Online discourse aside, moviegoers are RSVPing "Yes" to Zendaya and Robert Pattinson's comedy as Amazon's sci-fi epic continues pulling "aspirational for anyone not named Nolan or Coogler" grosses...

Illumination's animated sequel earned $48 million on Friday, down a shameful 12% from its predecessor's $55 million first Friday. Prepare for a deluge of "video game fatigue" thinkpieces? (The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Friday Box Office Punditry)

On Dad Duty, but SUPER MARIO GALAXY retraining 91% of its predecessor's domestic opening weekend (around $188 million over five days versus $205 million) is excellent. Ditto THE DRAMA with A24's third best opening day and now on course to nab its third or fourth biggest opening weekends ever.

Box Office Shocker: Mario Movie Makes Many Moneys!

NEW EPISODE: @scottmendelson.bsky.social returns to talk The Riddler’s Incan treasure hunt & we also look at Cinefantastique’s 1994 expose on 60s Batman! bit.ly/3ARR4Z6 Spotify spoti.fi/40SBUNH YouTube youtu.be/3U51cIR_kqc?...

Illumination's most visually spectacular animated feature yet is a parade of in-game references and large-scale action scenes, but again, it seems content to exist sans much character of its own.

TOMORROW - @scottmendelson.bsky.social and The Riddler are back with an episode full of wax!

Should I quickly read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ‘Gods of Mars’ so as to prepare myself for ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’?

I think we need to celebrate the death of Sora a bit more. This is a technology that, just MONTHS AGO, we were being told was going to literally destroy Hollywood and Disney was going to give them a BILLION DOLLARS and NONE OF THAT EVEN REMOTELY HAPPENED

With a projected $53-$54 million (-33%) second-weekend total, ‘Project Hail Mary’ should nab (unless I missed one) the fourth-biggest second-weekend gross for any under-$100 million opener behind ‘Joker’ ($56m), ‘Avatar 3’ ($64m), ‘American Sniper’ ($64m) and ‘Avatar’ ($75m).

I'm also back on The Box Office Pod with @scottmendelson.bsky.social this week - substack.com/home/post/p-...

The insane reaction to the ‘Marty Supreme’ star’s comments, plus how Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar hopes might hinge on the extent to which Warner Bros. as we know it still exists by Christmas.

I can only hope this is a bot, because the film got a 95% fresh rating and (more importantly) an 8.3/10 average critic score from nearly 300 critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Hell, I'm one of the least favorable critics and even I think it's pretty good and worth seeing in theaters.

Article forthcoming, but PROJECT HAIL MARY opened with $80.5 million domestically (essentially the second-biggest “just a movie” opening weekend, sans inflation, barely behind OPPENHEIMER’s $82.5 million debut in July 2023) and $140.9 million worldwide. #boxoffice

With $33.1 million on Friday (including $12 million in previews), Amazon MGM Studios’ $190 million, Ryan Gosling-led PROJECT HAIL MARY just broke the (unadjusted) domestic box office record for the biggest opening day ever for a live-action “just a movie” offering.

"This movie failed politically because its politics were compromised by its plot and its characters" is why, I want to say this gently, some people should never be allowed to speak about culture publicly.

Bad-faith misreading of the film’s finale notwithstanding, I for one look forward to LILO & STITCH 2: BRING HER BACK.

On the one hand, this is a great way to screw yourself over with shoddy legal "work." On the other hand, this is also a great way to hand sensitive information straight to Anthropic.

Only three months late! Anyway, among other key questions for the year... - Can Disney overcome 7 years of mixed Marvel emotions? - Did WB show that offering less $ for theatrical glory works? - Will A24 cement itself as a prime destination for romance?

As Universal’s REMINDERS OF HIM opens with a rock-solid $18.25 million over the weekend, A24’s UNDERSTONE debuts to a good-enough $9.3 million, while Bleecker Street’s SLANTED opens with just $617k in 588 theaters and WB’s THE BRIDE plunges 70%.

With $164 million worldwide amid terrific post-debut holds here and abroad, HOPPERS is on course to potentially qualify as a “no asterisks required” original animated blockbuster.

In overall good news, this weekend's domestic box office will be around 60% above this same frame last year, while the year-to-date will be above any COVID-era “as of March 15” total save for the still “unicorn-ish” 2023.

I was not expecting REMINDERS OF HIM to crib the ending from DEAR ZACHARY, but I respect the chutzpah.

Universal expanding its theatrical exclusivity windows (just before a huge year at the box office) is hopefully a signal that major studios with a greater vested interest in multiplex revenues won’t sit on the sidelines as corporate consolidation and supply-side starvation undercut exhibition.

Universal expanding its theatrical exclusivity windows (just before a huge year at the box office) is hopefully a signal that major studios with a greater vested interest in multiplex revenues won’t sit on the sidelines as corporate consolidation and supply-side starvation undercut exhibition.

