The 2026 Summer Box Office Winners, Losers, and Head-Scratchers

It is Friday, September 4th, Happy Labor Day Weekend, the end of summer. It's been pretty amazing this season for movies and theaters. The domestic summer box office that's May 1st through this past weekend, it finished 9.4% ahead of the pre-pandemic average, 22 franchise re, that's not adjusted for inflation, and 26.6% ahead of last year. 3 to 8 gross is now down just 7.2% from the pre-pandemic levels, and up over 20% from last year. Yes, like I said, inflation, but still a pretty remarkable comeback. If you look at just attendance, that's buts and seeds. That number was 323 million tickets sold for the summer as of August 23rd. That's up 23% over last summer, according to intelligence tracking firm. Again, that's domestic, the international totals aren't in yet, because movies have different release dates, worldwide. We know the breakouts, Spider-Man brand new day is going to get to 2.5 billion worldwide probably. The Odyssey is at 1.5 billion, and just extended its 70mm iMacs run to the end of September. But the overall numbers are even more remarkable, given that there were a bunch of flops this summer. But wanna, Masters of the Universe, Supergirl, Mandalorian, and Grogu, all big money losers, at least 4 studios. So if you remember, at the beginning of the summer, I had Scott Mendelssohn on. He's our box office expert, and we ranked the big 13 movies on the confidence scale, meaning how confident we were that the movie would deliver on the expectations, 1 through 13, 13 being the most confident. So today in the spirit of accountability, no matter how bad it makes us look, we are revisiting that list, and seeing how we did, who's confidence or lack thereof was justified, and who got it completely wrong. Today it's the summer movie, confidence scale, accountability episode, from the ringer and puck. I'm that Bellany, and this is the town. Okay, we are here with Scott Mendelssohn, box office, guru, writer for puck, writer for his own substack, podcaster, galore. Welcome back, Scott. Always a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. All right, Scott. I want to get right into this today because we're doing accountability. We're not going to blame our publicists here. We're not going to fire our head of marketing if we're wrong. We're going to go one by one, starting with the release dates of these movies. And we're going to see who ranked it, where on the confidence scale, and we're going to anoint a winner and a loser for each movie. Craig will keep score, and then tell us at the end, who is the winner and loser of the summer. So right into the first movie of the summer, we're not counting Michael. Michael came out in April. Devil wears Prada too. I ranked this movie a 10 on the confidence scale. Pretty confident. You ranked it a 12 on the confidence scale. It ended up doing 220 million domestic 692 million worldwide. Pretty big head here. Disney treated this movie like a blockbuster, and it ended up being a blockbuster. Unless I missed one and I tried to find as many as I could. This is Sans inflation globally. Devil wears Prada too was the biggest grossing live action just a comedy ever. He can't say that though, because it's off. It's a sequel. It's a fashion celebration. It's a lot of things other than just a comedy. What does that mean? It is a fashion celebration, Craig. Sex in the city is a celebration event for people who love that show in this movie. That is true. But in terms of Roy Genre, it is a comedy. It is intended to make laughs. Again, it's not an action movie like Deadpool or a cartoon like Super Mario Brothers or even a horror comedy like scream. In terms of this is just a comedy, a genre that's been on the ropes for about a decade. And again, we can discuss the reasons why this one played better than say joyride, which I quite liked. But this movie had Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt and the first one did well in 20 years of nostalgia. Like, yes, it's hard to categorize this movie as a comedy. Well, I'm categorizing it as a live action comedy. Okay. All right. Good for you. So you win because you had it as a 12 and it far overperformed and I will give you this one. Confident on this one that I was 10 to 12. I would argue is about margin of error for both of us. It's not like either of us, though, is going to flop. Take the W here because we're about to get to mortal combat two. I had this one as a seven on the confidence scale. So exactly in the middle of the scale, I thought it would absolutely just meet expectations. You were less confident. You had it as a four on the confidence scale ended up doing 80 million domestic 129 million worldwide. Not great. I should have been less confident on this one. And by that, I mean, well, no, no, and this is nothing to do with the movie is good or bad. The films that got sequels from Project Popcorn due to Godzilla Kong, Conjuring Four, they did much better domestically than their predecessors. So there was a price to be paid by Project Popcorn. However, internationally, with the exception of the Conjuring, most of them didn't jump that much better internationally compared to their respective predecessors. So using that as the formula, I should not have expected mortal combat two to jump that much more outside of North America than the first one. And that's exactly what happened. It doubled domestically, but it barely moved the needle overseas, which on an 85 budget wasn't enough. So moral combat three, not happening. Not unless they stop effing around and give us babalities and friendships. What does babalities mean? Do I even want to know? You know what fatality