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The CEO candidate seemed like a perfect fit. Blackstone, the private equity titan, had acquired a real estate company and was searching for the ideal leader to helm it. The candidate had excelled as a senior executive at another Blackstone-owned real estate company and had greatly impressed interviewers on the CEO search committee.

But soon after he was hired to the new position, problems began to surface. The role required a chief executive who had a strong grasp of the local market, relationships with regional policymakers, and expertise in managing regulatory affairs—areas where his experience was limited. Within six months, it was clear that the CEO was struggling. The company had fallen significantly behind on its growth plan and failed to meet key financial milestones. Blackstone initially attempted to hire its way out of the problem, adding a chief transformation officer, an executive to restructure costs, and a more active advisory board chair. The CEO was also given feedback and coaching. But despite those efforts, his tenure lasted only two years.

“If we had simply stepped back and asked ourselves, ‘What do we uniquely need this CEO to do to get us where we need to be?’ we would have realized he wasn’t the right fit,” admits Courtney della Cava, Blackstone’s senior managing director and global head of portfolio talent and organizational performance. “Instead, we became enamored with his past success—and it set us back.”

It was a costly error, but one that Della Cava says highlights the importance of Blackstone’s current approach to hiring CEOs for the 250 companies in its portfolio.

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Blackstone has reached the top of the private equity pyramid by mastering the art of acquiring promising companies, improving their operations and profitability over a few years, then selling them at a higher value. It’s a strategy that has grown its portfolio of companies and real estate assets to a value of $1.1 trillion—a nearly 13- fold increase compared to the $88 billion in assets under management when it went public in 2007.

The success of this model hinges on having the right leaders in place. And Della Cava was hired in 2021 to transform the firm’s CEO recruitment from an art to a more precise science.

Landing a C-Suite role at a Blackstone portfolio company is exceptionally competitive, and most candidates won’t make the cut, says Dan Kaplan, a senior client partner at Korn Ferry’s CHRO practice. “Everyone wants to be there,” Kaplan says. “It has become a brand synonymous with being best in class.”

Under Della Cava, each aspiring company leader now undergoes a rigorous and time-consuming three- to four-month recruitment process that includes nearly a dozen interviews with Blackstone stakeholders, advisors, and consulting partners, as well as board presentations, third-party assessments, exhaustive feedback from references, and a nearly five-hour psychometric evaluation that’s designed to deeply probe the candidate’s cognitive ability, character, motivations, and essence as a leader.

Selecting a CEO is about betting on potential, and Della Cava has found that each component of Blackstone’s search process improves the likelihood of making the right appointment. This playbook, she says, is especially critical for a role that is grueling, fast-paced, and requires a person who can handle the volatility of being celebrated as a hero one day and criticized as a villain the next.

“Being a CEO is a high-intensity sport,” says Della Cava. “For the right person, it’s extraordinary. But it’s not for everyone.”

Blackstone’s CEO recruitment framework, which Della Cava and her team have refined over the past four years, has quickly become the envy of other private equity firms, according to several executive recruiters. Her 11-person team often works on dozens of companies’ leadership searches at once.

With billions of dollars at stake, the importance of selecting the right CEO for a Blackstone portfolio company is extraordinarily high—for not only a company’s financial success but also its culture. “An underperforming leader results in an underperforming company,” says Della Cava. Put simply, she says: “Leadership is the No. 1 driver of value creation.”

And getting a hire wrong can be a cascading disaster. Studies conducted by management consulting firm ghSMART found that a typical hiring mistake costs a company 15 times the employee’s base salary in hard costs and lost productivity. For example, a single error in hiring a $100,000 employee could result in losses exceeding $1.5 million. The stakes are even greater for executive roles.

Born and raised in San Diego and now living in San Francisco, Della Cava defies the stereotype of the laid-back, sun-chasing Californian. Impeccably dressed, well-groomed, and tall, she exudes a polished self-assuredness and sophistication reminiscent of a corporate Manhattan power player. She’s warm and highly personable, but also mentally shrewd, with a thoughtful and deliberate way of choosing her words.

Della Cava says she has always been introspective, and was curious from a young age about what drives people’s actions and decisions—partly the result, she says, of being the youngest of four kids. “I was the kid who put herself to sleep,” she recalls. “When you’re the baby in a large family, you become self-sufficient, and I became very observant, which turned out to be a gift.”

Her father, an attorney, and her mother, a homemaker, often hosted dinner parties. “I would sit under the dining room table as a kid and just listen,” she says. “My parents didn’t know I was there, but it was a wonderful learning experience. I was enthralled by their conversations, trying to connect the dots and understand what they were discussing.”

