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PODCAST

The Box Office Podcast

Scott Mendelson

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. scottmendelson.substack.com

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All Episodes

77:38

'28 Years Later' Pull a (Box Office) Boner

The Box Office Podcast ·

2026/01/22

Aaron Neuwirth returns for… what is this, the sixth or seventh time (?) since March 2025, to pontificate about what went right (artistically) but wrong (commercially) regarding Nia DaCosta and Alex Garland’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Among the areas of discourse are whether a mixed reception for 28 Years Later led to this downturn or whether — barring new classic status — this was always going to be a “folks were only curious the first time” IP revival. Also on tap is the continuing plea for

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83:16

Monkeying Around After the End of the World

The Box Office Podcast ·

2026/01/16

While you’d think that the terrific trio, alongside producer Max Deering and special guest Rendy Jones (another superb fourth-chair occupant who’s so young but has been doing this for so long that I shudder to think how old they were when I first started reading their reviews and commentary), would spend most of the time discussing Primate and Greenland: Migration. And, yes, both films get their due discourse. And yes, the monkey business includes a digression into the infamous opening-night

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88:08

New Year, Old(er) Movies

The Box Office Podcast ·

2026/01/08

The new-to-the-show guest for the first episode of 2026 is Tre’vell Anderson, prolific author, podcaster and journalist (who was recently named co-director of the Trans Journalist Association alongside TJA co-founder Kae Petrin). Oh, and Jeremy Fuster recorded from Japan, making this another truly international episode. All respect to We Bury the Dead and KidzBop Live: The Concert Movie, the vast majority of the show is spent discussing holdover news alongside hopes and fears for the new year. Among

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96:35

Sure Plays a Mean Ping Pong...

The Box Office Podcast ·

2026/01/01

This may be the very first weekend since I started this podcast, nearly two years ago, when we literally ran out of time to appropriately discuss the relevant new releases (and higher-profile holdovers). However, unless Kids Bop: The Movie pulls an ERAS Tour, I imagine the next (mostly holdover-centric) episode will make up the difference. No matter, having too many movies that are doing “too well” in for one reasonably-sized episode is an excellent problem to have.Courney Howard, longtime freelance

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93:25

Does Payakan Know It’s Christmastime at All?

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/12/25

Sure, you’ll probably be a bit today, celebrating either Christmas or National Jews Get Chinese Food and Go to the Movies Day. The plan is for our “mixed” family (Wendy is half-Jewish/half-Catholic/all-guilt) to do both: open presents in the morning and catch up with Anaconda later that afternoon.However, if you’re stuck at a Christmas gathering and wish to avoid small talk with relatives, here’s 95 glorious minutes to consume that’s subtler than trying to discreetly watch the next three episodes of

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96:12

Garbage Day for 'Ella McCay'

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/12/18

Since neither Ella McCay nor Silent Night Deadly Night caught fire (and ash) this past weekend, we invited Greenlight Analytics Director of Insights & Content Strategy Brandon Katz to discuss (among other things) the whole “Netflix wants to buy Warner Bros.” situation beyond just what it does or doesn’t mean for theatrical cinema. Among the topics of discourse…* The challenges with Hollywood still wanting to make “old-school movies” with little outside-the-bubble awareness of newer filmmakes and

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87:18

A Labyrinth with No Exit, A Maze with No Prize

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/12/12

The good news is that the theatrical ecosystem is exactly as alive as the main distribution studios allow it to be, as Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s notches what is now the third straight $60 million-plus opening weekend in a row. The bad news is that, once again, the fate of the multiplex ecosystem finds itself in existential peril through no real fault of its own.Yes, Warner Bros. gets caught… yet again… in a tug-of-war over the imaginary value of theoretically valuable IP in spite, or

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64:06

A Fast (But Not Furious) Hour With... Barry Hertz

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/12/10

As we wait and see if and how Universal chooses to embark on a presumably final film in the $7.3 billion-grossing Fast & Furious saga, Barry Hertz’s recently released Welcome to the Family: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious, The Blockbusters That Supercharged The World offers an impressively comprehensive and potentially definitive look at the 25-year underdog success story. The author stopped by to offer his thoughts, some of which are in the book and some of which are “new to you,”

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97:16

Ep. 97 - (Disney's) Got a Million Problems, But...

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/12/05

Somehow (an invitation, natch), Aaron Neuwirth returned. In a lengthy but dense Thanksgiving weekend wrap-up episode, the subject is, of course, Walt Disney’s Zootopia 2. The acclaimed and buzzy WDA sequel has thus far earned (counting its $7.5 million “second Thursday” in China) $170 million in North America, $315 million in China and $635 million worldwide. Beyond obvious “What went right?” and “Does the bonkers-bananas Chinese opening mean anything beyond a deep decade-long Zootopia fandom?” Lisa

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63:03

An Hour With... The Numbers' Bruce Nash

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/12/03

This is a kind of half-and-half in terms of The Box Office Podcast. It’s technically an hour-long conversation with Bruce Nash, owner of The Numbers, as he prepares to release the site’s first-ever full-year market forecast. However, Jeremy Fuster and Lisa Laman were able to jump in amid this mid-week pre-Thanksgiving chit-chat, so it’s a bit of both worlds. In the 60-minute discourse, we discuss Nash’s site and why it’s better or different from all other sites of its nature. Among other things,

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94:28

Ep. 95 - Everyone Sees The Wicked

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/11/28

Before we see to what extent Zootopia 2 ($39 million on Wednesday and $81 million worldwide thus far, or $100 million if you’re counting its $34 million Wednesday and $20 million Thursday in China) reaches the Thanksgiving weekend heights of Moana 2, listen to this extensive, comprehensive and almost intentionally random dissection of Wicked For Good’s $147 million domeatic and $223 million worldwide debut. Chrissi Michael, content strategist by day and box office nerd by night, stops by in this

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84:19

Ep. 94 -- Now You See 'NYSM3,' Now You Don't See...

