I Told You Guys. They Wanna F*** the Wicker Man!
In what we can only hope is the calm before the year-end storm, the three of us begin by chatting about the late Patrick Stewart’s best roles, as well as what made him a uniquely momentous screen presence, and whether it will be more or less funny when Professor Charles Xavier presumably gets killed off for the fifth time in the opening moments of Disney and Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday. I’d like to think that the frequent Seth MacFarlane collaborator would find it bemusing. Anyway, at roughly 10:23, we get into the actual box office punditry, with lots of navel-gazing about You Can See Everything ’s solid hold (even better than the estimates implied, natch). Jeremy digs into how much A24’s documentary smash compensated for the month’s other underperforming “conventional wisdom says” releases to deliver a solid October total (around $590 million). Lisa discusses how Black Bear’s Wicker is another example of how A) audiences want romance movies that feel of the moment and B) smaller studios score big when they offer what the bigger studios are not. Everyone tries to be fair to Clayface , which held fine and will unquestionably be a rate-of-return success without necessarily doing much for the overall DC Studios brand. As for Wildwood , the final grosses were noticeably higher (from $7.5 million to $8.9 million) than Sunday’s estimate, meaning its drop on weekend two wasn’t a “high-ish for Laika” 39% but a “lower than any Laika movie since Coraline ” 27%. So, to the extent that the discourse perhaps should have been slightly more upbeat on that one (not that we were crying into our microphones), its weekend-to-day-ten multiplier is now 2.2x, well above prior Laika titles. If I wasn’t flying home from Ohio (and editing this pod during the bumpy flight), I might have penned an updated weekend box office post. But there you go. We pivot back to Wicker as Lisa discusses the role 4DX can play in the current marketplace (Jeremy is apparently putting his courage to the sticking place this Wednesday), but there isn’t much to offer on the weekend’s feeble new-release slate offers little. Well, Lisa argues that Everest: The Other Side shouldn’t have had to share IMAX screens with a rerelease of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Scott also notes that Musk being pulled from theaters isn’t part of a vast political conspiracy but because nobody is showing up for the four-hour documentary. The show closes with roses for Resident Evil as it passes $400 million worldwide and stones for Street Fighter, which will barely crack $105 million globally, along with last-minute opening weekend predictions for Godzilla: Minus One . Recommended Reading/Listening… * Scott Mendelson explains why the notion of a box office battle between Avengers: Doomsday and Dune Part Three isn’t as fun as it was even a month or two ago. * Jeremy Fuster offers another deep-dive update on the melodrama surrounding the (likely-to-pass) federal film tax credit. * Lisa Laman boldly predicts the biggest box office bombs of 2027. * Ryan Scott raises his glass for Patrick Stewart’s turn as the leader of a group of neo-Nazi in Jeremy Saulnier’s terrific thriller Green Room . If you like what you hear… Please like, share, comment, and subscribe (using a cartoon mallet) with every justified ounce of strength and passion. To reach out, offer good cheer, request in-show discussions, or suggest ideas for bonus episodes, email us at Asktheboxofficepod@gmail.com. * Scott Mendelson - The Outside Scoop and Puck News * Jeremy Fuster - TheWrap * Lisa Laman - Land of the Nerds , Dallas Observer , Pajiba , Looper , Autostraddle * Ryan C. Scott - SlashFilm , Fangoria and Inverse * Max Deering - Fangoria and Action For Everyone Get full access to The Outside Scoop at scottmendelson.substack.com/subscribe
