The Box Office Podcast

Mar 05 2025 57 ep. 61 mins

The Box Office Podcast artwork

A weekly conversation about the weekend box office between myself (Scott Mendelson) and a few younger (Jeremy Fuster), hipper (Ryan Scott) and cooler (Lisa Laman) entertainment journalists. Spoiler: I am what they grow beyond.

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Ep. 57 - That's Anora!

Mar 05 2025 68 mins

Since there really isn’t much box office news to discuss, we spent the entire show discussing the Oscar season that just ended.Lisa Laman explained the commercial realities that helped make Anora the lowest-earning Best Picture winner since The Hurt Locker in 2010. Jeremy Fuster argued that it was more important for the Academy Awards to honor the “best” movies of the year ev

Ep. 56: James Bond Faces 'Monkey' Trouble in The Amazon

Feb 25 2025 75 mins

Brandon Katz of The Observer and Parrot Analytics serves as our special “fourth participant” with whom we discuss how badly Marvel has messed up (or been undermined by corporate overlords) in the post-Avengers: Endgame transition to Disney+ television, why The Monkey is performing well outside of comparisons to breakouts like Longlegs and M3GAN and whether Amazon MGM Studios wi

Ep. 55 - America, F*** No!

Feb 19 2025 68 mins

Scott Mendelson, Jeremy Fuster and Lisa Laman pontificate on why a $101 million Friday-Monday debut isn’t great news for Captain America: Brave New World and could be terrible news for the theatrical industry, which is banking on the MCU tentpole to deadlift the entire first quarter. Concurrently, longtime LA journalist vet and before-it-was-cool geek culture expert Luke Y. Thomp

Ep. 54: Yee Haw for 'Ne Zha'!

Feb 13 2025 54 mins

This weekend, we will discuss a disappointing Super Bowl weekend in North America (RIP Heart Eyes and Love Hurts), why Companion struggled to find post-debut momentum, and the consistently strong performance of Ne Zha 2 in China. Additionally, we spent the second half of the show answering a few listener emails, so keep those coming. Get full access to The Outside Scoop at scottmen

Ep. 53 - 'Companion' Box Office Goes To The Dog(s), Man!

Feb 04 2025 67 mins

This weekend’s episode goes to the Dog(s), Man. Jeremy Fuster couldn’t make it, but Lisa Laman and Scott Mendelson welcome Kenny Miles to this week’s episode to discuss both the new releases (Companion and Dog Man) in a general sense and share his experiences and opinions related to his work as a CinemaScore pollster. We all agree that actually polling folks walking out of th

Ep. 52 - Flight Risks, 'Brutalist' Chatter and Oscar Snubs With Chrissi Michael

Jan 29 2025 84 mins

The actual box office news is comparatively light, so this somewhat became an accidental three-part episode.In the first act, Scott Mendelson, Lisa Laman and this week’s special guest star (Chrissi Michael, natch) discussed the ups and downs of the top ten and the various ways in which younger viewers ingest pop culture.The second act, during which Jeremy Fuster pops in a bit lat

Ep. 51 - Somehow, Ryan Scott Returned

Jan 21 2025 61 mins

As the sad Poe image implies, former co-host Ryan Scott is back, at least for one episode. They never found the body; he fixed the autopilot six months ago, an enraged Superboy punched the space-time continuum or whatever a bunch of times, and/or the entire last season was a dream. Either way, we hope for a few more Ryan Scott guest appearances over the next year to the extent his

Ep. 50 - The Butler Did It, With Brandon Streussnig

Jan 15 2025 50 mins

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

Ep. 49: Missing That Insidious White Noise

Jan 07 2025 48 mins

Since there were no newbies of note this weekend, all due respect to Vertical’s The Damned, Scott Mendelson, Lisa Laman and Jeremy Fuster just talked about the holdover business and that pesky “fewer movies than theaters were once accustomed to” issue that still seems to be in play five years after the start of the COVID pandemic. The good news is that Mufasa: The Lion King i

Ep. 48: Audiences Say 'Yesferatu'!

Dec 30 2024 86 mins

In what will be the last episode of 2024, the three proverbial box office musketeers/amigos/etc. are joined by Daniel Loria for a deep dive into what went right over the holiday weekend and why it’s exactly the kind of “everybody wins” frame exhibitors and theatrical proselytizers have been waiting for since, well, even before the COVID era of multiplex melodrama. Mufasa: The