The core four (I guess that works for now) is reunited, and it feels relatively good.
In the latest episode, we spend an hour discussing the complicated new math of these big-budget films distributed by streaming companies with seemingly unlimited funds, to the point where it hardly matters if a $55 million flick like Zendaya’s Challengers makes a rate-of-return on theatrical alone.
What is the “success” point for these “theatrical as PR for streaming” movies in terms of making the distributors happy with the box office results?
How good (or bad) is a $15 million opening for a film like Challengers, both amid the current status quo and compared to the mid-2010s when studio programmers were in a healthier place? To what extent is Zendaya a butts-in-seats draw?
Speaking of streamers making choices, what’s next for Zack Snyder as Netflix seemingly abandons kitchen-sink budgeted mockbusters?
Stop trying to make Akira happen, it’s never going to happen!
Are theaters really in life-or-death peril even if this summer underwhelms?
All that and more (somewhat less important) topics of conversation!
In terms of the written word…
Jeremy Fuster offers a summer movie box office preview for TheWrap.
Ryan Scott’s latest “Tales from the Box Office” discusses the five-year anniversary of Avengers: Endgame, a milestone that (alongside the series finale of Game of Thrones) even more in hindsight seems to represent the grand finale of monoculture.
Lisa Laman penned her review of The People’s Joker.
As always, if you like what you’re hearing, do the usual thing of liking, sharing, commenting and *smashing* (using a cartoon mallet) that subscribe button with every justified ounce of strength and passion. And do check out my guests’ work at their respective home bases. If you want to bother them on social media, well, that’s what Google is for.
Jeremy Fuster - https://www.thewrap.com/author/jeremy-fuster/
Lisa Laman - https://lisalaman.wixstudio.io/lisaportfolio
Ryan C. Scott - https://www.slashfilm.com/author/ryanscott/
Ep 13: 'Suck It, Escape from Tomorrow!'