Jeremy rages against bad-faith online discourse concerning the ending of Lilo & Stitch. Lisa cowers in terror at Plinky’s moist eyeballs. Scott whines about Final Reckoning’s past-tense Mission: Impossible callbacks. All share varying degrees of disappointment with both big-deal Memorial Day weekend releases. Commercially, they of both kicked relative amounts of butt, with Lilo & Stitch setting a record for the holiday and Mission: Impossible scoring a franchise-best domestic and global weekend. This weekend’s deep thought: When Hollywood bothers to put out a decent volume and variety of movies in theaters, those movie theaters can still pull record-setting box office.

As the headline indicates, this is an extended conversation—not quite an interview—between me and the star of R.I.P.D. and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Long story short, we have periodically chatted over the last decade, mainly through Twitter private messages (yes, the star of Turbo slid into my DMs), but not to the extent that I’m on his holiday card list or anything like that. Anyway, he offered to join me on my proverbial pod for a mostly business-focused conversation a few weeks ago. This is that conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.

Think of this as a bonus episode of The Box Office Podcast or, if fortune smiles, a backdoor pilot for semi-regular extended “not trying to go viral” conversations with folks you may or may not have heard of. There’s at least one more coming shortly, but I must finish his book first.

Brandon Peters stops by to discuss what went right with a legacy sequel that didn’t sell itself as one. Topics covered included how WBD marketed a follow-up 14 years later without depending on existing fandoms, the idea that Final Destination may be the best Hollywood slasher franchise from the post-Scream era, and why the franchise’s consistent quality (rarely great but seldom terrible) has contributed to its ongoing popularity. Everyone concurred that AMC’s initiative to offer 50% discounts on movie tickets on Wednesdays is a positive step toward making moviegoing more casual again.

It’s just the three of us (Scott Mendelson, Jeremy Fuster and Lisa Laman) discussing the extent to which revealing the “actual” title of Thunderbolts may have either not helped or done more harm than good. We also note the surprisingly strong (for an IFC horror movie) debut weekend for Clown in a Cornfield while noting how and why Vertical’s Fight or Flight and Lionsgate’s Shadow Force failed to make much of an opening weekend impression.

The good news is that Thunderbolts* (or… uh… are we using the new title now?) kicked off the summer movie season with $74 million in North America and $160 million worldwide, grosses that would be excellent for 90% of all big-deal Hollywood franchises. The bad news is that such a bow is still essentially tied with Eternals and lower than the debuts for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Captain America: Brave New World. While the reviews and buzz are generally positive, how much will that matter in a pop culture ecosystem where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is no longer an automatic A+ cinematic vacation destination? Chrissi Michael, content strategist by day and box office nerd by night, is here to dissect the circumstances. She again makes the case for being either my new best friend or my new arch enemy…

This was supposed to be just a summer movie preview episode. The bonkers-bananas hold for Sinners, along with aspirational openings for Revenge of the Sith and The Accountant 2, means that half the show was spent offering up the most optimistic “We’re back, dammit!” chatter since last Easter weekend. For this occasion, former co-host turned Sweeps Week Guest Ryan Scott pops back in to (also) share his macro-sized thoughts on the upcoming summer movie slate.

Longtime film critic, podcaster, and friend of Scott Mendelson (but don’t hold that against him), Aaron Neuwirth, returns to help us celebrate the spectacular domestic debut of Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners. We discuss its impressive weekend upswing, near-unprecedented CinemaScore and PostTrak grades, and how its word of mouth will hopefully mitigate an otherwise expected decline as it starts to lose IMAX and other premium large-format (PLF) screens in the coming weeks.

A disclaimer. For reasons unknown the audio went mute during Lisa Laman’s climactic “Who I am and what I wish to plug,” which is unfortunate as she went on an impassioned (and accurate) monologue offering support and compassion to those impacted by Robert F. Kennedy’s absurdist vendetta against those “on the Spectrum.” I won’t say that Kennedy’s latest stupidity didn’t bring to mind Matthew Perry’s controversial comments about Keanu Reeves, but nor will I say that they did not.

A Minecraft Movie held firm atop both the domestic and global box office with a hold on par with Beauty and the Beast. Meanwhile, two faith-specific films opened with good-to-great grosses relative to their expectations and obligations. The King of Kings was a much-needed hit for Angel Studios and earned a comparatively robust debut for a non-Disney/Comcast animated film. Drop was the latest underperformer for the previously over-indexing Blumhouse. In a more challenging theatrical ecosystem, 20th Century Studios’ The Amateur opened about on par, give or take, with what might have been expected from an adult-skewing, “new to you” high-concept Fox-released espionage thriller. Additionally, The Chosen’s three-part theatrical release of its eight season-five episodes must be a blueprint for Sony’s eventual release strategy for their four-film Beatles opus. 

Cinema United and friends spent the entire week listening to studios pledge their loyalty to theatrical exhibition, while theater owners implicitly reaffirmed the commercial and cultural value of the big screen. A day later, the Generation Z-targeted A Minecraft Movie opened so overwhelmingly above even optimistic projections that it single-handedly made the case for them. So yes, Scott and Jeremy spent the week at CinemaCon. They had plenty to say about what was shown (a big “Trust us!” presentation from Amazon MGM Studios, a surprisingly 20th Century Studios-centric Disney panel, etc.), what wasn’t shown (not much from Superman, and nothing at all from Michael), and macro-sized conversations and takeaways from the “largest and most important gathering of movie theater owners from around the world.”

Pardon the tardiness for this one, I made a losing bet with myself that I’d have time to put this one out amid the week spent in Las Vegas at CinemaCon. Action For Everyone podcast host Mike Scott joins us to discuss Jason Statham’s latest commercial triumph as well as the cultural circumstances that have changed so that the kids no longer go up for “cool movies for cool kids” flicks like Death of a Unicorn. All parties discuss how Snow White’s implosion will impact Disney’s run of live-action remakes.