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/11/20

The original permanent fourth chair returns, as Ryan Scott stops by for the first time since early August. Actually, since Jeremy Fuster couldn’t make this week’s show, it’s still a party of trio instead of a quartet. We, of course, discuss the ins and outs of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (which should be just over/under $100 million worldwide by the time you read this) and The Running Man (which should be at around $35 million globally by tonight). And for those who have argued that I’m too…

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53:14

An Hour With... Screen Engine CEO Kevin Goetz

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/11/18

Welcome to another irregular spin-off episode of The Box Office Podcast, during which I (Scott Mendelson) sit down with Kevin Goetz. Mr. Goetz is the founder and current CEO of Screen Engine/ASI, among the leading companies involved in (among other things) pre-release test screening and pre-release tracking analysis. He also hosts a weekly podcast of his own, “Don’t Kill the Messenger,” which features inside baseball conversations with industry leaders and influential artists. But the reason for the

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66:40

Ep. 93 - Predator 9, People 0

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/11/13

Max Deering, of Fangoria and the Action For Everyone podcast, returns to discuss the rousing reception (artistically and commercially) for Dan Trachtenberg and Patrick Aison’s Predator: Badlands. But that’s not all, as the longtime Predator fan is here to spread the gospel about the, uh… *darkest* chapter of the Predator universe, namely AvP: Requiem. Is it an unsung (or at least undervalued) “trasherpiece”? Is Trachtenberg a secret “AvP: Requiem Truther”? Will we ever see a version of the 2007

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51:36

Ep. 92 - The Lame Halloween

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/11/04

Forgive the lack of a “the top ten movies are” portion; I was on a time crunch and wanted to make sure we had time for “discourse.” It’s just the three of us, as Scott Mendelson, Lisa Laman and Jeremy Fuster talk shop about what really was a weak weekend. * Regretting You’s second-weekend hold is terrific, no matter its rank.* The Black Phone 2 was, by default, the hero Hollywood needed on Halloween. * Bugonia’s *relatively* strong expansion counts as a relative win.* Can even a best-case scenario

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80:29

Ep. 91 - Gory Days

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/10/30

Chainsaw Man: The Movie proved that anime is no longer necessarily specialized theatrical programming. Meanwhile, Deliver Me from Nowhere failed to become the next A Complete Unknown and Regretting You did not remotely become the next It Ends with Us. Travis Hopson, of Punch Drunk Critics (and elsewhere) joins as we discuss what went wrong for The Boss and why the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation didn’t even manage a “from The Firm to The Pelican Brief” decline. More discourse is had concerning

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76:12

Ep. 90 - Grabber, No Grabbing!

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/10/21

The Black Phone 2 was the hit Blumhouse needed, but the brand still has work to do to get folks excited about its not-sequel, non-IP horror offerings. Good Fortune was another miss for live-action theatrical comedies. While Lionsgate made a few marketing mistakes, it shouldn’t require 100% perfection to garner a halfway decent opening for a star-packed, well-reviewed and present-tense topical high-concept comedy. Meanwhile, After the Hunt, Truth & Treason and Petsa on a Train barely made a ripple

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79:01

Ep. 89 - 'Tron's Legacy of Failure

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/10/16

Was the failure of Tron: Ares inevitable by virtue of Tron never being an A-level franchise? Or is the box office decimation of Disney’s $180 million threequel a matter of the specific choices made for what became this past weekend’s little-loved and little-seen would-be tentpole? Maybe Disney should have said “No” to Jared Leto’s self-aggrandizing pitch and cast a younger or at least more popular older actor to anchor a big-deal franchise entry. No matter, there’s plenty of Tron discourse as

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75:28

Ep. 88 - Swift Smashes Rock

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/10/09

It’s just the terrific trio this time around, as Scott, Lisa and Jeremy dig into what went (mostly) right with Taylor Swift’s second glorified feature-length theatrical commercial and what went so very wrong with A24 and Dwayne Johnson’s The Smashing Machine. Meanwhile, after a shockingly good overseas hold, behold some cautiously optimistic long-term “projections” for One Battle After Another, as well as a frank explanation of A) why Release Party of a Showgirl opened with barely 1/3 of what The

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80:50

Ep. 87 - One Battle After Gabby's Dollhouse

The Box Office Podcast ·

2025/10/02

The host of The Brandon Peters Show (the only pod with a less creative title than “The Box Office Podcast”) returns to discuss One Battle After Another, which pulled a giant *shrug* of a $22 million domestic debut. Did the reviews, buzz and Oscar attention fail to move the needle, or did all the positive variables merely prevent an even lower opening? And with two in a row, is Leonardo DiCaprio now a mere $20 million-plus opener compared to the $30-$40 million highs seen in the 2010s? Sure, WB can

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