The Box Office Podcast

In what may be the least surprising development in the history of The Box Office Podcast, Aaron Neuwirth and Terence Johnson were the official guests for this (mostly) Godzilla: Minus Zero -centric episode. I say mostly because last weekend offered perhaps the most diverse (in terms of size, scale, genre, and studio) and least Hollywood-focused box office weekend I can recall. The introductory que...

In what we can only hope is the calm before the year-end storm, the three of us begin by chatting about the late Patrick Stewart’s best roles, as well as what made him a uniquely momentous screen presence, and whether it will be more or less funny when Professor Charles Xavier presumably gets killed off for the fifth time in the opening moments of Disney and Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday. I’d like t...

Jeff Ewing (finally?) joined the Box Office Podcast to discuss everything Wildwood and his ongoing work on an upcoming stop-motion documentary. After a quick weekend box office rundown, the next 45 minutes or so are 95% about Wildwood and Laika (with a touch of tough-love criticism), because Mr. Ewing had a hard out. So if you only care about Clayface, skip to the 57-minute mark, though it’s a sha...

Most of this episode discusses what went so incredibly right for Nathan Fielder’s You Can See Everything and what went only kinda-sorta okay for Legendary and Paramount’s Street Fighter . We also mourn Whalefall , raise a modest glass for Sense and Sensibility and discuss what’s “finally” a genuinely overcrowded theatrical slate packed with good, interesting and/or buzzy movies in theaters near yo...

No guests this week, so it’s just Scott Mendelson, Lisa Laman and Jeremy Fuster talking shop (mostly) about Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster’s The Other Mommy and Sony’s indifferently received The Social Reckoning . Oh, and Lisa pitches an A+ idea for a Hot Wheels movie while Jeremy helps Scott correctly pronounce the last name of everyone’s favorite Angel Studios movie star. Among the subje...

The episode title refers to one of Verity 's odder moments, but you’ll have to listen to figure out what it means. Speaking of “what it all means,” we do eventually get into spoilers for Digger around the 40-minute mark (with a literal countdown), and we eventually discuss (at roughly 75 minutes in and as broadly as possible) why we all found Verity so damn vexing, so “ spoiler warning ” if you’re...

No special guests this week, just a meat-and-potatoes episode about what turned out to be a surprisingly crowded and relatively “better for theaters than for studios” end-of-quarter three weekend. Avengers: Endgame was #1 with $26 million as it prepares to knock Avatar out of the all-time global top spot for the second time, which of course led to plenty of chatter about to what extent the MCU is...

Apocalypse, Extinction, The Final Chapter… all potential outcomes as the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. seems on the cusp of fruition. What was supposed to be an upbeat episode, about a studio taking the right lessons from successful IP revivals and scoring a best-case-scenario debut for reasons only partially related to the brand itself, became something of a downer. Spoiler:...

This is a somewhat overstuffed, super-sized episode, whereby Kenny Miles stops in to discuss the Telurude Film Festival, Aaron Neuwirth and Terence Johnson stop by to discuss the Godzilla Minus One trailer (as 2 Black Guys Talk Godzilla premieres its third season), and everyone joins in on discussing what went, well, less right than hoped for Practical Magic 2 . And we even found time for another...

When you have the biggest-grossing summer in domestic box office history, there’s only one person to call. The Box Office Podcast welcomes back Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Rentrak (the company until recently known as Comscore), as we dive into what went right (and what could have gone better still) in what indeed turned out to be an industry-best $4.765 billion between May 1...

Civilian animation nerd Mickey Dolphin joins The Box Office Podcast as Scott Mendelson, Jeremy Fuster and Lisa Laman break down the not-half-bad near-$16 million domestic debut for the shelved (by Warner Bros.) and rescued (by Ketchup Entertainment) Will Forte and John Cena-starring Looney Tunes movie. Everyone picks their favorite Looney Tunes character and then discusses… * Bountiful box office...

It’s just the three of us, as Scott Mendelson, Jeremy Fuster, and Lisa Laman discuss what keeps going right for Insidious amid digressions about the absurdity of Paramount buying Warner Bros., alongside our picks for the summer’s most “underrated” or “should have had a larger audience” releases, a Blumhouse comeback, and when piracy does or doesn’t matter for Hollywood. Also, in terms of looking a...

Ryan Scott returns to help Scott Mendelson, Lisa Laman and Jeremy Fuster litigate and dissect what went wrong for WB’s acclaimed The End of Oak Street and what went relatively right for Paramount’s Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie . The question of the day is which fictional dinosaur you would most like to hang out with. The general crux of the discourse is the extent to which the Jurassic World series...

