The Most Important Movie for Each Studio in 2025
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We're almost at the end of the month and the end of the first quarter of 2025, which was supposed to be the big return of the box office after COVID and the Hollywood strikes. Not so much, at least so far. The domestic grosses for the year are actually down about 6% compared to last year at this point and down 40% compared to the peak pre-COVID year of 2019.

Snow White tanked this weekend for Disney, and the past four weekends have come in lower than their matching weekends in 2024, despite more titles in theaters this year. Not great. The movie theater owners are all getting together next week in Vegas at CinemaCon. Craig and I will be there, too, and I'm pretty sure these studio presentations will get a little extra scrutiny this year.

That raises the question of what's on tap from these studios this year and beyond. Everyone's chasing theatrical. I put that in quotes because no one really knows what that means anymore. It's the measure of whether audiences will pay to go to a theater. And when you take these streamers out of the equation and look at each of the five major studios, they're all approaching the theatrical strategy slightly differently, depending on their assets, their IP library, and frankly, their ambitions.

So today we've got Lucas Scharr, a Monday guy here. We're going to go through the studio slates and pick the one movie for each that means the most to the strategy for the company for this year and beyond. Not necessarily the most important. It's what they need to work. And if it doesn't, what are the ramifications? It's the movie studio can't miss list. From the Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

All right, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back, Lucas. Where are you this week? I'm in Mumbai, India. Mumbai. I had lunch with a fan of the town today. Oh, you did? Oh, who was that? Are you allowed to tell us? It's a producer here. Oh, okay. I was very excited when I told her that I was taping this evening.

Wow, we have fans in Mumbai. That's nice to know. All right. We are going to do a little experiment here. We've never done this before. Given all the problems at the box office so far this year, we had a big meltdown this weekend with Snow White. We've had a couple movies that were supposed to perform and just didn't.

First quarter of the year down from last year. This is supposed to be the big comeback year. We are going to look ahead for the rest of the year and go studio by studio and pick the key movie for each studio. I'm talking about the movie that they need to perform and that says the most about the strategy for that particular studio for this year and beyond.

Yeah, a survive till 25 status check status update. Survive till 25 status check or we need something for 26 now. Like the fix in 26. I think that's got to be the mantra. So we're going to do studio by studio. Should we start with Disney? Because they've had a couple of performances already.

Yeah, they're 0 for 2 this year. I mean, Captain America did get to 400, but that's not what you want when you make a Marvel movie. You don't want 400. You want 6 to 7 at least. Yeah. They have the biggest and most ambitious slate. I think we both agree that they'll be fine by the end of the year between Avatar and Zootopia. I'm assuming that neither one of us picked those movies because those feel like pretty sure things. But they have a lot underneath that that is in the Captain America Snow White camp that, like,

could be an $800 million movie or it could be a $300 or $400 million movie. Well, and their actions suggest they don't believe in the movies because these are, many of them are movies that were pushed from last year because they wanted to get away from their activist investor. And we've now seen two of those, Captain America and Snow White, that were supposed to come out last year. They pushed to this year and lo and behold, they were not good movies and they did not do well. Yeah. All right. So do you want to go first?

I'll go first, but we talked about this earlier and I actually changed my pick and I might have changed it to, I think, what you were thinking about because I looked at the slate. So I think that the most important movie for Disney this year is actually Elio.

Agreed. I think it's Elio, actually. Elio, sorry. That's the Pixar movie, an original Pixar movie that was supposed to come out last year. They bumped it to this year so that they wouldn't, they would have Inside Out 2 as their big animated movie from last year. And it worked. They had a huge hit.

