Business

Most Medicare patients who hit the new $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending for prescription drugs could see significant savings, according to a report from AARP. 
The findings suggest the spending maximum could be hugely beneficial for older adults in Medicare who struggle to afford high-cost drugs for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other serious conditions.
It is one of the most consequential provisions in President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, designed to cut high drug costs.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks about prescription drug costs during an event at NHTI Concord Community College in Concord, New Hampshire, U.S., October 22, 2024. 
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

Most Medicare patients who hit the new $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending for prescription drugs could see massive savings, despite changes in premiums, according to a report released Thursday by AARP. 
The findings suggest the cap could be a huge benefit to older adults in Medicare who struggle to afford high-cost drugs for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other serious conditions. Those seniors and other U.S. patients pay two to three times more for prescription drugs than people in other developed nations.

The limit went into effect at the beginning of this year. It is one of the most consequential provisions in President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, designed to cut high drug costs — along with a new $35 monthly cap on insulin and Medicare drug price negotiations with manufacturers.
The report found that 94% of the more than 1 million enrollees in Medicare Part D expected to reach the new cap in 2025 will have lower out-of-pocket costs — including premiums and cost-sharing — and save an average of $2,474. That’s a 48% decrease on average in their total out-of-pocket costs, according to the report, which analyzed plan enrollment and premium data, among other information. 
That 1 million tally excludes Medicare beneficiaries who receive a certain low-income subsidy and those in employer waiver plans.
An estimated 62% of those 1 million enrollees will save an average of more than $1,000 in 2025, while 12% will save more than $5,000, the report said. The remaining 6% of Part D enrollees who are projected to reach the new cap are expected to have higher out-of-pocket costs, with an average of $268 in additional spending in 2025, the report said. 
Notably, the share of Part D enrollees expected to reach the cap and have lower total out-of-pocket costs in 2025 is estimated to be 95% or higher in 33 states and Washington, D.C.

“When you’re able to provide these types of savings, that frees up those funds for other really important things that maybe [patients] were having to make trade-offs for, paying for their food or paying for their rent,” Leigh Purvis, prescription drug policy principal at AARP, said in an interview. “It’s a really meaningful impact, especially for a population that’s on a fixed income.” 
She added that the median income of Medicare beneficiaries is around $36,000 a year. 
Those savings come despite changes to Part D premiums in 2025, AARP said. Purvis said the new prices for the first 10 medications selected for Medicare negotiations — and the lower costs expected from them — do not go into effect until 2026, so premiums have increased in some cases.
She said critics have been trying to blame the law for those premium increases and higher costs for Medicare enrollees overall. But the report said the lower out-of-pocket costs for most patients who reach the $2,000 cap will more than offset higher premiums.
The positive effect “will only grow larger” as new negotiated prices for the first round of drugs go into effect in 2026, according to the report. 
“The Medicare program is going to be saving a lot of money, so this is really a story that is much bigger than it appears, just because these savings go to a lot of different people in a lot of different ways,” Purvis said. 
A separate report from AARP found that 3.2 million Medicare recipients are expected to see savings from the out-of-pocket cap in 2025. By 2029, the number is expected to increase to 4.1 million enrollees.
Medicare covers about 66 million people in the U.S., and 50.5 million patients are enrolled in Part D plans, according to 2023 data from health policy research organization KFF.
The new price cap applies to all prescription drugs under Medicare Part D, but doesn’t include drugs given to patients in the hospital or other health-care settings such as anesthesia and chemotherapy. 
Before the change, people on Medicare typically had to spend $7,000 or more out of pocket on prescription medications before they qualified for so-called “catastrophic coverage,” when insurance kicks in and covers most of the drug’s cost. 
Under this coverage, patients are charged a small co-payment or a percentage of a drug’s cost, usually 5%. More

Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket from Florida for the first time early Thursday morning.
The uncrewed rocket took off at about 2 a.m. ET and reached orbit.
New Glenn, which is as tall as a 30-story skyscraper, is designed to be partially reusable.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket streaks into orbit after launching from the Kennedy Space Center on its maiden flight, at Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 16, 2025.
Gregg Newton | Afp | Getty Images

Blue Origin launched its towering New Glenn rocket for the first time on Thursday, in a crucial milestone for Jeff Bezos’ space company.
New Glenn thundered off the launchpad in the early morning hours in Florida, reaching space and ultimately making it to orbit as a part of a long-awaited debut mission. Blue Origin also attempted to land the rocket’s booster on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, but the booster was lost during reentry through the atmosphere.

The launch is a defining moment for Blue Origin.
Although founded 25 years ago, Bezos’ company had yet to begin flying to orbit — with its much smaller New Shepard rocket only flying people and research on short jaunts to the edge of space. New Glenn’s flight marks Blue Origin’s entrance into a market dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and is crucial to unlocking the centi-billionaire founder’s larger ambitions.
No one was on board the New Glenn flight, which carried a single small test payload into space. The rocket was named to honor the late John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station prior on January 16, 2025.
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Originally the company was aiming for the audacious feat of flying NASA’s “ESCAPADE” mission to Mars on New Glenn’s debut. But with a dwindling launch window, the agency delayed ESCAPADE to a later launch. Blue Origin also has orders from Amazon’s Project Kuiper for at least 12 launches of its internet satellites, as well as plans to launch the Blue Moon lunar and Orbital Reef space station. Bezos founded Amazon six years before he created Blue Origin.
Headquartered in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, Blue Origin has over 10,000 employees there and in half a dozen other major locations around the country, including in industry strongholds of Texas, Florida and Alabama. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp previously told CNBC that Blue Origin has been “in kind of an R&D phase for a long time,” an aspect of the company’s culture he’s trying to change.

Blue plans to scale the cadence of New Glenn missions quickly, wanting to perform as many as 10 New Glenn launches this year. Originally targeted for a 2020 debut, the rocket faced years of delays.

The mission

A few minutes after launch, the rocket’s booster separated and returned back through the atmosphere. The booster — nicknamed “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance” — was attempting to land on the company’s barge Jacklyn about 600 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, but fell short. Blue Origin’s webcast last showed the booster at an altitude of about 84,000 feet.
While New Glenn did not deploy any satellites in orbit on the flight, it carried a small demonstration version of the company’s “Blue Ring” spacecraft. Known in the industry as an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV), or space tug, Blue Ring is designed to host satellites and spacecraft, delivering them from the rocket to their intended target.
As is typical with an orbital rocket’s debut, New Glenn’s launch had some bumps along the way, with multiple day delays due to technical issues with the rocket and weather.

The rocket

The first New Glenn rocket rolling out in preparation for launch.
Blue Origin

New Glenn is the size of a 30-story skyscraper at 322 feet tall, nearly as tall as the Saturn V rockets that carried the Apollo missions to the moon, and 23 feet in diameter. Blue’s rocket is powered by seven of the company’s BE-4 engines, together generating nearly 4 million pounds of thrust, and the nosecone of New Glenn is both wide and tall enough to launch three school buses into space at once.
The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane and is designed to be partially reusable, as Blue Origin aims to launch, land and re-launch each booster as many as 25 times.
In terms of mass delivered to orbit per launch, New Glenn fits between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, with Blue Origin’s vehicle designed to lift as much as 45,000 kilograms (or about 100,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit.
Blue Origin has not disclosed the total cost or pricing per launch of its New Glenn rockets. Three years ago, Blue Origin said it had invested $2.5 billion to date on New Glenn development. And, according to a competitor’s estimate, New Glenn sells for about $70 million per launch.
So far in the industry table stakes of orbital missions, Blue Origin had not entered the serious rocketry game, as the U.S. launch market remains dominated by SpaceX, followed by Rocket Lab, United Launch Alliance, and Firefly Aerospace.
Already, Blue Origin has a foothold with New Glenn in the most lucrative part of the launch market: Flying for the military. Last year Blue Origin joined SpaceX and ULA in the Pentagon’s $5.6 billion National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, allowing the company to compete for contracts.
While Blue Origin has lagged SpaceX in the industry, Bezos has remained upbeat about his company’s potential.
“I think it’s going to be the best business that I’ve ever been involved in, but it’s going to take a while,” Bezos said recently.
Jeff, welcome to the club. More