Pardon the delay, but it was worth the wait. I won’t spend too much time on a recap, since it’s pretty much what you’d expect. Somehow, Chrissi Michael returned, and the occasion was Will Gluck’s attempt to replicate his lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Sony’s ‘Anyone But You’ with Universal’s (very) high-concept One Night Only . Alas, watching Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell cosplay Much Ado About N...

The majority of this 77-minute episode is spent discussing all of the reasons why Tom Holland and Zendaya’s MCU-affiliated Spider-Man: Brand New Day nabbed a record $360 million weekend in North America amid a near-record $912 million worldwide debut. Joining us, once again, is Aaron Neuwirth of The Code is Zeek , Out Now with Aaron and Abe , and 2 Black Guys Talk Godzilla . Among the subjects of...

With little in the way of new releases, although Bleecker Street’s Hadestown triumph gets its flowers and then some, most of this week’s chatter is still about Chris Nolan’s The Odyssey . Nate Rice, of Box Office Watch, returns to help Scott Mendelson, Lisa Laman and Jeremy Fuster dig into a record-small -27% second-weekend drop (for a $100 million-plus opener) and a record-high $289 million ten-d...

Original co-host and now semi-regular guest Ryan Scott returns for an old-school “year one”-style episode, as the original core four discusses, well, what else? Yes, we do offer a few notes related to Minions & Monsters, The Invite and other holdovers. However, the bulk of the discourse focuses on  The Odyssey  and Christoper Nolan’s artistic and commercial track record. Among the highlights… * Fa...

Pretty cut and dry folks, as Scott, Lisa, Jeremy and Max are joined by Mike Scott (Action For Everyone) and a newbie guest, visual artist, horror nerd and Disney music fan Shondrel Ortiz , all team up in a packed episode to discuss all things Moana and Evil Dead Burn . Among the more specific topics of discourse… * Everyone picks their favorite onscreen musical number (not just the best song) from...

With Jeremy Fuster and Max Deering both on holiday, it’s a pretty loose, off-the-cuff and unstructured, even by our standards, episode. With Lisa Laman again offering another round of “financial flashback,” this week’s guest is Nathanael Rice, who just four months ago launched a potential rival to the likes of Box Office Mojo and The Numbers . It’s called  Box Office Watch , and while it’s still g...

As Bradley Charles Cooper once sang, it takes a lot to change your plans, and a train to change your mind. Yes, Chrissi Michael is back to chat about  Supergirl  and all the fortune and glory it most certainly did not achieve. Alas, with $40 million in North America and $68 million worldwide as of Monday, this wasn’t quite the upbeat episode we were perhaps expecting up until a month or two ago. M...

With Jeremy Fuster having to bow out for the week, Caroline Siede, she of The AV Club, the podcast Role Calling (each episode is “a five-film retrospective starring an actor they love”), stops by to discuss all things Toy Story 5 , with a few brief notes related to Obsession ’s ridiculous legs, hopes and fears for Supergirl and last weekend’s other three releases ( The Death of Robin Hood, Levitic...

This won’t exactly be the most hard-hitting critical discussion about Disclosure Day . I probably liked it least among the four of us, and yet my thumb is still firmly pointing upward. Nonetheless, Aaron Neuwith, fresh from a trip to Japan with 2 Black Guys Talk Godzilla co-host Terrance Johnson, returns to the fourth chair to discuss The Furious (since he ended up quoting in the trailer and on th...

As expected, Masters of the Universe became the latest example of “good movie, don’t care” IP adaptation in the tradition of Power Rangers, Transformers One, and (at least overseas) Predator: Badlands. And, as somewhat expected, Scary Movie 6 was a nostalgia-skewing relaunch that successfully played to the kids. At the same time, The Amazing Digital Circus was the latest example of a YouTube-creat...

Having already announced his intentions to step down from his role as the Chief Executive Officer of Fathom Entertainment at the end of this year, Ray Nutt also stopped by for a brisk 35-minute chit-chat for another irregular “an hour with” episode of The Box Office Podcast. On the eve of Amazing Digital Circus becoming the latest “from YouTube to movie theaters” success story, and weeks after Fat...

Chrissi Michael, content strategist by day and box office nerd by night , returns to talk shop for what could be a line-in-the-sand weekend for movies and movie theaters. This weekend’s episode was mostly metaphorical high-fives and champagne-popping, a momentary moment to exhale for a podcast that began on the opening weekend of Argylle. Hollywood might finally be pulling its head out of its ass...