This fascination with people and their motivations initially led Della Cava to a career in marketing. “I wanted to understand why people make the choices they do. Why Pepsi over Coke? Why Mazda over other car companies?” she says, seated in a 43rd-floor boardroom at Blackstone’s headquarters overlooking Manhattan’s Park Avenue.

Her career eventually shifted to management consulting, including stints at Bain & Company and Russell Reynolds. At Bain, much of her work centered on “the what”—as in, the strategy, she explains: “How do you figure out a business model quickly? What are the market dynamics, and what adds value?”

In 2010, Della Cava joined Russell Reynolds as the firm transitioned from being generalist to becoming expert in select industries. It was there that she had a pivotal realization: While much of the management consulting industry focuses on “the what,” success largely hinges on finding the right “who” to execute it: the staff, and especially company leaders.

This epiphany came from her relationship with a longtime client, a retail CEO, who followed Della Cava from her previous role in management consulting to her new position in executive search. Their dynamic evolved from “sterile” strategy discussions to deeply personal coaching about his ambitions, legacy, succession planning, and building a strong executive talent pipeline.

“I had this aha moment,” she explains. “If we could help companies get the right people in, they could figure out the ‘what’ because good leaders know the right questions to ask. But equally, you can’t get the right people in until you’re clear on strategy.”

From her front-row seat working with Fortune 500 clients, Della Cava found that the most successful companies focus intensely on the “what” and the “who.” Both are encompassed in what Blackstone calls an “investment thesis” for each company.

A Blackstone investment thesis identifies three to five key levers for creating maximum value, which may include M&A, digital investments, or expansion into adjacent markets, and always incorporates a leadership component. It also sets the time horizon for achieving these objectives and, if applicable, outlines the exit plan.

The CEO selection process is extensive—and can be exhausting for candidates going through its many phases. It begins during the due-diligence process for a potential new investment. “Step one is figuring out how to drive the most value for the company,” says Della Cava. “Step two is finding leaders who can stay the course and deliver on it.”

Della Cava’s group assesses the company’s organizational structure, culture, and incumbent C-Suite. They collaborate with external advisors, business heads across private equity and real estate, and Blackstone’s network of approximately 100 senior advisors to translate the emerging investment thesis into leadership requirements.

About 85% of the time, there is some C-Suite reshuffling, which Della Cava acknowledges can be anxiety-inducing for incumbent executives. But she stresses that the process is not a one-sided slashing and burning of the existing leadership team. “It’s a transparent dialogue where we’re assessing whether the current team has the capabilities and skills required,” she explains. “And they’re also determining if they want to stay.”

For each mission-critical C-Suite and board role, Della Cava’s team creates a leadership scorecard that aligns their responsibilities with value-driving levers. After a deal is finalized, the CEO search begins in earnest. Blackstone works with executive recruitment firms such as Spencer Stuart to identify potential candidates to replace the current leadership.

During the early stages of a CEO search, around 10 to 15 candidates are considered, with only two advancing to the final stages. The process typically takes 90 to 120 days, with CEOs selected after an executive chair has been appointed.

In some cases, no changes are made to the C-Suite. Other times, a new role is added, or an existing executive is promoted. By the end of the first year of the investment, however, the go-forward team is firmly in place.

In November 2022, Ross Shuster, then CEO of Scotland-based industrial company Howden, got such a call from Spencer Stuart. Would he be interested in a CEO opportunity at a Blackstone portfolio company?

The previous month, Blackstone had announced its $14 billion acquisition of a majority stake in the engineering firm Emerson’s climate technologies business, forming a new company later named Copeland. It was a complex transaction: Though Blackstone had acquired the business, Emerson retained a 40% equity stake. Copeland, an HVAC compressor company, needed a CEO capable of carving out and transforming a noncore division of a larger conglomerate into a stand-alone entity—all while driving significant growth.

What followed for Shuster was an intensive four-month process that included multiple interviews with nearly a dozen people. He flew from the U.K. to New York City twice to meet the Blackstone team and spent countless hours preparing for each interview and the final board presentation—while still managing his CEO responsibilities at the time. “It was definitely time-consuming,” says Shuster, who officially assumed Copeland’s corner office in April 2023. “But it was intentional. It was focused.”

The most probing interview that Shuster went through before he was hired was with Rosanna Trasatti, a clinical psychologist and leadership consultant who has helped administer many of Blackstone’s psychometric analyses.

Trasatti’s job is to get past the spiel that most candidates come prepared to deliver. Those who have reached the highest levels of corporate America tend to present a polished persona. “They’ve reflected deeply, are self-aware, and have crafted a well-rehearsed narrative they’ve shared countless times,” says Trasatti.