The Federal Trade Commission has sued agricultural equipment company Deere & Company, arguing it holds a monopoly on repair services.
The FTC alleges that the company’s tactics forced customers to rely on authorized dealers for equipment fixes.
The lawsuit says the arrangement drives up costs and repair times for farmers.

John Deere booth signage is displayed at CES 2023 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 6, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
David Becker | Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission has sued agricultural equipment giant Deere & Company, arguing it holds a monopoly on repair services that raises costs and creates delays for farmers, the agency announced Wednesday.
The lawsuit alleges Deere has for decades hindered customers’ ability to repair their equipment, including tractors and combines, forcing them to rely on the company’s network of authorized repair providers. A Deere software tool called “Service ADVISOR,” which is only available to more expensive authorized dealers, is necessary to fully fix equipment, leaving farmers and independent repair providers unable to do it themselves, the FTC alleged.

The FTC said authorized dealers often use Deere-branded parts instead of less expensive generic ones for repair jobs, adding to Deere’s profits.
“Illegal repair restrictions can be devastating for farmers, who rely on affordable and timely repairs to harvest their crops and earn their income,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a news release. “The FTC’s action today seeks to ensure that farmers across America are free to repair their own equipment or use repair shops of their choice—lowering costs, preventing ruinous delays, and promoting fair competition for independent repair shops.”
The states of Illinois and Minnesota are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks to make Service ADVISOR and other necessary repair resources available to Deere customers and independent repair providers. Other manufacturing companies in the trucking and auto industries provide the required information for generic repair tool developers, the FTC said.
In a statement, Denver Caldwell, Deere’s vice president of aftermarket and customer support, said it is “extremely disappointing that three Commissioners of the FTC chose to file a meritless lawsuit on the eve of the transition to a new Administration.”

“Our recent discussions with the Commission have revealed that the agency still lacked basic information about the industry and John Deere’s business practices and confirmed that the agency was instead relying on inaccurate information and assumptions,” Caldwell added.
The company said it “has introduced a number of new innovations, tools, and resources to equip customers and independent repair technicians with the maintenance and repair needs of our equipment.”
Deere shares fell less than 1% on Wednesday afternoon.
The lawsuit comes in the final days of President Joe Biden’s term in the White House and Khan’s tenure at the FTC, during which the agency has taken an aggressive approach to antitrust. It is unclear if President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will continue to pursue the suit against Deere. More

The suit alleges Southwest Airlines repeatedly operated late-arriving flights in 2022.
The Biden administration, which is in the very end of its term, has taken a tough stance on airlines and consumer protections.
The DOT also fined Frontier $650,000 for chronically delayed flights.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 departs Los Angeles International Airport en route to Las Vegas on September 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. 
Kevin Carter | Getty Images

The Department of Transportation on Wednesday sued Southwest Airlines, alleging the carrier operated chronically delayed flights, and fined Frontier Airlines for late-arriving flights.
The lawsuit follows a $2 million DOT fine on JetBlue Airways for similar allegations.

