As a special holiday gift to The Film Stage podcast feed, listen to a new Box Office Bonanza! Here we talk about random box office weekends and where they fit into our lives. The movies, the memories! This episode features Dan Mecca, Conor O’Donnell, Mitchell Beaupre, Jordan Raup, and Cory Everett.

The box office weekend in question is July 21, 2000. The number one movie in the country was the Robert Zemeckis-directed, Clark Gregg-scripted, Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer-starring supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath. The number three movie was the second Pokémon feature film, Pokémon 2000. Gladiator was still in theaters, so was U-571.

But at the start, we mount a passionate defense of the new Zemeckis epic Here, which has now arrived digitally. After that, we talk about Martin Lawrence movies. We talk about how horrible Greg Kinnear’s character is in Amy Heckerling’s Loser. We talk about Al Pacino’s new autobiography Sonny Boy. The sport doc Michael Jordan to the Max gets some discussion. An Office Space reference is completely ignored! There are too many 9/11 jokes! How many? You’ll have to listen to find out. We remember that great bit with Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise from the MTV Movie Awards (“He’s Harmless”). There’s an appreciation of Jesus’ Son as well. 

There’s a Saving Silverman reference, talk of yo-yos and Yu-Gi-Oh! There’s a remembrance of that time The Perfect Storm and The Patriot came out the same weekend. Finally, for a few moments I’m convinced that nobody has been recording the podcast! 

There’s a lot here, people! We’re thankful for you listening to us have fun! We hope you have some fun too!

Check out The Film Stage’s 2024 Holiday Gift Guide and Cory Everett’s slew of Cinephile books and games! 

Enjoy this episode and we welcome other interesting box office weekends to cover in the future. Stay tuned in 2025 for more podcast news from The Film Stage!