The nearly five-hour psychometric assessment, with its probing and incisive questions, is designed to push candidates to move beyond their practiced narratives and offer deeper insights into how they think, learn, lead, and communicate. “By hour three—and certainly by hour four— most candidates let their guard down,” says Trasatti. “It’s challenging to maintain a polished story for that long.”

Some of the questions prompt candidates to provide specific examples of their tasks and results, while others are designed to encourage deeper reflection on the candidate’s life journey. “We take people back to their childhood and ask them to explore where they believe their drive originates,” she explains.

For instance, prospective CEOs might be asked to select six colleagues from the past five years and explain how those coworkers would describe them. This encourages candidates to imagine themselves through the eyes of peers, reports, and bosses. “We’re cognitively playing with getting them to access and share their stories in different ways,” says Trasatti. “I don’t allow them to sit in a space of practiced responses or emotional detachment from their narrative.”

The psychometric results are shared with participants during the session, where they’re able
to discuss and pressure-test them. Sometimes candidates get defensive because they don’t agree with the results. Sometimes the insights challenge their understanding of their own leadership style. If a candidate’s analysis suggests they thrive in entrepreneurial environments with minimal structure, for example, Trasatti might ask how they would handle implementing extensive structured processes. Doing so allows candidates to engage with the data, reflect on whether it resonates, and navigate unexpected or even difficult conversations that deviate from their prepared narrative.

For Shuster, the assessment highlighted his leadership style as that of a team builder. While capable of taking charge when necessary, he prefers to act as a facilitator, empowering others and fostering a shared ownership of decision-making. “My ideal executive team is, if someone walked into a room and saw the 12 of us talking, it would be hard to identify who the CEO, CFO, or CHRO is because everyone is passionate about every aspect of the business,” says Shuster.

The psychometric analysis also assesses the traits that are predictive of high performance, grouping them into “success modes” and “failure modes.” Success mode traits include resilience, grit, humility, and a track record of cultivating loyalty and followership, while failure modes often involve insecurity and low cognitive ability.

“Cognitive ability” might seem too obvious a requirement to note. But there’s more to the quality than simple intelligence. Candidates complete a timed test to measure their mental processing speed and gauge whether they can operate at the fast pace required for the corner office. “It’s not ‘Are you smart or stupid?’” says Della Cava. “It’s ‘Can you keep up? Do you have the cognitive speed, the ambition, the intellectual rigor, and mental agility to meet the demands of the role?’”

While candidates who score well below a certain threshold are more likely to fail as CEOs, a higher-than-average cognitive score does not necessarily predict success. “You kind of have to be tall enough to ride the ride, but being taller doesn’t make you enjoy the Ferris wheel more,” Trasatti explains.

References offer yet another assessment opportunity. Della Cava’s team goes beyond the references provided by CEO candidates, back-channeling and reaching out to its own network for deeper insights into the candidate’s work history. The group could include board directors, CEOs, customers, clients, former sponsors, or direct reports.

By the time candidates reach the board presentation stage, Blackstone has narrowed the CEO pool to two or three finalists. These hour-long presentations provide candidates with an opportunity to share their thoughts on the investment thesis and outline their plans for execution. “It’s a bit of a dress rehearsal for how they’ll engage with us,” says Della Cava.

It’s an incredibly comprehensive approach, but as with anything involving human judgment, it’s not 100% error-free. Missteps have occurred when the firm overlooked obvious warning signs or overestimated its ability to mitigate them, says Della Cava.

Even with all the information and data gleaned from the extensive selection process, she concedes that it’s easy to become enamored with a candidate. “You start to build a character in your head instead of asking, ‘What do I uniquely need them to do? What specific qualities should I prioritize? What are the pragmatic tradeoffs, and how can we address their shortcomings with the right support and scaffolding?’”

The recipe for success as a Blackstone portfolio CEO

Blackstone’s rigorous process for selecting C-Suite executives to run its portfolio companies includes a nearly five-hour psychometric evaluation to assess whether candidates possess the qualities required to excel in these high-pressure roles. Based on hundreds of assessments of C Suite candidates, the firm has identified key traits that indicate a candidate’s potential for success—or risk of failure. Here are a few of them.

Success modes

• Resilience: Leaders are able to thrive under pressure, steadily managing a rapid pace, complex changes, ambitious goals, and constant scrutiny without buckling.
• Confident leadership: Leaders can rally their staff during periods of change because they have a compelling presence and can quickly capture attention, establish credibility, and earn trust.
• High emotional intelligence: Leaders have emotional awareness and empathy and can self-regulate their feelings. They build strong relationships, navigate complex interpersonal dynamics with ease, and are exceptional communicators.
• Self-awareness: Leaders demonstrate humility, take accountability for their mistakes, understand the impact of their behavior on the company, and understand their strengths and weakness.