is, right? When you play bunch of buttons and you tell somebody in a gruesome fashion. Sure. You can, in the third, they started this in the third game, where you can do a combo that like gives like this friendship, or you basically, you become a friend with your enemy. And it's very old to the top and goofy, and there's another one where you turn them into a baby. Oh, baby. I thought it was like a, like a attractive woman fatality. No, no, no, no, the other way. Okay. The less problematic one. So now that's better. Yes. All right. So you in mortal combat also, because you were less confident than I was, and it underperformed expectations. So to do nothing, it's to do nothing you so far, Craig, are you keeping score here? Of course. Okay. Great. Next, Mandalorian and Grogu. Man. So I actually had this as a three, even though I have it in the box office draft, don't ask me why I picked this movie in the box office draft, but I did. I had it as a three on the confidence scale. You had it as a seven. You thought it would meet expectations. I thought it would underperformed expectations, ended up doing 177 domestic 345 worldwide, lowest grossing Star Wars movie ever. I blame Disney for showing us the prologue at Cinemacon, which was the first 15 minutes of this movie are awesome. The rest of the movie I think is fine, but fine wasn't enough. So I was unduly influenced by the razzle dazzle intended to make me more confident. So they did their job. Well done, Disney. Yeah. You know, listen, I think Fabro did a nice job making this movie. The error. I think I've said this before is it felt episodic. It felt like a souped up smashed together two episodes of the TV show, which is not enough when you're trying to elevate a TV franchise into a cinematic movie. It had to do something different. The characters had to evolve. They had to be something new and there wasn't. There were some new characters. There was a buffed up job with a hut sibling or relative, but it just wasn't enough. And by the way, is not like his father, but he's misunderstood and he just wants to live his own life. Yes. And it's funny because I convinced my 11 year old to come with me to the press screening to this, mostly his demographic research. I bribed him with a trip to that chocolate Emporium next to Universal City Walk. So I went in my favorite mall in City Walk. Yes. And the first thing he said when the movie came up was like, I don't even like Star Wars, but I really enjoyed that and that's great that the kind of word of mouth that theoretically Disney wants, but he never would have seen it if I hadn't dragged him along. Yeah, listen, my 10 year old liked it and asked me when it's coming to Disney Plus. So it'll probably be very big on the service, but not enough to get it to the theatrical numbers they wanted. So since I was less confident on this one, I'm going to take the W two to one. Let's move on to what is going to be a tie, both of us, masters of the universe, the Heband movie, both of us had this as our one, the least confident of all the summer movies. And lo and behold, 64 million domestic, 113 million worldwide, sad trombone flop of the summer. Right? God, yes. And I'm sorry. Prime video doesn't count. Oh, I know. Prime video, a shocker, you know, $200 million movie that got a huge marketing campaign is doing well on Prime video. And again, I don't want to, you know, again, if they're selling ads and making money from it, awesome. Wonderful. As someone who liked the movie more than I expected to, I was actually sad that, you know, everything we expected came true. That being said, I mean, you can't have it both ways. So you want to be treated as a legitimate theatrical distributor in the marketplace. You have to play by the same rules as everybody else. - We can go on how much Mandalorian is gonna make on Disney+ via viewing, but we don't. We go by what it did in theaters. So same standard for masters of the universe. - In terms of conventional wisdom versus what actually makes money, Master of the Universe made less money in worldwide than both the sheep detectives and the drama from early April. - Both of which cost a lot less. - Yes. - Listen, I know. I mean, just bad product market fit from the beginning. This movie is here. He man matters to guys our age. Doesn't matter to young people. And there was nothing in it for them. - I've been warring them for 15 years, but you know. - So masters of the universe too, not happening. - Unless they send a, I mean, I get theoretically, they send like a good Jillian ads on prime video that they can like tie into specifically this movie. I don't know how that works. - Maybe they'll take the Warner Brothers wrong lesson and do a Shira movie. - Well, that's the thing is like, it's genuinely, okay, the movie's been out, so this is in a spoiler. It was genuinely cruel, I would argue, to tease a Shira movie that you know was never gonna happen. - Oh, they teased it in the movie? - Post credits. - Ah, well, you never know when you're making the movie, you hope it's gonna be a hit and everyone's gonna share for a Shira movie. I actually said that as a joke. I didn't know that there was a tease for that. - Well, whether it was a joke or not, I mean, there are people that are like, oh boy, what I really wanted was a Shira movie and we'll get that one next time, don't worry. It's like, you know, again, don't wait for the sequel to give people the movie they wanted the first time. You don't make a gem in the holograms movie and say, don't worry, the myths will be there next time 'cause there won't be a next time. All right, enough, enough said about Masters of the Universe. We're done. Scary movie six. Another tie. You and I