And look, you could make an argument for a couple of the Marvel movies. Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four are two efforts to sort of create new, in quotes, franchises. But I think the reason Helio matters so much is the word that you used, original. You look at Pixar original movies that have come out, and they have not had a proper hit in theaters since Cocoa.

in 2017. Elemental did fine. It rescued what initially looked like a bad performance. They had a bunch of movies during the pandemic that only came out on Disney Plus or had very limited theatrical. And then they had a couple of sequels right before the pandemic. So it's been a while since we saw if an original Pixar movie or frankly, an original animated movie could work in a big way in theaters. Yeah, I mean, that's the big question here. And we have not seen a gigantic smash hit

come out of animation and be original. I mean, look at something like Wild Robot, which did everything right last year and got critical acclaim and Oscar nominations and the whole thing. And it got to 324 worldwide. I mean, you mentioned Elemental, which got to almost 500. That's good. That's for an original movie. That's the best we've seen. But it's not what the Disney Pixar machine was doing pre-COVID. And if you look at

But Elio, it looks like a pretty straightforward kids movie. It doesn't seem, at least on the trailers we've seen, to have the adult themes and the bigger picture stuff that would lead to a larger gross. We'll see. But I agree with you. I think that is the big...

Question mark risk says a lot about the Disney strategy because these movies are not cheap. Disney still has not figured out a way to make their animated tentpole films for less than $200 million. And that is a huge problem. If the market has corrected and these movies can't do seven, 800 million for originals,

then what are they doing? Like they need to at least fix the cost structure on these movies, which maybe AI will help them, maybe outsourcing, maybe some of these other things will help them. But it's a risky proposition to do original animation at that price point in 2025 and beyond. Yeah. And look, the price matters because Disney's peers, competitors, DreamWorks Animation, Illumination and others, you know, they have also struggled to make

original movies work, but at least their cost is considerably cheaper. So you don't think Thunderbolts is an equal risk? I mean, that is a new original Marvel franchise that they have put into the early May Marvel slot that is traditionally where they put their biggest movies. And, I mean, maybe...

It's going to be a huge grosser. They're marketing it like an A24 movie. I actually think it's going to do all right. But I think both of the Marvel movies matter. Marvel has double questions, which is not only are there concerns about the newer ones launching, but the existing franchises and properties that they have, like Captain America, granted, didn't have Chris Evans, are not doing well.

as well either, right? Like Deadpool is a little bit of an anomaly because it is a movie that satirizes the other Marvel movies. And there's been all of this concern about how much interest is there in Marvel, yada, yada, yada. But with Marvel, you've got TV, you've got enough movies that do well. Pixar is a studio that makes one movie a year, one movie every couple of years.

And animation is so tied into the Disney DNA that if that part is not working well, I think that, and they're not creating new characters that can become rides and theme parks and all that. I just think that's a problem. Yeah. Okay. I agree. Let's move on. Universal.

This is a really interesting year for Universal because it's sort of their down year before they've got a gigantic 26 and 27. They have tons of sequels. They've got sequels to Megan and Bad Guys and Black Phone and Five Nights at Freddy's. They've got so many horror movies. I mean, it's insane. So what do you see as the key movie for Universal this year? I mean, it has to be the biggest one. It's got to be Jurassic.

God, I agree. Why are we agreeing? This is not a good podcast. Well, because there's no other choice with Universal. There is. Listen. You could make an argument for how to train your dragon.

If I'm Donna Langley and Michael Moses, the marketing guy there, and I'm looking at how Snow White did this weekend and I'm saying, oh crap, we've got a How to Train Your Dragon live action coming out later this year. What if people have just soured on the live action remake of the animated movie? They'll have the Lilo and Stitch test right before them. That's true. I think How to Train Your Dragon is a

feasible answer, both because Universal doesn't have a big animated movie this year and because they're taking a big property of theirs and trying to do the live action Disney thing, which they haven't done as much of. But when you're looking at a slate for Universal that is comparatively empty, right? A lot of smaller movies, not as many big swings. So it'll be perfect. They got a wicked sequel. Wicked. But that's a bird in the hand, right? So they know that that'll do decent business.

Jurassic is a franchise that just a few years ago, people felt like was running on fumes. Even if the numbers were still pretty good, it was trending in the wrong direction. And just think about, you know, rebirth is in the name. They're trying to relaunch it with new filmmaker, new star. And if that works, that has the chance to be

just a huge business for them going forward. It's their biggest franchise. It still is. Name a studio that has a guaranteed billion dollar grocer. Right. Well, they felt like they had it close to with Fast, right? But that's another one that has gotten a little tired. And it's dependent on those stars. Like...