The lawsuit and fines come at the end of the Biden administration, which has taken a harder line toward consumer protections than previous administrations.
The DOT said that Southwest’s flights from Chicago Midway International Airport to Oakland, California, and from Baltimore to Cleveland arrived late nearly 200 times between April and August 2022.
The DOT said each flight was chronically delayed for five consecutive months and that Southwest was responsible for more than 90% of the disruptions.
It defines a flight as chronically delayed if it is flown at least 10 times a month and arrives more than 30 minutes late more than half the time. The calculation includes cancellations and diversions. 
“When an airline knows that a particular flight is consistently late, it is essential that the airline adjusts its schedule,” the DOT said in its lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California. “But on many occasions, Southwest has chosen not to make such adjustments, and instead has continued to market its flights using unrealistic schedules. By doing so, Southwest has caused significant harm to its customers.”

In response, Southwest said it “is disappointed that DOT chose to file a lawsuit over two flights that occurred more than two years ago.”
The carrier said that since the DOT issued its chronically delayed flight policy in 2009, the airline operated more than 20 million flights with no violations of the policy. “Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” Southwest said in a statement.
Separately, the DOT fined budget carrier Frontier $650,000 for operating chronically delayed flights, though it added that $325,000 would be suspended if the airline doesn’t operate any repeatedly delayed flights over the next three years. Frontier declined to comment. More

Bristol Myers Squibb believes Alzheimer’s treatment is the largest potential market for its newly approved schizophrenia drug, Cobenfy, which it expects to eventually generate billions of dollars in sales across different uses. 
Company executives said each treatment type they are studying has multibillion-dollar potential, including Alzheimer’s disease psychosis, agitation and cognition, along with bipolar disease and autism.
Bristol Myers Squibb plans to release initial late-stage trial data on Alzheimer’s-related psychosis during the latter part of the year, which is earlier than expected.

The Bristol Myers Squibb research and development center at Cambridge Crossing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. 
Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Bristol Myers Squibb believes Alzheimer’s is the largest market for its newly approved schizophrenia drug, Cobenfy, which it expects to eventually generate billions of dollars in revenue.
In an interview, company executives said each treatment use they are studying for Cobenfy has multibillion-dollar potential, including Alzheimer’s disease psychosis, Alzheimer’s agitation and Alzheimer’s cognition, bipolar disease, and autism. But Alzheimer’s is the “really large market here,” Bristol Myers Squibb CFO David Elkins told CNBC on Tuesday at the JPMorgan Health Care Conference in San Francisco.

There are nearly 6 million patients in the U.S. with Alzheimer’s, and around half of them have psychosis, or symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, Elkins said. Cobenfy could be the first drug specifically approved for Alzheimer’s-related psychosis, said Chief Commercialization Officer Adam Lenkowsky. 
Atypical antipsychotics – medication used to treat a range of psychiatric disorders – are often used to treat psychosis in Alzheimer’s patients even though they are not approved for that purpose. But those treatments can increase the risk of death, and Cobenfy does not, according to Bristol Myers Squibb. 
Meanwhile, Alzheimer’s agitation, a symptom that can cause a patient to feel restless and worried, is estimated to affect around 60% to 70% of patients with the disease, according to some studies. 
Bristol Myers Squibb on Monday said it plans to release initial late-stage trial data for Cobenfy in Alzheimer’s-related psychosis treatment during the latter part of the year, which is earlier than expected. The company also expects to start phase three trials in Alzheimer’s agitation, Alzheimer’s cognition and bipolar disorder in 2025, while studies in autism will begin in 2026. 
JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott expects Cobenfy sales to reach about $5 billion by 2030, with a peak sales potential in the $10 billion range across multiple treatment uses, according to a research note on Tuesday. That is a huge boon to Bristol Myers Squibb as it faces pressure to offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments that will see their patents expire. 

Bristol Myers Squibb’s Cobenfy drug
Courtesy: Bristol Myers Squibb

It’s a full-circle moment for Cobenfy, which became the first novel type of treatment for the roughly 3 million U.S. adults with schizophrenia in decades after it won approval in September. The drug comes from Bristol Myers Squibb’s whopping $14 billion acquisition of biotech company Karuna Therapeutics at the end of 2023. 
But the drug’s roots are in treating Alzheimer’s.
Eli Lilly originally tested one part of the drug – xanomeline – in the 1990s to reduce cognitive decline before shelving it due to severe side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation. Xanomeline activates certain so-called muscarinic receptors in the brain to decrease dopamine activity without causing the side effects associated with antipsychotics. 

