I’m the former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and an entertainment lawyer, and I cover the real inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood for [Puck](https://puck.news/author/matthew-belloni/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=1&utm_content=matt-belloni-author-page-rboxoffice-ama-5-10-24). I’m here to answer all your questions about the summer box office. Topics I’m keen to delve into include:
* Summer box office: How bad will it get?
* Potential sleepers and sneaky bombs this summer
* Why we shouldn’t pay much attention to opening weekends anymore
* Stars that are poised for breakouts this summer
* What ultimately makes a movie profitable or not profitable
Proof [HERE](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1cllj7l/join_us_for_an_ama_with_matt_belloni_puck_news/)
This AMA will officially begin in r/boxoffice today (Friday, May 10) at 3:00 p.m. ET. Feel free to start asking questions now that I’ll answer at 3:00 p.m.!
by PuckNews
19 Comments
Anything you want to breakout? Anything you don’t care for?
Hi, Matt! Loved reading your reporting over the years.
With Sony and Apollo having officially submitted a bid for Paramount Global last week, do you know if they’ve taken the lead over Skydance in the race to buy it up? I really hope not – hate their plans and we’ve lost too many majors already, damn it! – but the offer, at least on paper, does feel a lot more solid for non-Shari shareholders.
Alternatively, some people are now saying that PG may go it alone altogether. Is this the new favored plan for Redstone? And, if so, what do you think the impact will be on the studio side going forward? (Cancelled films, tax write-offs, killed first looks, etc.) Also, do you think such a strategy will work long-term?
Finally: More *Sonic* films and more *Strange New Worlds* are happening no matter what, right? ***Right?***
This year so far has been quite a very weak period at the box office. Right now, the domestic box office is at $2.141 billion, which is 24.6% off from 2023 and it’s also down from 2022. And without a *Barbenheimer* on the horizon, the summer box office is heading for a very steep drop.
What lessons should be learned from this? And do you think the box office can recover in 2025?
hi Matt do you see Inside out 2 doing more than its precessdor
How many more weak summers at the Box Office can Hollywood realistically withstand before things get drastic or need shaken up significantly? It’s been a disappointingly downward trend at box office for many major blockbusters over the last few years, how long can movie companies overcome the low numbers before change occurs?
Did you ever attend any midnight screenings of a new movie when you weren’t a journalist? Which one was the most memorable for you?
What is your opinion about challengers box office run
I have some questions that might be part of something you’re already investigating but if this is the first time any of it has been raised to you, it would be cool to see you do a deep-dive into some of them eventually if you don’t have any related information right now.
Sorry in advance for having a lot to ask but there hasn’t been that much coverage of these topics in the news recently so that’s why I was curious to ask about them.
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do an AMA here and I hope you have a great weekend ahead.
WarnerDiscovery:
1 – We’ve seen the Global Cycling Network Plus & MotorTrend Plus streaming services being ended
last year and this year with their content being folded into both Max & Discovery+. Discovery+
has been and will probably be sunseted in countries that has already gotten and will eventually
get Max in the future, except for the U.S. where it’s still profitable.
Given there’s a push to continue further cost-cutting because of the company’s large debt load, is
there any reason behind why CEO David Zaslav & Streaming President/CEO JB Perrette hasn’t
considered folding and integrating the U.S.-only niche Boomerang streaming service into Max yet?
2 – The company does share ownership in some of its TV networks with others but only 3 big
channels have a big minority stakeholder: Food Network & Cooking Channel (31% of it is held by
Nexstar) and Discovery Family (40% is held by Hasbro).
Nexstar has an option to acquire both WarnerDiscovery’s and Paramount Global’s 12.5% stakes in
the CW this August. Is it possible that WarnerDiscovery exchanges their 12.5% in the CW for
Nexstar’s 31% in Food Network & Cooking Channel?
3 – We’ve seen that the company plans to sell parts of Rooster Teeth after the decision to shut it
down as a standalone department.
If some of the parts like live-action & animation content production or video game development,
for example, don’t manage to find a buyer, could it be possible they will be absorbed into the rest
of the company like WB Television, Adult Swim, and WB Games or would they just be shut down?
4 – Is the status of the Coyote Vs. Acme film at the moment more like Batgirl & Scoob: Holiday
Haunt being tucked inside the company’s vault, being shopped out like Looney Tunes’s The Day
The Earth Blew Up movie, or possibly getting a theatrical release directly from WB itself?
5 – CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said last year, the company has a large portfolio of real estate which
has less-visible, non-core properties that could be sold to generate cash to pay off towards the
debt.
Has much of that portfolio been tapped to reduce part of the debt yet or that is being saved as a
last option to be used before all other options to help pay off the debt are exhausted?