Failure modes

• Below-average cognitive heft: Candidates whose problem-solving ability and mental processing speed are below average relative to their executive peers are unlikely to succeed.
• Inflexibility: An unwillingness to adapt, change, or compromise in response to new circumstances or ideas works against candidates.
• Insecurity: Candidates who often seek reassurance and answers from others, or who try to keep up an appearance of success by withholding information, avoiding issues, or presenting an overly optimistic outlook increase their risk of failure.

This article appears in the February/March 2025 issue of Fortune with the headline “The Blackstone edge.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

After stocks notched the first positive week since the U.S.-Israel war on Iran started over a month ago, Wall Street is weighing another round of threats and the latest deadline from President Donald Trump.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average fell 284 points, or 0.61%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.57%, and Nasdaq futures lost 0.56%.

U.S. oil futures rose 1.9% to $113.69 a barrel, and Brent crude climbed 1.8% to $110.99. The national average gasoline price reached $4.11 a gallon on Sunday, according to AAA, up from $2.98 before the war.

In Europe, which depends heavily on Mideast refiners for jet fuel, shortages forced Italy to limit supplies at several airports. That’s after several countries in Asia have already started rationing energy.

The U.S. dollar was up 0.07% against the euro and up 0.16% against the yen. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was flat at 4.345%.

The conflict has entered its sixth week, reaching the end of Trump’s earlier timeline for the war to last four to six weeks.

But Tehran shows no signs of relinquishing its grip over the Strait of Hormuz, even as it allows a growing trickle of tankers through, while Trump appeared to be emboldened by a daring rescue of a U.S. airman shot down over Iran.

In a social media post on Sunday, he threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges if the strait isn’t open by Tuesday, then demanded, “Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

That appeared to push his deadline back from Monday, which was already delayed from an earlier deadline a week and a half ago.

Trump also told ABC News that if Iran doesn’t make a deal, “their whole country is gone.” He then told Fox News, “If they don’t make a deal and fast, I’m considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil,”

And in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said that if Iran keeps the strait closed, “they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country.”

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iran parliament, responded in kind. “Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands,” he wrote on social media.

“Make no mistake: You won’t gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.”

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 Marines are in the Middle East, with thousands more troops on the way—as well as a third aircraft carrier.

Trump could deploy them to seize Kharg Island, from which 90% of Iran’s oil is exported, or other small islands near the Strait of Hormuz to weaken Iran’s grip on the narrow waterway that’s critical to the global oil trade.

For now, it’s unclear if the successful rescue of the F-15 airman after a harrowing operation makes a future ground assault more or less likely.

“On the one hand, the costs from this episode (four, as many as seven aircraft) may suggest the risks to such operations are simply too great to contemplate,” Gregory Brew, a Eurasia Group analyst focusing on oil and Iran, posted on X. “On the other hand, the admin may perceive the successful retrieval following operations inside Iranian territory as proof that such operations are feasible.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The United States pulled off a daring rescue of two aviators whose fighter jet was shot down by Iran, plucking the pilot from behind enemy lines before setting off a complicated extraction of the second service member who hid deep in the mountains as Tehran called for Iranians to help capture him.

The CIA looked to throw off Iran’s government before the crew member was found, launching a deception campaign to spread word inside the Islamic Republic that it had already located him.

Even as President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials described an almost cinematic mission, rescuers faced major obstacles, including two Black Hawk helicopters coming under fire and problems with two transport planes that forced the U.S. military to blow them up.

“This is the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory,” Trump wrote early Sunday on his Truth Social platform. “WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!”

US officials stayed silent as the operation played out

In a pair of social media posts, Trump said the operation over the weekend required the U.S. to remain completely silent to avoid jeopardizing the effort, even as the president and top members of his administration continuously monitored the airman’s location.

The White House and the Pentagon refused to publicly discuss details about the downed fighter jet for well over 24 hours after the initial crash, particularly about the first crew member rescued from the F-15E Strike Eagle— an effort that Trump later said took seven hours in broad daylight over Iran.

The United States and Iran’s government then were both racing to find the second crew member, a weapons systems officer, whose location neither side knew.

The CIA spread word that the U.S. had found him and were moving him by ground to get him out of Iran, according to a senior Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

The confusion allowed the CIA to uncover the location of the service member, who was hiding in a mountain crevice, the official said. The intelligence agency sent the coordinates to the Pentagon and the White House, where Trump ordered a rescue operation.

Iran urged the public to look for the ‘enemy pilot’

Meanwhile, an anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television had been urging residents in the mountainous region of southwest Iran where the fighter jet went down to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police and promised a reward for anyone who did.

Trump said the American aviator was being “hunted down” by enemies who were “getting closer and closer by the hour.” The United States was monitoring his location continuously, he said.