both had this movie at an 11. We thought it would perform above expectations and it got to domestic 108 million worldwide, 232. Not bad. - Oh yeah, I don't wanna say it's a no-brainer, but yeah, it did the job. - That's what I'm gonna start a new genre of movie. This is called a Paramount Blockbuster because Paramount is the king of the singles and doubles. They don't have any big billion dollar franchises but they have these small pre-branded IP movies that come out usually outside of the summer but this one they put in summer and they do fine. They're profitable. They do fine on the service. They're not going to change the narrative but if you're David Ellison and you say you're gonna put 30 movies a year in theaters, these are the movies that we're talking about. These scary movie six type movies. - And of course, in the olden days before everything became IP and nothing but IP, this was just a movie. And this was to be, you know, this is, you know, let alone a single, this would be like a triple 'cause you have like a what, a 40 million dollar movie that's gonna make 230 worldwide. That's amazing. That's drowning in profits more or less. - I'd rather have the Odyssey to be honest, but whatever. - Well, most people would. - But I think David, to be fair, I think David Ellison would also, they just don't have the IP and they don't have the filmmaker relationships like that. - Yeah, you know, again, if you're always trying for the Odyssey, even when you get the Odyssey, all it's gonna do is cover up for or account for the failed Odyssey. - Yeah, I'm sure we'll see those too. Can't wait until Paramount makes the Iliad with Pete Berg. - Chris Hemsworth. - Chris Hemsworth, yeah. - All right, let's move on to Disclosure Day. Man, okay. I had this one as a four on the confidence scale. You had it even less confident as a three. So both of us saw the signs there of nerves that were bundling up. Domestic, it got to 116 worldwide. 241, not enough. They wanted this movie to do at least 300. I think it's a ding for Spielberg. I don't think automatically he is a summer movie director anymore, especially on an original story. And it's sad, but it's true. You say this movie will be fine. Probably, it'll probably be okay, but they put a full freight marketing campaign behind this. They're probably gonna do an awards campaign at least for Emily Blunt and didn't get there. - And you know, it ended up being kind of what the 10 polls pay for, so to speak. But that's not what you want at a Steven Spielberg. You want him to pay for the other stuff. - That being said, without getting sidetracked into the horror breakouts that came out around the same time, you know, at the end of the day in 1975, you know, foul play wasn't making as much as Joss. And that's okay. - Yeah, all right. You're a Spielberg defender, so am I. He gets a pass. I don't know why, but he does. - And it was a better movie than the dog stars. - It was, but I think it, you know, they were pumping it up and saying that Spielberg back in Spielberg form, Craig liked it more than I did, but listen, my opinion doesn't matter, but that movie had a lot of problems. - He hasn't made a great movie since the Fable Men's last time. - Well, the Fable Men's was his last movie. - Exactly. I mean, it's okay. - Whatever, but he hasn't made a huge hit since Ready Player One. And even that one got to like, yeah, high sixes. - Yes, and that was a save by China situation. I say that someone likes the movie. - Anyway. - All right. So because you were less confident than me, you win that one. So it's three wins for you, one win for me and two ties. Is that right, Craig? - Correct. - Okay. So let's move on to Toy Story Five. I was very confident in this movie. I've been confident all year. I picked it as my number one draft pick in the draft. I had this as a 13, my most confident of all the movies. You had it as a 10. - I mean, ultimately it did 479 domestic, 1.14 worldwide. - Yeah. - So a little bit more than the others, but not quite what I thought it would do. I thought this would turn into inside out to, and it's pretty much right around where the other Toy Story's got. - And again, it's a huge friggin' hit. And the fact that, again, these rankings matter, the only reason I said 10 is that we might end up in a situation where they'd have to explain why it only did a billion dollars. And I think the simple version of that is that it was the fifth Toy Story, not the second inside out of the Second Zootopia. And that's okay, 'cause it's a good movie. Frankly, I think it was better than I was expecting 'cause it picks our we trust, but. - It was good. It felt like the same but different. - The iPad thing was ingenious. The fact that it focused on Jesse and the girl better than just doing another Woody and Buzz retread. So yeah, but the question is, did this movie meet or exceed expectations? - I would say it met my expectations. - Well, but all the other Toy Stories, other than the first one way back when, have grown and grown and grown. And this one grew a little. - Yeah. - So you think it exceeded expectations? - I think it met my expectations, but I was not expecting another inside out too. - I am gonna be gracious here and I'm gonna give Scott the win because I should not have picked this as my most confident movie if it is not going to exceed expectations by a large margin and it did not. - Fair enough. - All right, so let's move on. Super girl, wait, by the way, Toy Story 6, of course. I'm sure it'll be announced very soon. - They will probably wait nearly a decade. Frankly, at this point, that's a strategy with Disney and I think it's a good one, where you have these sequels that take long enough