More CNBC health coverage

Andrew Miller, founder and former president of research and development of Karuna Therapeutics and now an advisor to Bristol Myers Squibb, saw xanomeline’s potential in neuroscience and theorized combining xanomeline with a second existing medication – trospium – to reduce those side effects. He went on to launch Karuna to develop the combination as a schizophrenia treatment.
Other breakthrough treatments for Alzheimer’s recently entered the market, including Biogen and Eisai’s Leqembi and Eli Lilly’s Kisunla. Those treatments work in part by clearing toxic plaques in the brain called amyloid, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, to slow the decline in memory and thinking in patients in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s 
But as people progress through their disease, they experience symptoms such as psychosis and agitation, Bristol Myers Squibb’s Elkins said. 
“That’s where Cobenfy fits it,” he said. “If you can get rid of the psychosis, the agitation, people’s cognition improves. Just imagine for the caregivers and health-care system overall, how impactful this drug could be for those patients and their loved ones. It’s really exciting when you think about it in that context.”

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

Firefly Aerospace’s “Blue Ghost” cargo lander launched from Florida early Wednesday morning on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The space transportation company’s first moon mission comes as it looks to expand into the nascent, NASA-led market for lunar services.
Blue Ghost is expected to make a landing attempt on March 2 and spend up to two weeks on the surface.

The company’s Blue Ghost moon lander before shipping out for launch.
Firefly Aerospace

Another American company, Texas-based rocket and spacecraft builder Firefly Aerospace, is moon-bound.
Firefly’s “Blue Ghost” cargo lander launched from Florida early Wednesday morning on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to begin a 45-day trip.

The space transportation company’s first moon mission comes as it looks to expand into the nascent, NASA-led market for lunar services.
“We’re now fully focused on execution as we look to complete our on-orbit operations, softly touch down on the lunar surface, and pave the way for humanity’s return to the Moon,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said in a statement after the launch.
Firefly is best known for its Alpha rockets, which launch satellites into orbit. But the company in recent years expanded into building lunar landers and space tugs.

Read more CNBC space news

The nearly 7-foot-tall lander, named Blue Ghost after a rare firefly species in the U.S., is carrying 10 government and commercial payloads under a $101 million NASA contract.
Firefly’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky” mission is the third under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. CLPS aims to deliver science projects and cargo to the moon with increasing regularity in support of the agency’s Artemis crew program. Two other companies, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, each launched missions last year – the former’s fell short while the latter’s tipped on its side but survived the landing.

Blue Ghost stacked inside the rocket’s nosecone in preparation for launch.

Firefly outlined 17 milestones it hopes to achieve with Blue Ghost, with landing one of the final steps. So far, the company confirmed the mission has achieved five of those milestones, including the stages of launch and testing the spacecraft in orbit.
The mission is expected to land on March 2 and is targeting the lunar basin Mare Crisium on the moon’s near side. After touching down, Firefly aims to operate the lander for a full lunar day — which equates to about 14 days on Earth — as well as operate for several hours into the lunar night.

A rendering that depicts the Blue Ghost lander on the moon’s surface.
Firefly Aerospace

Notably, SpaceX’s rocket carried not just one, but two lunar landers on Wednesday morning’s launch.
Japanese company ispace is flying its second moon mission after its first crash-landed in 2023. While Firefly was the primary payload for the launch, ispace had previously booked a “rideshare” agreement with SpaceX, meaning its lander would end up hitching a ride.
And more moon attempts are on the way this year. NASA expects as many as five U.S. companies to launch lunar landing missions this year in 2025. More

The combination of Disney and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” Disney Animation’s “Moana 2” and Universal’s “Wicked” boosted the box office during the final months of 2024.
Full-year ticket sales were down just 3.4% from 2023, reaching $8.74 billion, a far cry from the nearly 27% shortage seen at the midway point of 2024.
Disney collected the most ticket sales for the year, representing 25% of the total domestic market.