At the right moment, Trump said, he directed the military to send dozens of heavily armed aircraft to rescue the crew member, who the president said is “seriously wounded” but will recover.

Iranian state media reported that airstrikes in southwestern Iran on Saturday killed at least three people and wounded others, in the same area where the missing American crew member was believed to be.

American rescuers face obstacles with aircraft during the operation

The American rescue mission ran into major challenges behind enemy lines. Iran’s joint military command claimed it struck two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters taking part in the operation.

A person familiar with the situation said the two helicopters were able to navigate to safe airspace, although it’s unclear if they landed or if crew members were injured. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

Then, the U.S. military was forced to bring in additional aircraft to complete the rescue of the second service member due to a technical malfunction, according to a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission. The U.S. blew up two transport planes it was forced to leave behind because of the mishap, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert mission.

Iran’s state television on Sunday aired a video showing what it claimed were parts of a U.S. aircraft shot down by Iranian forces, along with a photo of thick, black smoke rising. The broadcaster said Iran had shot down a transport plane and two helicopters that were part of the rescue operation.

Iran’s joint military command said the destroyed aircraft included two C-130 military transport aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters in the province of Isfahan, where the rescue took place.

“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” Trump said on social media.

A second US military jet also was shot down

Trump, however, did not mention that a second military jet also went down the same day as the F-15E.

Iranian state media said Friday that a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed after being struck by Iran’s defense forces.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation, confirmed a second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft went down in the Middle East on Friday.

An additional U.S. pilot was rescued but details were not available given the security concerns, another person familiar with the situation said.

Neither provided more information, including whether it was the A-10.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which scored the biggest opening of the year for a Hollywood movie. The Illumination and Nintendo co-production earned $130.9 million over the weekend and a massive $190.1 million in its first five days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.

The animated sequel, Illumination CEO Christopher Meledandri’s 16th movie in 16 years, is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.

It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It made $15 million from the IMAX screens alone.

“It’s exactly the kind of broad, crowd-pleasing release that brings people into theatres,” AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron said in a statement.

It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.

“These kind of audience reaction scores just point to a ridiculously strong run, not only throughout the spring, but likely into the summer as well,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will open in Japan later this month.

Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reignof the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $30.7 million, bringing its running domestic total to $217.2 million. Worldwide, it’s made $420.7 million to date.

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.

“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five. And the box office outlook looks bright overall, up around 30% from last year.

“There’s no better opening act for a great summer than a huge month of April powered by a mega blockbuster like the ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’” said Paul Dergarabedian, comscore’s head of marketplace trends.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1.“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $130.9 million.

2.“Project Hail Mary,” $30.7 million.

3.“The Drama,” $14.4 million.

4.“Hoppers,” $5.8 million.

5.“Reminders of Him,” $2.2 million.

6.“A Great Awakening,” $2.1 million.

7.“They Will Kill You,” $1.9 million.

8.“Dhurandhar The Revenge,” $1.9 million.

9.“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” $1.8 million.

10.“Scream 7,” 915,000.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Russia’s key Baltic port of Ust-Luga resumed crude loading after days of disruptions amid multiple Ukrainian drone attacks in the region. 

The Jewel, an Aframax-class vessel, started a cargo loading on Saturday, according to shipping information seen by Bloomberg News. 

Loadings at Ust-Luga, a key oil-export outlet in Russia’s west, stopped at the end of March as Ukraine stepped up attacks on energy infrastructure along the Baltic coast. 

Russia’s oil-pipeline operator Transneft didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment outside normal business hours. 

READ: Russia Baltic Crude Terminal Looks Undamaged in Satellite Images

Ukraine continues its attacks on Russia’s Baltic oil infrastructure, with facilities damaged in the port of Primorsk earlier on Sunday. Ukraine’s moves are aimed at curbing Russian export revenue at a time when global energy prices have rallied because of the war in the Middle East.

Still, if Russia resumes stable crude flows from Ust-Luga, it could bring some relief to global markets rattled by Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Tehran has been embolden by its ability to maintain tight control over the Strait of Hormuz and its own population. But even if the regime survives the war against the U.S. and Israel, its biggest challenge may come afterward.

For now, there’s little sign of de-escalation as President Donald Trump has vowed to obliterate Iran’s economy if Tehran doesn’t reopen the strait in the next few days, while the Islamic republic continues bombarding its Persian Gulf neighbors.

Both sides are already targeting civilian and energy infrastructure, boosting postwar rebuilding costs everyday. But while the Gulf states boasted thriving business sectors before the conflict, Iran’s economy was already in shambles, leading to domestic unrest that prompted a brutal crackdown.

