The Box Office Podcast

What went right for The Wild Robot? What went wrong for Megalopolis? What does the success of the former mean for the vitality of original or “new to you” animation and a possible comeback for DreamWorks Animation? Does the commercial failure of the latter mean anything beyond the apparent lack of modern-day appeal of an original sci-fi drama with mixed reviews from a legendary director whose last outright hit opened a month before Titanic? All that and much more...!

Rank doesn’t matter. It’s the raw dollars earned that counts. It’s still gotta sting that the opening weekend of Paramount and Hasbro’s well-reviewed Transformers One earned less than the third weekend of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. That’s the crux of our latest weekly box office chat, along with Never Let Go being the latest Lionsgate theatrical whiff, a (friendly) critical debate about The Substance and a response to a listener email about our most anticipated films for the remainder of the year.

As always, if you like what you hear, like, share, comment, and smash (using a cartoon mallet) that subscribe button with every justified ounce of strength and passion. If you want to bother us and offer good cheer, request in-show discussions, or offer ideas for bonus episodes, ping us at [email protected].

After a super quick recap of the mid-September that was (Beetlejuice 2 tops again, Speak No Evil opens to entirely “fine, whatever” opening grosses, two aggressively niche MAGA-friendly flicks make the spectacularly idiotic choice to open on the same weekend, etc.), we devote the rest of the show to answering questions sent to [email protected].

The gang is back to talk Beetlejuice (WB’s success with offseason tentpole scheduling), Beetlejuice (how copious IP and actor-specific fandoms for multiple generations created an all-quadrant event movie), Beetlejuice (How does Tim Burton capitalize on this late-era success?). We also talk Showbiz Direct’s next steps after a halfway decent theatrical showing for Reagan, a box office update for the year’s best movie (#BeaverPilled).

In an episode fit for 1.25x speed, this 95-minute epic offers special guest BoxOffice Pro's Daniel Loria amid the summer wrap-up. Jeremy reaffirms that as Disney goes, so goes the entire theatrical industry. Lisa argues Imax should be utilized to retrain audiences to see theatrical comedies. Daniel declares multiplexes need more mid-range hits alongside the tentpoles. Ryan discusses the breakout success of Longlegs and the value of FOMA moments. Scott expressed his disappointment with Fly Me to the Moon tanking. And more!

As summer winds down with a comparative whimper…Scott rambles about how The Crow was never a viable brand or franchise.Jeremy explains what Laika is taking from Coraline's success.Lisa explains that theaters need films that are “just” films.Ryan discusses the robust overseas performance of Alien: Romulus.Everyone unloads on Lionsgate for that entirely avoidable Megalopolis trailer snafu.

Ryan and Lisa (cordially) debate whether Disney has allowed the more adult-skewing Fox brands to stay true to their R-rated roots. Still, both agree that Lionsgate’s Borderlands is a monumental tentpole disaster. Jeremy notes the Alien Romulus demo stats which imply that it’s “Baby’s first Alien flick” for many younger viewers while succinctly speaking a grim truth about the current “anti-spoiler” culture. Scott rants about the seemingly “fabricated from thin-air” controversies related to It Ends with Us as he joins the guilty-pleasure enjoyable Alien Vs. Predator pitches. We all respond to listener emails asking us to A) clarify our position on post-release spoilers and B) our grimdark prequel origin stories concerning how we all became box office pundits.

Both Deadpool & Wolverine and It Ends With Us nabbed $50 million+ weekends, again showing Hollywood there’s more than one way to build a blockbuster. Lisa Laman details the key lesson from the mega-hit Colleen Hoover adaptation. Ryan Scott begs Lionsgate to stop making Borderlands-sized franchise failures. Jeremy Fuster ends the show with a righteous diatribe contrasting D23’s bread-and-circuses pageantry with the struggles facing the filmmakers responsible for Disney’s biggest hits.

The gang is back to discuss what continues to go right for Deadpool & Wolverine, what only went kinda-sorta okay for M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap and what went 104% wrong for Harold and the Purple Crayon. There are fewer digressions than usual, although we do note Warner Bros. Discovery’s very bummer summer and Longlegs being Nicolas Cage’s biggest live-action hit in nearly 17 years while imploring Imax to give the people what they crave: Hundreds of Beavers: The Imax Experience. We also answer our first piece of viewer mail. Keep them coming. Otherwise, we’ll have to actually figure out what to say on our own. Alas, Jeremy had some technical difficulties so he was mostly killed off after the first 1/3. He’ll presumably be resurrected by the next episode.

In terms of the written word…

Jeremy offered up a quick August box office preview.Ryan offered up a Tales from the Box Office for the tenth anniversary of Guardians of the Galaxy and a requiem for the commercial failure of The Iron Giant. As someone who, even as a 19-year-old, always felt it was a tough sell, I’ll note that the weekend on which it opened, alongside The Sixth Sense, The Thomas Crown Affair, Mystery Men and Dick, might be the very best wide release newbie weekend of my lifetime.

Finally, Lisa continued her Twilight Tuesday series, for which she watches and discusses the final three films in The Twilight Saga for the first time. I cannot wait for her to experience the glory that is Breaking Dawn Part II, but this latest piece is interesting in that it offers something I haven’t seen much of, namely evaluating Robert Pattinson’s performance as Edward Cullen in relation to his more celebrated quirky/goofy turns in Devil All the Time or The Lighthouse.

Meanwhile, she wrote up a piece on the all-but-certain demise of the Disney+ Marvel television “universe.” Honestly, taken on their own, most of the shows were varying degrees of “fine,” (I’m most partial to Hawkeye and She-Hulk), but the damage their existence did to the brand cannot be overstated.

As always, if you like what you hear, like, share, comment, and smash (using a cartoon mallet) that subscribe button with every justified ounce of strength and passion. Oh, and if you want to personally bother us and offer good cheer, requests for in-show discussions and ideas for bonus episodes, ping us at [email protected].

Jeremy Fuster - TheWrapLisa Laman - Looper, Cultress and AutostraddleRyan C. Scott - SlashFilm and Fangoria

50 minutes of (almost) nothing but Deadpool & Wolverine, both in terms of its box office bonanza and what the four of us thought of the picture. Spoiler: I was not the crankiest critic this weekend. Plenty of thoughts about what went right (adding Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine negated a possible decline in interest), what didn’t go wrong (the kids showed up, R-rating be damned) and why a success specifically like this (using two established marquee characters from the Fox library) doesn’t really solve the various problems plaguing the post-Avengers Endgame MCU anymore than Inside Out 2 has “saved” Pixar. But in both cases, they may have turned death into a fighting chance to live.