that become generational nostalgia, where it's either somebody's first Toy Story or it's somebody's first Toy Story in a theater. - Yeah, this was exactly that. Actually, that's not true. My kid saw a Toy Story 4 in theaters, but he was very pumped for it because it hasn't been out in a while. I mean, that's, we'll get to that, but that's another issue this summer. So let's move on to your favorite movie this summer. Super girl. So I had this as a two on the confidence scale, was not confident at all. That cinema con presentation was a disaster and I just, it smelled bad from there. You had it as a five. You thought it would almost meet expectations. This movie did 72 million domestic, 126 worldwide, big bomb. Second biggest bomb of the summer. - Yeah. - No, third biggest bomb of the summer. - Well, we can debate that. - Yeah, I mean, it's, I don't want to pick on it while it's down, but to the extent that I was slightly more bullish than you, I, I didn't care much of the cinema con presentation of Superman the previous year. And I thought that still worked out just fine. - So true. Note to Warner Brothers, don't just bring out the star and have an awkward interview for 15 minutes. Have a plan. Like say something interesting. Do a tap dance, do something. - To be fair, I do think and I say this with absolute sympathy because she's not responsible for the mad world we live in. I do think Millie Elcott was like, she knew full well that anything she said other than it was great to be here. James Gunn is wonderful. I can't wait for you all to see it. I was going to, you know, get dissected and nitpicked by the troll industrial complex. - But what happened? - Okay, but don't admit that the dog is CGI. true. Do it like Milo and Otis. All right we don't have to get we don't have to revisit that but so on this one it's an interesting one because now next summer we have Man of Tomorrow another Superman movie so do you think that it's going to be downward spiral from here or do you think the fact that it's James gun directing it's the cast that you liked it's the people the the people will forget about Supergirl and then say oh this is a sequel to the Superman movie that I liked. I think more to the latter though I wonder if the extent to which Man of Tomorrow could have been a breakout sequel is slightly dampened by this but being fair if you like Millie Alcott as Supergirl she is gonna be in the movie and she won't be burdened by the movie it's it's like you know Hulk is awesome when he's not in a Hulk movie I'm gonna go out on the limb here and say that she will not be featured prominently in the market I would disagree just because I think well cuz yeah cuz that's part of the fun I think it'll be Superman and Lois and Jimmy Olson and the people the characters from the Superman movie that you liked and I think you'll also have Aaron Pierre because I think he's gonna be I think he's in it yeah I think they will load this up with as you know I'm not just saying it's a cameo fast but I do think the other superheroes that will are there will be a part of the marketing without getting into the weeds here I do think it's ironic I guess that's like the next big movie of this DC revitalization is not entirely unlike what Batman v Superman trying to do where they like introduced everybody on the second sequel well but they also have play face this fall which is a standalone kind of poor oriented DC movie which I don't know that could work so maybe the stink will be off DC by next summer um even if it does work what does it prove other than yes a low budget or a film can work okay lower but but it's free it's branded or yeah I was less confident on that one so I take the w on that one right don't worry I'm charting it I can give the score at the end yeah you give the score at the end okay suspense the suspense is already building minions and monsters this is a tough one because I had this one in the draft and I don't know what happened here I thought it was funny I thought it was different but the same I had this as an eight on the confidence scale so I thought it would exactly meet expectations and do exactly what the other minions movies had done you were even more confident you have this as a 13 you were the most confident of all the movies about minions and sad trombone again gosh darn handsome for a little yellow tile and all capsules they let me down yes 513 million worldwide which for any other animated movie would be fine but because the minions movies had done eight nine hundred million this is a huge disappointment it is yes is a disappointment in relation to expectations but it's still six times the budget and it's gonna make a good million dollars in post theatrical yeah it's fine profitable but we're not going based on budget to gross we're going on expectations universal thought this was the no-brainer of the summer they were worried about disclosure day they thought Odyssey would do fine but they didn't think it would do 1.5 and then they're like yeah we don't have to worry about minions so do they just put this movie too close to the previous one I think do a certain extent yes I also think it was the first one in a while that the general audiences felt like oh just another one of these but I also think ironically the very thing that made it a critical darling which was the 1920s Hollywood stuff you know that's not exactly catnip for general audiences that aren't in the bubble or children like my kid didn't get that stuff my my he didn't you didn't understand that but it shouldn't have mattered because it was still the minions doing crazy shit so that should have been enough and I think again too yeah quote unquote too soon it was