Still, the regime’s ability to stay its power, resist Trump’s threats, and weaponize the Strait of Hormuz shouldn’t be mistaken as evidence it will survive, according to Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute.

“It risks treating a political outcome as predetermined, leaving too little room for the possibility that pressures from below, including from Iranian opposition voices and a war-weary public, could still shape the direction of events,” she wrote in an analysis on Thursday. “It also overlooks the possibility that hardening may generate not only endurance, but brittleness: a post-war system that appears more entrenched yet is less capable of absorbing internal shocks without fracturing.”

Once the fighting ends, Tehran must somehow rehabilitate relations with its neighbors to restore the commercial and financial channels that gave the regime access to the global economy, Ozcelik explained.

Gulf states were vital conduits for Iran in skirting Western sanctions, allowing it to generate oil revenue. But after the war, they are unlikely to go back to the earlier status quo without guarantees from Tehran on their future safety, she added.

In fact, there may be no going back. The United Arab Emirates, which long had deep commercial ties with Iran, is revoking visas of Iranians in the UAE and may freeze Iran’s assets in country.

Gulf neighbors have also signaled that Trump must continue the war until Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz is broken, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia even contemplating joining the fight.

Unless the war ends with substantial easing of sanctions, Iran’s “economic strain ahead will be shaped by the war’s extensive damage and by Iran’s own exposure to the consequences of escalation,” Ozcelik predicted.

She also pointed out that prolonged disruption of the oil trade drives up market volatility, threatens Iran’s export position, and risks angering its main oil buyer, China. At the same time, Iran can’t put its economic recovery hopes on being a “toll booth” in the Strait of Hormuz, where it acts as a gatekeeper and collects payments from ships it approves.

‘Creating different incentives for the elite’

Instead, Tehran may have to look to negotiated, conditional sanctions relief—but that’s where the catch is, according to Ozcelik.

Bringing more of Iran’s economy out of the shadows and into formal, regulated channels could weaken some of the structures that empowered pillars of the regime, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, she said.

That doesn’t mean lifting sanctions will lead to democracy in Iran, and the war will strengthen the IRGC in the near term, Ozcelik cautioned.

“But the scale of reconstruction required after damage to major energy and industrial infrastructure will be severe, and that will put pressure on the very patronage system that has helped hold the regime together,” she wrote. “Over time, conditional re-entry into regulated economic channels could begin to weaken parts of the pre-war economy, creating different incentives for the elite and create opportunities for domestic political opposition.”

However, a critical question is whether the U.S. will have the patience to wait and see how changes in Iran’s political economy actually shift “the balance of interests inside the system,” Ozcelik warned.

Indeed, the war may come to a head in the next few weeks as Trump deploys thousands of troops to the region for a potential ground assault meant to reopen the strait.

But in the meantime, Iran’s economy continues to deteriorate. Inflation has worsened and apparently is so bad now the government issued its largest-ever currency denomination: the 10 million rial note (equivalent to about $7).

The new currency went into circulation last month, according to the Financial Times, and came just a month after the prior record holder, the 5 million rial, came out.

As prices continue to spiral higher while the war boosts demand for cash, long lines formed to withdraw the fresh banknotes, and supplies quickly ran out. Doubts about the viability of the banking system have grown during the war as the U.S. and Israel target the regime’s levers of control.

In addition to bombing IRGC and Basij paramilitary forces, a data center for Bank Sepah was also hit on March 11. Sepah is the country’s largest bank and is responsible for paying salaries to the military and IRGC.

“Iran is already in the middle of a severe cash liquidity crisis,” Miad Maleki, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Treasury Department official, said on X last month. “As of Jan 2026, banks were running out of physical banknotes daily, with informal withdrawal caps of just $18–$30/day. Cash in circulation surged 49% YoY due to panic hoarding. The regime simply cannot pivot to cash payments, there isn’t enough physical currency in the system.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Of all the things Donald Trump has done to disrupt global commerce, from levying punitive tariffs to tearing up trade deals, few would be as consequential as withdrawing and leaving the rest of the world to secure the Persian Gulf.

The move, which the US president has repeatedly threatened as his war with Iran drags on, would represent a break with decades of US policy keeping open the sea lanes that carry four-fifths of the $35 trillion global goods trade. Even the threat of reducing security for the Strait of Hormuz risks shaking confidence in a pillar of the world economy, as well as American wealth and power.

Traffic through the strait has dropped to a handful of ships daily from about 135 before the war, with Iran allowing passage mainly for its own exports. Those conditions are putting at risk roughly one-fifth of global oil flows, driving up prices and injecting volatility into energy markets.

Since World War II, the US has used its navy to deter attacks, counter piracy and challenge attempts by states to restrict lawful passage across the oceans that cover more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. Those guarantees have allowed oil, goods and commodities to pass across borders with minimal friction.

