From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

The Academy Awards are behind us, but we've got some tasty leftovers from our interviews with some of the recently minted winners.

That includes director Joachim Trier, who told us how he landed on casting El Fanning and his best international

feature winner, sentimental value. We don't need to cast for money. We cast only for the quality

of who we want to work with. That's a great freedom. And I spoke to a good friend of mine, Mike Mills,

who's a great American director, and he said, talk to Elle. And we did, and it was

marvelous. I'm so happy about that collaboration.

Jo Kim Trir talks about getting to a place where he can cast well-known actors who sign on

to his films without reading a script just because it's him. And we hear more from Autumn

Durald, Archipa, the first woman and first woman of color to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

She breaks down the challenges of shooting sinners for IMAX and recalls Christopher Nolan's advice to Ryan Coogler about the best way to shoot the film.

But first we banter. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my partner in banter Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt.

Hi there. So, things are looking a little bit up for people in the movie business because we have a bunch of movies that have opened well and are holding on well. And you're going to remember the exact number, which I never do.

But the box office already is up a pretty healthy percentage from the year before.

Yeah, it's about 23% according to the data that I've seen in the first quarter, which ended on the 31st.

And this weekend, or it's already in theaters, is Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is expected

to open around 200 million domestic, 350 worldwide. Remember, the first one got to 1.3 billion. So this is

like, I don't want to say that the box office is back because it's still way down from pre-COVID levels. But this is probably going to

end up as the most robust or encouraging year at the box office since COVID. Yes. And kid movies,

family movies seem to be the thing. I mean, goat came out of the gate stronger, I think,

than Sony dared to hope. Then you have hoppers, as he said, Super Mario Brothers. I mean, goat came out of the gate stronger, I think, than Sony dared to hope. Then you

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