The conventional wisdom that Wicked Part One’s $112 million opening destroyed (audiences don’t mind musicals, they don’t mind the whole “part 1 of 2” thing, etc.) and whether a $55 million domestic debut is good enough for the pricy Gladiator II (which, inflation aside, is relatively high for an R-rated action movie not based on a comic book). Meanwhile, some digressions related to Moana II’s upcoming Thanksgiving release, how Bonhoeffer represents the status quo for Angel Studios and a deep-dive conversation prompted by a listener question about “What If?” box office scenarios. What if Amazing Spider-Man had bombed in 2012? What if The Interview had been even a modest hit in 2014? Could Disney have survived the theoretical failure of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003? Lisa also explains why Tom Cruise and Adam Driver are current examples of great actors who make comparatively poor career choices.
In terms of the written word…
Jeremy Fuster detailed, before its release, Universal’s marketing efforts for Wicked Part One, which are comparatively on par with Barbie and (back in the day) Batman.
Lisa Laman detailed some of the previous and more outlandish attempts at developing a sequel to Gladiator before we ended up with a pretty standard “legacy sequel” follow-up.
Ryan Scott’s “Tales from the Box Office” examined the 20th anniversary of Alexander, a massive box office flop (and unusually bad movie from a generally terrific director) that A) essentially killed Oliver Stone’s career as a prominent Hollywood filmmaker and B) ended the brief run of Braveheart-inspired mega-budget period piece hack-and-slash actioners.
And Scott Mendelson noted the 15th anniversary of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which should have proved to Hollywood that female-skewing tentpoles could be as big as the boy-focused variants and didn’t even need male audience interest to score top-tier box office.
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 Asktheboxofficepod@gmail.com.
Jeremy Fuster - TheWrap
Lisa Laman - Looper, Cultress, Comic Book and Autostraddle
Ryan C. Scott - SlashFilm and Fangoria
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