“The free flow of commerce through the strait is a larger principle at stake in this conflict,” said retired Vice Admiral John W. Miller, former commander of US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. “Failure to ensure freedom of navigation in Hormuz puts global freedom of navigation everywhere at risk.”

European and Asian officials, who spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the conflict has eroded faith in the US role as protector of the high seas, raising concerns about energy prices, shifting security calculations around key choke points and growing doubts about Washington’s ability to manage the consequences of the war.

And it’s more than just Hormuz. The Trump administration’s campaign to blow up speed boats suspected of ferrying drugs across the Caribbean and doubts about whether the Navy made sufficient efforts to save crew members of an Iranian warship it sank off the coast of Sri Lanka have raised questions about the US’s commitment to the rules that protect all sailors at sea.

A Pentagon spokesperson didn’t answer a question about whether the US was still committed to ensuring freedom of navigation, saying only that the military “continues to provide the president options” regarding the strait. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In the absence of a US plan, smaller, trade-dependent nations have sought to build consensus for a multinational response. The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday urged the United Nations to authorize a range of measures, including force, to reopen the strait. The UK on Thursday convened representatives from more than 40 American allies to discuss nonmilitary options to convince Tehran to restore trade.

“When the Strait of Hormuz is strangled, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable cannot breathe,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday. “Freedom of navigation must be upheld.”

The free passage of vessels through choke points like Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca is protected under principles laid out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. While the US never ratified the treaty, it played a key role in the document’s drafting and its almost 300-ship navy has served as chief enforcer of the rules. 

Those include prohibition against regulating vessels that move between open waters, even if the route cuts through their territorial seas. Iran’s attempts to deny passage or charge fees in the Hormuz strait — as much as $2 million per transit — challenge that system. 

In response, Trump has alternately suggested asserting US control over the waterway and leaving other nations to take responsibility for it. 

“The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage,” Trump said Wednesday in a televised address on the conflict. “They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily.”

Even if the fighting stops, the disruption may persist. Shipping and oil-market analysts say a ceasefire without a plan to reopen the strait risks leaving the strategic artery in Tehran’s hands, prolonging the shock.

“This will not be a crisis that ends with a ceasefire announcement,” said Angelica Kemene, head of market strategy at Optima Shipping Services in Athens. “It’s a structural shift in how the Gulf operates as an energy export corridor.”

Read More: What It Would Take to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz: Explainer

The threat of Iranian attacks has kept most ship operators out of the strait since the US and Israel began strikes on Feb. 28 and that caution is unlikely to fade quickly, leaving any initial reopening dependent on naval escorts.

Vessels moving through Hormuz have largely been Iran-linked ships or those belonging to countries friendly with Tehran. That allows the Islamic Republic to earn almost $139 million per day in oil revenues — more than before the war, thanks to higher prices.

“It is a violation of maritime law to impede the free flow of travel in international waters,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday. “It’s illegal to hit commercial shipping and sink them. That’s what the Nazis did in World War II in the Atlantic.”

Iran, which also hasn’t ratified the sea-law treaty, is moving to formalize its control. A parliamentary committee has approved legislation to impose fees in the strait, according to the semi-official Fars news agency, though the bill has yet to go to a full vote. Authorities have already charged some vessels and barred ships from the US and countries supporting its military campaign, including Israel.

Tanker War

Asked about the US’s commitment to freedom of the seas, a White House official said Iran won’t be allowed to set up a permanent system that controls access to the Hormuz strait. The US has already destroyed 44 Iranian mine-laying vessels during the war and Trump is confident the strait will be opened very soon, the official said.

Ensuring the strait remains open has long been a core US objective in any conflict in the region. The US has intervened before to keep Hormuz open, notably during the so-called tanker war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.

The Navy has for years played a central role in maritime campaigns to suppress piracy off the Somali coast. More recently, the US led efforts to protect Red Sea shipping after attacks by the Iran-linked Houthis in Yemen caused vessels to make long, costly journeys around Africa.

The economic toll of Iran’s control over Hormuz is already clear: Iran’s grip on Hormuz comes at the expense of other major Gulf producers, with the potential to reshape global energy supplies.

Iraq’s exports plunged by about 80% in March compared with last year’s average daily volumes, while Saudi Arabia has rerouted crude through its east-west pipeline to the Red Sea, now running near capacity at roughly 7 million barrels a day. Even so, the kingdom was facing a drop of more than 25% in exports last month.

“The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” the International Energy Agency said in early March.

Insurance costs have surged alongside the risk. Additional war-risk premiums that were about 0.15% of a ship’s value before the war have jumped as high as 10% in some cases in and around the strait, deterring operators from returning even if hostilities ease.