just another minions movie that being said I mean again I'm guessing here but when we get another one it'll be July 2029 maybe and it'll probably be a despicable me five and it'll be the first time we've seen grows since in five years so that will help so you think that the franchise is not diminished here I think the franchise is diminished I think the expectations are recalibrated for these movies well and here's the question I we may never know the answer to this if you recall the speaker will be three only did 264 million dollars in North America in the summer of 2017 I did not recall that but that's why you are you and because it kicked ass in China it was the only movie that summer to cross a billion dollars but I always wondered at the time was that the start of the franchise becoming less of a big deal in North America which eventually will be followed by overseas but I do think in a weird way the COVID related delay and the generational coronation behind minions the rise of grew may have prevented what otherwise would have been a further downturn for the franchise and then when the speaker me four came out two two years later that was the first time we had seen grow with adult form in seven years so it was almost like a Disney style legacy sequel kind of thing so I do think there has to be a given take in terms of keeping the franchise around because you want to have these in the pipeline versus waiting a long enough so it still feels like an event yeah that's the real challenge here yeah and again if you're not spending more than a hundred million you can afford to roll the dice I will say one very nice thing about this which if you want to be optimistic you could argue that minions and monsters which is about nineteen twenty Hollywood which you could argue with someone inside baseball that could be the artistic reward for the previous films commercial success this is what you let the filmmakers do to keep their artistic juices flowing and keep them happy as a thank you for these other films making good you get dollars yeah or if you're Chris Melodondry you blame Universal for wanting it too soon and say leave me alone let me do these movies on my own timeline and they'll come out when they come out I hope he's a bigger person than that but I know so I'm sure he is I I think the franchise is diminished because of this but they will plow through it they will do another despicable me and hopefully it will be fine I mean you know fortunately Mario did a billion dollars so what I didn't know that they listen universal summer is fine yeah they they they vastly overperformed on Odyssey which will get you so let's move on so this one you were most confident I was not so I win on minions versus months minions and monsters next Moana whoo man this one not great I was a five on the confidence scale you were a six ultimately it did 126 domestic 315 worldwide budget 250 plus not great yeah and you know I I too too soon Moana too was a couple years ago and I don't think I need you know regularity to say he did it but I don't think they gave it much of a thought beyond we saw that once it was fine let's move on with their lives I think the most interesting thing about it was Dwayne Johnson's performance has Maui which was not unlike the work he did in the smashing machine which was basically a metaphor for the actor coming to terms with the fact that 2026 Dwayne Johnson is not as big of a deal as 2016 Dwayne Johnson in a medical sense that was actually why I like the movie I thought it was kind of interesting but the problem with this movie is that it just didn't feel new or different no felt the same and they didn't hire a director with any kind of like different vision it was Tommy Kale who was he's a TV and Broadway guy and worked on Hamilton and they didn't do anything with the story like that this is what we've learned with these live action retreads they have to do something they have to like either be you know bringing a new visual language to the movie or having a star doing something interesting and new like Will Smith in Aladdin or Lilo and Stitch where it's like you finally see this animated character come to life in the real world there's something like that it's just there's nothing there to be fair snow white trying to give us a kid friendly remake the baguio but that didn't work they also shot Moana mostly on a soundstage in Atlanta which you know it's like you have this movie set in this tropical paradise like take advantage shoot it in Hawaii or whatever I know that you know maybe trying to limit costs there but I don't know I do think it's worth pointing out this ties into something you mentioned about Paramount where they have their share of singles and doubles and what have you it's that you know if you look at Mandalorian and Grago and Moana those are still global gross figures that for theaters would be aspirational for most movies right yeah and they're not looking at how much Disney is going to lose on those movies they're looking at the fact that they had collectively seven hundred million dollars worth of box office from two movies exactly and it just shows that even six years into the new normal to a certain extent theaters are still somewhat dependent even on the Disney flocks right more so than the successes of other studios yeah because that's one of the interesting storylines of the summer is that we're getting to these high grosses, even though we had four, five, like, pretty big flops that the studios are going to lose a lot of money on, but they still did okay from the theater's perspective, a few hundred million dollars, and those add up. And for better or worse, theaters need those. That was one