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman star in Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Foul-mouthed superheroes and family-friendly fare propped up the domestic box office during the final months of 2024.
Full-year ticket sales were down just 3.4% from 2023, reaching $8.74 billion, a far cry from the nearly 27% shortage seen at the midway point of 2024.

The combination of Disney and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” Disney Animation’s “Moana 2” and Universal’s “Wicked,” all of which were released after June, buoyed ticket sales and turned a billion-dollar deficit into just $300 million, according to data from Comscore.
“While 2024 was one of the most challenging ever for theatres, the massive comeback that began in June due to the residual impact of the strikes and resultant production delays that threw the release slate into disarray in the early part of the year is nothing short of remarkable,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Box-office analysts had predicted the 2024 box office would lag significantly behind the $9 billion tallied in 2023. After all, the production calendar was disrupted by dual Hollywood labor strikes the year prior, postponing major blockbuster releases into the second half of 2024. Some were even delayed until 2025 and 2026.

“Expectations entering the year were saddled with the weight of release delays caused by industry strikes, on top of the ongoing adjustment to modern consumer habits that have taken hold in a world of shorter theatrical windows and increased demand for state-of-the-art experiences inside cinemas themselves,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory.
The first-half ticket sales slump was a disappointment after the box office had seen steady annual growth in the wake of the pandemic. However, industry analysts foresee a rebound in 2025 and the potential to break the $10 billion mark in 2026.

The next two years are stacked with blockbuster franchises and films tied to popular, existing intellectual property. And while there has been some worry that the industry had become too inundated with licensed material, particularly in the superhero genre, 2024 has proven that audiences will still come out in droves for these films.
In fact, all of the top 10 highest-grossing films of 2024 were from major film franchises or tied to popular IP. And that’s a good sign, considering 2025 and 2026 are set to be packed with big titles.
“The year will see a resumption of a franchise-heavy-driven lineup,” wrote Eric Handler, managing director at Roth MKM, in a recent research note. “Vying for the highest-grossing movies of the year should be ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ and ‘Wicked: For Good,’ all of which should be able to surpass $400 [million].”

Disney magic

Disney, in particular, benefited from franchise films in 2024. The company is responsible for three of the four top-grossing films of the year — Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” and Disney Animation’s “Moana 2.”
“Inside Out 2” jump-started the box office, taking in more than $650 million domestically and becoming the first film since Warner Bros.′ “Barbie” to top $1 billion at the global box office.
This was an import win for Disney’s Pixar animation hub. A once prolifically successful studio, Pixar has suffered at the box office in the wake of the pandemic. Much of its difficulties have come, in part, because Disney opted to debut a handful of animated features directly on streaming service Disney+ during theatrical closures and even once cinemas had reopened.
As a result, prior to “Inside Out 2,” no Disney animated feature from Pixar or its Walt Disney Animation studio had generated more than $480 million at the global box office since 2019. “Inside Out 2” ultimately became the highest-grossing film of 2024.
The second-highest was Disney’s first-ever R-rated Marvel feature. “Deadpool & Wolverine” hit theaters in July and quickly earned the record for the highest debut of an R-rated film ever. It went on to top $1 billion at the global box office, the only R-rated film other than Warner Bros.’ “Joker” to do so, and also became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” brought a much-needed boost to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has struggled with consistency at the box office in the wake of the record-shattering “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019.
Handler said the superhero genre is seeking “a bit of redemption,” noting that Marvel has three major releases in 2025: “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts*” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”
Warner Bros. will also debut its first film under James Gunn and Peter Safran, its new heads of the DC Studio. All eyes will be on “Superman: Legacy,” especially after the woeful box office of “Joker: Folie a Deux.”
Disney also had “Moana 2,” the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. It arrived at Thanksgiving, shattering the record for the highest-opening film during that five-day holiday period with $221 million in domestic ticket sales. It went on to snag $404 million domestically and over $900 million globally.
Together, these films alongside other theatrical releases helped Disney reach more than $2.2 billion at the domestic box office last year, accounting for about 25% of the industry’s total haul.