The disruption if allowed to persist could carry geopolitical consequences — especially in Asia. Washington’s commitment to that policy has been visibly demonstrated by the so-called freedom of navigation operations, or Fonops, that the US Navy conducts by asserting its right to sail through contested waterways. 

If the US ends its campaign without reopening the strait, it risks setting a precedent that it won’t challenge expansive Chinese claims to the South and East China seas. Southeast Asian officials said such an outcome would deal a significant blow to US credibility in keeping sea lanes open.

It would also increase the incentive for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who now commands the world’s largest navy by number of ships, to assert greater influence at sea.

“If the US doesn’t have the ability to enforce freedom of navigation in the Straint of Hormuz, what then stops the People’s Liberation Army Navy from pushing things a bit farther in the South China Sea?” said Emma Salisbury, non-resident senior fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “That’s a worrying precedent.” 

That shift is already shaping how governments think about their security. 

Officials said it could push countries to strengthen their capabilities around chokepoints, such as the Strait of Malacca, and coordinate more closely to uphold maritime norms under international law. The conflict has also shown that countries with sufficient military power and political will can move to control critical waterways.

While Europe is less directly dependent on Hormuz, its economy relies on the smooth functioning of global shipping routes. European officials said the episode is forcing a rethink of how allies protect sea lanes. 

If the US were seen as unwilling or unable to keep key waterways open, countries may have to assume greater risk and adjust how they deploy forces, one official said. Major European economies also are assessing how to cushion any impact to other vulnerable shipping routes such as the Red Sea and the South China Sea. 

“Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz after the war would be a game-changer,” said Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, a Philippine foreign policy analyst. “US credibility as guarantor of unhampered navigation of crucial waterways will suffer.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The dramatic rescue of the F-15 weapons system officer who was shot down over Iran required the U.S. military to set up an improvised airfield deep inside the country in a mountainous region near Isfahan.

The so-called forward arming and refueling point (FARP) helped enable an elaborate mission that reportedly involved hundreds of special operations troops and other military personnel as well as dozens of aircraft.

A senior U.S. military official told the New York Times that the mission was one of the most challenging and complex in the history of U.S. special ops due to the mountainous terrain, the airman’s injuries and the Iranian forces scrambling to find him.

Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos eventually reached the airman, who evaded capture for more than a day and even hiked up a 7,000-foot ridge line, the report said.

But just before extraction, two C-130 transports planes designed for special ops missions got stuck at the FARP, delaying their escape, according to the Times.

Additional planes had to be flown in to retrieve everyone, forcing the U.S. to destroy its own stranded C-130s to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.

Images of wreckage from the FARP also appear to indicate that other aircraft had to be left behind and destroyed, including small helicopters, The War Zone reported.

Sepahnews via AP

While the mission was successful with no casualties reported so far beyond the F-15 airman’s injuries, it followed the first combat losses of U.S. aircraft in the Iran war.

In addition to the F-15 that was shot down, an A-10 that was providing close air support during search-and-rescue operations was also damaged by Iranian fire and crashed after the pilot flew outside Iranian airspace.

The losses came despite President Donald Trump’s claims that Iran’s air defenses no longer posed a threat to U.S. aircraft as he contemplates a potential ground assault to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“The last 48 hours offers some idea of what US ground operations inside Iran could entail, in terms of Iranian capabilities, risks, and scope for achievement,” Gregory Brew, a Eurasia Group analyst focusing on oil and Iran, posted on X on Sunday.

In the event of a sustained ground mission, including a potential operation to retrieve Iran’s highly enriched uranium, setting up FARPs would likely come into play again.

They have long been part of the U.S. military’s capabilities and have been established in earlier wars. Troops also practice building them, including a Marine unit in recent days.

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Seferino Gamez

Last month, Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One hosted a FARP exercise at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. The seven-week event also saw Marines conduct similar FARP training near Chocolate Mountains, California, on April 1.

Separately, troops with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived in the Middle East last weekend, and the 11th MEU is on the way, along with paratroopers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

With thousands of troops assembling in the region over the coming weeks, Trump could deploy them to seize Kharg Island, from which 90% of Iran’s oil is exported, or other small islands near the Strait of Hormuz to weaken Iran’s grip on the narrow waterway that’s critical to the global oil trade.

For now, it’s unclear if the successful rescue of the F-15 airman after a harrowing operation makes a future ground assault more or less likely.

“On the one hand, the costs from this episode (four, as many as seven aircraft) may suggest the risks to such operations are simply too great to contemplate,” Brew added. “On the other hand, the admin may perceive the successful retrieval following operations inside Iranian territory as proof that such operations are feasible.”

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Seferino Gamez

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com