reason, like 2023 was such a robust summer. It wasn't just barbed-imer, is that you had a bunch of comparatively high grossing flops like Indiana Jones 5, the Little Mermaid Overseas, the Flash Transformers Rise of the Beast Wars One, Rise of the Beasts, even Fast X, which did 700 Worldwide, I don't think anyone's happy about it. But for theaters, yeah, we'll take that. No, like, when you only, when you have such a small slate in terms of volume, that you're only depending on the tent poles performing at or better than hoped, then that's not enough. In a way, you almost need the studio flops, and, you know, I'm not saying that studios necessarily need to be martyrs for the cause, but if you want theaters to be healthy enough to play Touristory 5, sometimes you kind of almost need to give them a lot of. Yeah. If you're Disney, are you scared or tangled? Oh, yes, yeah, there's no stars in Tangled. In no disrespect to Diego Luna, Catherine Han, Katrina Balfe, okay, but there's no Dwayne Johnson, Will Smith, like, someone like that, that they can market. And, you know, it's not going to be cheap, and they say that this will be an interesting and unique adaptation. Tangled was not one of the bigger or more beloved movies, it's done fine. So, I am a little nervous about them. I'm much more looking forward to Lilo and Stitch 2, if I'm Disney than Tangled, the remit. I hope that Lilo and Stitch 2 leads into the, you know, bring her back nature of the first film. What does that mean? Bring her back. That was the horror film that came out from. Oh, no, I'm aware of that film, but. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, oh, no, they gave her a way to foster care. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, which isn't exactly what happened, but whatever. Oh, you're discussing plot points of Lilo and Stitch, which I am not familiar with. Come on. Because I see everything. You do. I respect that. I respect that you see everything. I do not. But no, Tangled, I would not bet money on it, just because I mean, in a vacuum, you know, when you're going to release screenshots of this film with these people that most audiences have not heard of, what's going to really differentiate it between the movie and, you know, cast members at the Disney park taking photos with people. We'll see. Her hair will be cool. Yeah. Her hair should be cool. Yeah. Her hair needs to be very cool. Yes. So on Moana, I had it as a five, you had it as a six, did not perform. So I win, and I get the W on one. This episode is brought to you by Disney. What does it take to build a world people never want to leave? In Disney World Builders, Academy Award and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks takes the audiences inside the creative journeys of some of Disney's most influential storytellers, featuring exclusive interviews with James Cameron, John Favreau, Kevin Feige, and more. This documentary reveals the imagination, innovation, and storytelling that continue to inspire generations and shape entertainment, now streaming on Disney Plus. The Odyssey. Let's go to that one. This one is fascinating because I had it as a nine on the confidence scale. You had it as an eight. Neither of us was over the moon confident. We thought it would do fine. This is almost like a note, note, neither of you should win this one probably, right? No, no, no, but I, I had it as a nine, I, it's like, it's, I, yeah, but neither of you thought it would do, both of you kind of felt the same way about it. We thought it would, it would meet expectations. I did not think it would do a billion. I think it would get, I thought it would get close. Right? I think actually I'm looking at my quote here. Like technically literally Matt wins, but spiritually you should tie. Well, I mean, we could theoretically both tie up my one on Odyssey and let's play back to tape Craig. I said, I have it as a nine around the same because expectations are so high that when it's open, when it opens fine, people will say, wait, Chris Nolan just got spanked by Spider-Man. Of course he did. That's kind of how it works. I think it could get to 900, maybe even a billion. So you were, you were 50% off. Yeah. Okay. But I was at least a little bit more confident than Scott. If it's good and well received, Scott said 750 wouldn't upset me. Well, I know what a bit. It just doubled that. No, no, no, I brought the receipts. Why did this movie do 1.5 and counting by the way? Well, obviously it delivered in terms of quality. It delivered something that enough moviegoers felt different and special and unique. Even to the point of, oh, Chris Nolan is doing the Odyssey. I think I know how that's going to go. And I would say to a certain extent delivered on that, but it was just, it was punchy and frankly funny enough to sort of funny what were the laughs in this movie? I missed those with, you know, ironically after all that the nonsense controversy, Elliott Pages, I think the funniest line of the movie, which is where he basically tells Matt Damon, you know, if I don't take it back, you know, if I don't make it back, you know, tell my father I was brave and then then he says like, feel free to add some stuff. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I guess in a Chris Nolan movie, that counts as humor. I thought it was a very funny. I think all of his movies are funny to a certain extent. Okay. The reason this movie is doing what it's doing is it was hyper eventize. Yeah. The IMAX thing, hyper eventized it. So even if you didn't see it in 70 millimeter IMAX, it's the kind of movie that justifies 70 millimeter IMAX. So it justifies my 20 bucks to go see it in theater and I've got to do that. I've got to do it to keep up with the culture. Hey, I'm, and I think this is very important because Chris Nolan knows what he's doing and you know, actually likes the theatrical experience and all that jazz. He made a movie that also looks and plays very good in a regular boring theater. I made a point to watch the first 30 minutes or so in the least glamorous theater I could find just to make you know, and it played great. Yeah. I know I saw it. I saw it twice. And also featured every major movie star in Hollywood. Yeah. Which further eventized it. I'm excited that the Odyssey did so well, even though Lucas has it in our draft. I would just like to say that I do think it's worth noting that it's quite possible. That the online controversy over the casting of Lumpur Niongo and Elliott Page may have cost the film hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars at the global box office. Stop. All right. So another one here. I was slightly more bullish on the Odyssey than you. So I'm going to take the W Craig for this one. Spider-Man brand new day. I had this as a 12. My second most confident movie of the summer. I thought it would exceed expectations. You had it as a nine. Oh, only by default, and you made me lose, but you quit because you made me use my numbers earlier. Oh, stop. Yeah. You knew what that was going to be. You should have saved one. Oh, that's right. I knew that the $100,000,000 budgeted Devil Wars product, too, was probably going to make enough money to be successful. And I knew that the $40,000,000 scary movie six was probably going to make enough to be successful, et cetera, et cetera. OK. I overshot on minions. Well, again, it made six times its budget. Well, by the time you get to Spider-Man, by default, it's like, do I think it's going to be hit? Of course I do. And my only concern was that, like the Odyssey, it might only make like, it might bend up with a defensive because it only makes like 900 million worldwide or something like that. Obviously, it's going to make two and a half times that. So me a culpa. Well, but the previous Spider-Man, no way home, did 1.9 million worldwide. I should say what this one did, it did, and this is still counting because it's in theaters still. It's at 8.93 domestic and 2.34 worldwide. So this movie is outperforming significantly the insanely high gross of the previous Spider-Man. Which is insane. I mean, Monday morning quarterback Ignat was standing. When you look at like the biggest grossing movies of all time, Sans inflation, the first avatar, it lived up to the hype. Avatar two, 13 years later, it lived up to the hype again, Avengers Endgame, the culmination of the Infinity saga, the Force Awakens, finally a sequel to Return to the Jedi. Titanic, every 12-year-old girl in Japan saw it 12 times. Yeah, exactly, but this is just, in fact, it sold itself as being just another Spider-Man movie. It's not, you know, and I think that helped to a certain extent. That wasn't sold as like the biggest, most spectacular 10-bole you'll ever see. It's just, it's a Peter Parker movie. I know. It almost doesn't pass the different but same test. Like it just ended up being good and satisfying and had the stars you love and everything, all the elements you want in the Spider-Man movie. Nothing really, that's special. Like no reunion of all the other Spider-Man, no gigantic star as the villain. I don't know, it's an encouraging sign that you don't need to like re-up or double the star power or throw the kitchen sink at these superhero movies, they just have to be good. I think as much, well, first of all, Spider-Man is always been the exception of the rule to whatever it is or isn't going on in superhero worlds. And you know, that goes back to the early 2000s where like with the exception of the X-Benz sequels, none of the from 2002 to 2008, none of the Marvel superhero movies or DC that came out in the wake of Spider-Man made as much worldwide as the first Spider-Man made just in North America. So Spider-Man is Spider-Man is Spider-Man. Now I do think it's very interesting, as you said, this is closer to like a conventional sequel, something like John Wick for Bad Boys For Life or Bad Boys Right or Die, which to its credits. So he sold as, this is not the fourth Bad Boys movie in 30 years, this is the relatively recent sequel to the relatively recent sequel that you really liked because it was really good. And I think to Sony's credit, that's how they sold Spider-Man brand new day. Yeah, it was a halo effect from the previous one. It's not O MCU, this or that, it's, this is a sequel to the present and Spider-Man franchise that you all really like with characters and actors that you all really like. So the fact that it was a Spider-Man movie in the abstract, obviously that's important, but it wasn't remotely the only pitch. Yeah, and it worked. And what, this thing is probably going to end at like 2.5 billion. It'll, it's, it's in third place globally, it's going to stay in third place globally and that's fine. Obviously, that's fine. I mean, Jesus. Good luck to Vanger's Doomsday. Well, I think for better or worse, just like the online nonsense of the honesty didn't make a dent. I think there's a case to be made that like all of us film snobs haggling over Doomsday. Oh, it looks, does it look as good or, you know, it's desperate to get Robert Downey Jr. back and things that I genuinely agree, they're not going to make a difference. Unless the movie is quantum mini a bad, and I say that as somebody who loves the second hand man movie, I'll do respect, unless it's quantum mini a bad, I can't imagine it doesn't do 1.5 in a, in a walk. Oh, yeah, easy, but the question is can it do two? And