Listen Now | @charliejane.bsky.social joins the usual gang of idiots (@scottmendelson.bsky.social, @lisalamanfilmfan.bsky.social and @jeremyfuster.bsky.social) to discuss the apparent end of a near-decade-long Pixar/Disney cold streak alongside the decisive end of a nearly year-long WB hot streak.

Even amid years of self-defeating, tone-deaf statements on inclusivity and cultural specificity, Disney’s animated output continues to lean more toward ‘Coco’ than ‘Lightyear.’

I know doing deep-dive box office punditry won’t change the world. It doesn’t work like that. But... it’s the “only” thing I know how to do, and I gotta do something.

Maggie Gyllenhaal puts Frankenstein’s mate front-and-center in this cinematically scumptious, thematically rich, yet narratively thin, revamping of the classic tale(s). (@scottmendelson.bsky.social's early review of #TheBride)

I’m almost impressed that WB/HBO had the restraint not just to say “F** it,” and straight-up score the LANTERNS trailer to “Far from Any Road”.

Not every Pixar flick has risen to the level of ‘Finding Nemo’ or ‘Up,’ but that doesn’t mean the studio hasn’t semi-regularly produced new toons on par with its 2000s-era classics. @scottmendelson.bsky.social’s review of Pixar’s #Hoppers

Good time to re-post our #Scream (1996) commentary track featuring @scottmendelson.bsky.social, @brandon4kuhd.bsky.social & Yancy Berns from 2022. A simpler time... tinyurl.com/mwyjv3f3

Online discourse and SEO-friendly controversies no more negatively impacted Paramount's slasher sequel in 2026 than did sites like 'Ain't It Cool News' preemptively doom 'Batman & Robin' in 1997.

The likely future of Paramount/WB in a nutshell...

For all the reasons you’d expect, and some you didn’t, #Scream7 is a dull, badly-acted and poorly-written follow-up that exists mostly to arbitrarily reinsert Neve Campbell atop the franchise’s starting line-up while criticizing anyone who dared to enjoy the last two installments.

As long as sequels like 'Zootopia 2' (which just passed 'Minecraft' to become 2025's top domestic grosser) are nabbing sky-high box office, the likes of 'Hoppers' and 'Encanto' can be viewed as long-term investments.

Disney is (correctly) selling #TheMandalorianAndGrogu as an IMAX-friendly, mythology-lite all-ages pulp adventure, even while this summer’s streaming-to-cinema follow-up still must help re-establish #StarWars as a must-see-in-theaters franchise.

John Patton Ford’s adequate but unexceptional black comedy never colors outside the lines, relying on its high concept and Glen Powell’s old-school star turn.

Save for one spoiler-y (and unconvincing) image, the second tease for the latest 'Mummy' hopes a tantalizing question will entice audiences for an otherwise cryptic concoction.

Sony’s sports comedy isn’t breaking box office records (update — it had the best second-weekend hold for any $20 milion-plus President’s Day opener in 20 years), but GOAT’s grosses are thus far closer to the boom-toon times of the 2010s than the sequel-or-bust toon era of the 2020s.

GOAT held like a champ, as WUTHERING HEIGHTS displayed (like most big-deal erotic thrillers over the decades) disproportionate overseas muscle. Meanwhile, ZOOTOPIA 2 sits days away from passing A MINECRAFT MOVIE as the biggest domestic earner of 2025. -Weekend #boxoffice for 02/22/26 - The Holdovers

China’s Lunar New Year releases (especially ‘Pegasus 3’) ruled globally amid a series of (mostly) soft, domestic-skewing new wide/semi-wide releases, as an Elvis documentary, a faith-based sequel, and a once-promising Glen Powell star vehicle took their swings at domestic box office glory.

And for those following the ongoing “mythology” B-plot, Max Deering finally saw Return to Silent Hill!

Optimistic projections aside, a $40 million Fri-Mon domestic opening weekend is pretty damn terrific for Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s $85 million, R-rated, adult-skewing romantic melodrama.

Sony’s GOAT scored a solid (especially for a non-Disney original toon) $7 million on Friday, as Amazon’s Crime 101 continued the curse of the Chris Hemsworth movie, and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die opened pretty well by Briarcliff standards. (The non-Wuthering Heights Friday box office punditry)

A softer-than-hoped $11M Friday gross (for a likely $35-$40M Fri-Mon domestic debut weekend) will hopefully be of less consequence for #WutheringHeights if overseas audiences, who often embrace big erotic thrillers and dramas, pick up the #boxoffice slack in the coming weeks.

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi don’t wanna be friends in Emerald Fennell’s cinematically opulent, subtext-made-text adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel.

Bad Bunny did a variation of the Spike Lee double dolly shot live so you’re now legally required to give this a five star on Letterboxd!!!!