In what was the first “new” weekend of 2025, Den of Thieves 2 opened seven years after its predecessor with an almost identical amount of money in North America. For the special occasion, The Box Office Podcast welcomed the one and/or only Brandon Streussnig to discuss Vulture’s third annual “Stunt Awards” along with Gerard Butler’s B-level stardom, the nuanced politics of seemingly simplistic grindhouse fare and the key difference between knowing what’s wrong and knowing who or what is to blame.

Yes, there is plenty of box office punditry, including an extended fist-bump for the continued slow-burn success of A24’s The Brutalist. However, there’s also time to discuss the action genre as a whole, the ongoing notion of well-liked art made by less-than-ideal artists, the problem of blaming pop culture over the real-world culture it sometimes endorses or emulates and why Paramount’s support of Better Man qualifies as a moral victory even in the face of entirely expected box office failure.

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