I don't know if it can. If it's good, I would say it doesn't have to. Hmm. Well, Joe Russo just admitted that they started shooting without a script, without a finished script. He says these scripts are living breathing organisms, just what every studio head wants to hear. Well, I know the last several mission possible movies were somewhat down on the fly. And that includes art six, which is one of the more popular ones. And that includes the last two, which are less well received. Okay. We will see. All right. So enough of that. Let's get to our last movie, The End of Oak Street. I had this as a six on the confidence scale. I was relatively confident that it would meet expectations. You had it as a two, you thought it was a disaster waiting to happen. This movie grows 46 million domestic, 106 million worldwide. So kind of a nothing burger. It's a shame because it's really good. Yeah. You liked it. I still haven't seen, I'm going to see this movie. It's good. See the theater if you get time. It's worth it. It's the kind of movie that if people still went to the movies just to go to the movies, and eat that, you know, it would have crawled to 200 million, which would have been great on an 80 budget, but they would have been fine. No arm, no foul. So did this movie meet its expectations? That's the question. I don't think it did. I think the given the Warner's marketing campaign, they wanted more out of this. Well, of course. And when I think expectations, I get part of that is, you know, budget. So it caused 80. It's going to do 125. Not enough. Now I think it's worth noting, and again, this isn't a zero sem game. But one of the reasons that I get a little cranky when you have not just Amazon, but so forgive me for picking on Amazon. But again, something like, you know, $170 million movie, Mastery Universe made $114 million, but it's okay because of Prime Video or to throw in a movie I very much liked, The Sheep Detectives, which did about $130 million on a 75 budget in conventional terms that is not as success. Now Prime Video goes theatrical and it'll probably, you know, the fact it's really, really good means, yeah, it's probably worth the investment in the long run. Now conversely, what Warner Brothers get the same charity, when they're $80 million movie, the end of Oak Street, only does $125, or when they're $170 million movie, Supergirl, only does $130. And if not, why not? And they don't. I don't give anybody share. Yeah. Like, the Amazon movies need to perform in theaters if they are going to be theatrical releases. They're certainly giving them marketing campaigns. They have the same theatrical distribution people at Amazon now that they have it all the other studios. There's no handicap there. Now, the one nice thing I will say is that as someone that liked He-Man, Mastery Universe more than I expected to, their movies have been pretty good other than Mercy, and I won't call Melania, because that's something, you know, their coffee is got is was very good. I actually liked crime 101. I saw that on a plane. It was solid. Yeah. And, you know, I could laugh about, you know, don't spend $90 million on a Christmas worth movie. But if you're going to treat theatrical as a emotional avenue for a prime video where there's a slight curve, I would rather that curve be applied to making, you know, well-made adult dramas like crime 101, or is God is, or surprisingly delightful kid films like the sheep detectives as opposed to something like Mastery Universe. All right. So that is it, Craig. Can you tally up the score here, and who won the summer, Scott or me? It was a nail-biter, but Matt finishes with six points, Scott finishes with five, and you tied on two, but I will say, and I think Matt has one more big win. I made my own big win, metric. Oh, you went rogue. You have your own metric. This is my own proprietary metrics, big, big wins. Matt's big wins were Spider-Man confidence, his Mandalorian pessimism. And his minions apathy, and Scott's big wins, he had two, the devil wears prod a two confidence and the mortal combat skepticism. Okay. That's, I'll take it. I'll take any wins where I can get it, especially this year where I'm going to get my butt kicked in the box office draft, thanks to Odyssey and Spider-Man. I will take a win for the summer. By the way, Craig, have you tallyed up my box office over under predictions lately? Yes. How did I do for the summer on my over-unders? I think I've done okay. Of the 13 movies that we covered today, you got 10 of the 13 correct in your opening weekend predictions. Oh, that's pretty good. That's in the money. It's really, yeah. I won last weekend on Coyote vs. Acme. I took the over on 15, and it came in at like 15.4, so there were some squeakers. All right. Well, nice summer at the box office. I think the momentum is really fun. We've been talking about pessimistic box office predictions for five years now. And we're finally back. Are we back? If David Ellison doesn't go and ruin it for everyone, yes. What are you talking about? Tom Cruise is on board. Christ. That's going to be an awkward conversation when Verity kicks diggers ass. If Verity kicks diggers ass in October, oh, you think Verity is going to win opening weekend over digger. I know about week. I mean, we get whatever I mean, but I just, yeah, no, I actually think that movie will be big. And my wife just read the book. I think it's a thing and digger is still a lot of question marks about that one. We'll see. All right. No call sheet today. That's a show. I want to thank my guest, Scott Mendelssohn, producer Craig Horlbeck. I already do his Jesse Lopez and Stefano Sanchez. And I want to thank you. We will see you next week.