6 – If the company manages to trim its debt load down heavily in the next few years, could
Legendary Entertainment or Embracer’s Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends be possible
acquisitions that Zaslav could pursue to grow WarnerDiscovery before preparing a company sale
down the road?
Paramount Global:
7 – Regardless of the whole drama saga that’s taking place over the company’s fate, is it possible
that in the near future, the niche BET+ streaming service could very well end up in a similar fate
as the Showtime & Noggin services, which both got folded and then integrated into Paramount+?
8 – Given former CEO Bob Bakish has been retained as a senior advisor for the company until the
end of October, is it possible he’s been kept in that capacity as a fail-safe option in case the
chosen “Office Of The CEO” trio replacement doesn’t manage to actually execute as well or even
better than him if the Redstone family determines no sale will be made except only for their own
company, National Amusements instead?
Disney:
9 – Is the intention for the ESPN flagship service that’s coming next year (not the Disney-
WarnerDiscovery-Fox joint-venture one) to be a U.S.-only service or there’s plans for it to expand
internationally later on?
General Streaming Prediction:
10 – After some of these various streamers reach their profitability stage, will they shift focus
towards continuing international expansion, improving the user interface and video streaming
capabilities, adding additional engagement features like games, digital publishing access,
shopping, etc, or doing a mix of all of them in addition to increasing their profitability?
If you can take one M&A question, would you bet on EA, Amazon, and maybe WBD as potential suitors for Paramount, after the Skydance and Sony/Apollo bids? I came up with a scenario in which Comcast has a change of heart and decides to acquire key Paramount units like the Paramount Pictures studio, Nickelodeon, and streaming units, while the remaining cable networks are spun off as a standalone publicly-traded entity.
Disney lost 600 million plus theatrically how much do these theatrical losses affect them in the grand scheme of things
Hey Matt! Been a fan/follower for a while (The Town is fantastic).
With the recent announcement of the Brad Pitt F1 movie reportedly costing $300+ million, why are studios allowing for these types of budgets on non-sequel/IP projects? Will we see this trend continue as studios go “all in” on four-quadrant films? Why can’t the studios allocate these budgets to more $30-50 million projects to give themselves a better shot at ROI?
How do you feel about the future of theatrical animated originals? Considering Disney and Pixar focusing on sequels with an original here and there, Paramount, WB, Illumination and DWA following suit but with adaptations and IP, and Sony seeming to have nothing under its banner theatrically but SpiderVerse sequels, I’m curious on if the studios are just going to focus on IP and adaptations. I know IF is a hybrid that comes out next week but it has good buzz, as does The Wild Robot. I think Elio could turn it around for Pixar if IO2 does great.
Hey Matt, we’re big Townies here at Think Jam and really appreciate the insights you share on the media & entertainment industry. Since the strike ended, studios have made a big push with extravagant global press tours — thanks Timmy and Zendaya for slaying the carpets around the world. Outside of Dune and Challengers, do you think the global press tour for Furiosa will move the needle on box office? Do you think we will continue to see these big investments in press tours through the rest of 2024?
Hello, Matt. I hope you are well.
So my questions are what lessons film studios receive from box office 2023? More video game adaptations? More milking IPs and returning franchises from decades (like Beetlejuice)? How will they find solutions about making people go to expensive theaters instead of waiting for streaming home when their milking run out?
Matt love listening to The town on my
commute. Two questions: If Paramount is sold, do you except them to wind down Paramount+ and sell each piece of content separately or sell it all to one company for a certain amount of money per year? Also a majority of Paramount+ subscribers are either on a discounted deal or get free from another company (Walmart+), how is that sustainable when all Netflix subscribers pay full price (Netflix doesn’t even have free trails)? I pay 30 bucks per year for paramount+ and pay 25 bucks per month for Netflix
>Why we shouldn’t pay much attention to opening weekends anymore
I’m curious what you mean by this. I don’t think legs have gotten better or anything, looking at the Challengers box office trajectory which was the type of film that should have had a leggy run. Or looking at The Fall Guy having a low opening but not being able to leg it out despite good word of mouth.
Hi Matt! Thank you so much for doing this!! My question is that could you please give us a definite answer of how much box office share does domestic theaters take? Is it really 50%? or does it changes over the period of release window … thank you again : )
Do you think A24 has a chance of being a wide release/100+ million grossing studio? Is it worth it for them to try?
How do you feel about the recent surge of old movie releases that end up in the top 10? Recently Spiderman, Alien, Phantom Menace? What’s with the sudden uptick in ticket sales there? Should distributors/exhibitors take this as a sign to lean in?