moved to shut down Emergency Reporting, pushing those customers to its other platform. For the Norfolk, Connecticut, volunteer fire department, that would increase the costs from $795 per year to over $5,000 per year.

Mike Baker, The New York Times

Bar Song

TouchTunes (which operates jukeboxes for bars) reported that for the second year in a row, the most-played song on jukeboxes was “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey, which just feels on the nose. About 38 percent of all plays on the platform are rock songs, but 23 percent are country. And country music is well-represented at the top of the charts, with the three most-played artists being Morgan Wallen, Chris Stapleton and Toby Keith. If you’ll excuse me, I’m moving to Nashville to write songs like “A Good Song (To Play On A Juke Box)” and “Bar Music For A Bar” in the hopes that I can notch that No. 1 hit through sheer nominative determinism, just like Shaboozey did.

Kevin Rutherford, Billboard

DB

Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s railway, has been disappointing travelers with some of the least punctual trains in all of Europe. October data indicate that only 51.5 percent of trains arrived less than six minutes late. This threat to the famous Teutonic reputation of efficiency comes from the infamous Teutonic reputation of frugality, as the system has been underfunded, and maintenance has been deferred. The government has announced a 100 billion euro investment in rail infrastructure, and installed a new CEO from the Austrian Federal Railways.

Esme Nicholson, NPR

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