Universal, fueled by “Wicked,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Twisters” and “Kung Fu Panda 4” represented 21.6% of the total market share with $1.8 billion in box-office receipts for the year. “Wicked” was the third-highest-grossing film of 2024, collecting $432 million domestically and breaking the curse of movie musicals at the box office. It also became the highest debut of a Broadway adaptation in cinematic history.
Warner Bros. tallied $1.19 billion, or 13.7% market share. Sony snared $1 billion, or 11.5%, and Paramount rounded out the top five with $880 million, or 10%.
“The late year ’24 moviegoing rally has set up a solid 2025 for movie theatres,” Dergarabedian said. “[G]iven the more stable calendar with a more orderly cadence, frequency and importantly a greater number of wide release films … the resultant momentum will virtually guarantee even bigger results for theatrical exhibition this year.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “Wicked,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Twisters” and “Kung Fu Panda 4,” and the owner of Fandango. More

Eli Lilly cut its 2024 revenue guidance, saying demand for its obesity and diabetes drugs had not met its lofty expectations.
Eli Lilly expects about $3.5 billion in revenue for its diabetes treatment Mounjaro and $1.9 billion for its obesity drug Zepbound.
CEO Dave Ricks told CNBC that the company has “tons of supply coming online” and that it will add more manufacturing capacity.

The Eli Lilly & Co. logo at the company’s Digital Health Innovation Hub facility in Singapore, on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. 
Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Eli Lilly cut its revenue guidance on Tuesday as it said demand for its weight loss and diabetes drugs would not meet its lofty expectations.
The drugmaker’s shares closed more than 6% lower on Tuesday.

Eli Lilly said it now expects full-year 2024 revenue of about $45 billion. That’s lower than the $45.4 billion to $46 billion the company anticipated in October. The new outlook would still mark a 32% jump in revenue from the prior year.
Eli Lilly has been racing to meet soaring demand for its diabetes treatment Mounjaro and obesity drug Zepbound, investing billions to ramp up its manufacturing capacity of the company’s booming so-called incretin drugs. The efforts appear to be paying off: The Food and Drug Administration in December reaffirmed its decision to declare the U.S. shortage of tirzepatide — the active ingredient in both drugs — over.
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said the company has “tons of supply coming online” and “that kind of growth will likely continue.”
He also noted that the company will add more manufacturing capacity and expects to produce at least 60% more sellable doses of its incretin drugs in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2024.

More CNBC health coverage

For the fourth quarter, Eli Lilly expects $13.5 billion in revenue. The total includes about $3.5 billion for Mounjaro and $1.9 billion for Zepbound.

Wall Street had expected fourth-quarter and full-year revenue of $13.94 billion and $45.49 billion, respectively, according to analysts surveyed by LSEG.
The outlook cut comes as Eli Lilly competes with Novo Nordisk and other, smaller rivals for share of the exploding weight loss and diabetes drug market. Eli Lilly is developing an obesity pill that would be more convenient for patients and easier to manufacture, and Ricks expects it to be approved as soon as early next year.
“While the U.S. incretin market grew 45% compared to the same quarter last year, our previous guidance had anticipated even faster acceleration of growth for the quarter. That, in addition to lower-than-expected channel inventory at year-end, contributed to our Q4 results,” Ricks said in a statement.
The drugmaker also said it expects sales of $58 billion to $61 billion in fiscal 2025.
Eli Lilly is expected to report full quarterly results on Feb. 6.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More