I mean, I know they're in the Vin Diesel business and they love each other, but do you want to be tied to Vin Diesel for your biggest franchise? No. The biggest franchise is Jurassic. It's the dinosaurs. They can milk that potentially forever if they handle it right.

Right. And the potential for one of those big movies is so much greater than everything else. Yeah. And Scarlett Johansson does matter. Mahershala Ali, great actor. Like, I kind of want them to succeed here because I think those movies, as sort of middling as they are,

Hollywood needs those movies like they are reliable. People consider Jurassic to be a theatrical event for better or worse. They do. So it's going to be tough if they don't if they don't deliver there. But the movies have been trending down. So I think that the expectations for this would probably not be a billion. They've got to be in the seven, eight hundred. And then if it gets there, great. Oh, I think they got to be thinking a billion. You think so?

Probably, yeah. They're going to reverse the trend. I think they'd take 850, but they'd like to get to it. Because if it keeps going down, what does that mean for the one after it?

Yeah, no, I know. They're not doing this for this one. They're doing it for the three they plan to make. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I don't want to suggest that how to train your dragon is on the level of Snow White. The difference is millennials care about how to train your dragon and millennials care about Lilo and Stitch. Apparently that that one escapes me. But the Snow White problem is that it's just such an old property that didn't mean anything to the people who currently have children.

And how to train your dragon does mean something to families that currently have children. So hopefully it'll improve there. All right, let's move on to Warner Brothers. You want to go on to another one we're going to agree on? This one is too obvious. We are going to. No, I actually don't think so. They have a, as we've reported on many times, questionable slate this year. I just got a very funny text from someone who was at a test screening of the Paul Thomas Anderson movie that I will not relay here because...

because I do not want to taint it. But yes, let's go on to the Warner Brothers slate. You also just did taint that movie by saying you didn't want to taint it. No, I didn't. It might have been positive. You don't know. Craig, you don't know. You're assuming it's negative. Well, that's because you used the word taint. If you said, oh, I don't want to exceed expectations. Yeah, I do.

I do not want to influence the perception of this movie before it comes out. I'm not in it. Cool news in the early 2000s. I'm not reporting on test screen. Well, you kind of did, but it's okay. All right, let's go to Warner brothers. The temptation here. You're going to pick Superman. I am not going to pick Superman. Are you going to pick Minecraft? I'm picking Minecraft.

This should be a home run. This should be a out of the park, Super Mario Brothers style, all quadrant family movie built on a gigantic franchise that is so meaningful to kids under 15 that they will go to see it regardless. And there's questions about this movie.

Not just Jason Momoa's wig. There's a lot of questions about whether this movie is going to deliver. It's currently tracking. It's opening in April, but it's currently tracking to like 50, 60 million. I think this thing should open to 100. So here's the reason why you're wrong. And you said it because it's huge with people under a certain age. The difference between Minecraft and Mario is Mario had decades of

I get it, yes. And so there were people who are now in their 30s and 40s who grew up playing Mario, whereas Minecraft really only means something to people under 20, maybe under 25. And so I don't think it has the same cross-generational appeal. Now, there's an argument for Minecraft, which is that the studio chiefs who are somewhat embattled, they don't oversee DC, which we'll get to. Minecraft's coming up first. So if they've come off of Mickey 17,

Alto Knights. Alto Knights, my favorite. And then I forget what comes up first, Minecraft or Sinners, but they're right around the same time. Minecraft. Yeah, Minecraft does, but they will have had a steady drumbeat of bad news if Minecraft doesn't do that well. I think the floor on Minecraft is pretty high because of how many kids will want to see it. I just don't think it has the potential to be as big as Mario Brothers, certainly not with the materials that I've seen that don't look good. But we are talking about what these movies mean for the larger studio strategy. So I think DC and Superman...

is way, way, way more important. Minecraft would be something, if Minecraft works and becomes a franchise for them, like Mario can be for Universal, that's amazing. Yeah, and Warners needs to be able to have franchises beyond DC. That is my point.

Correct, but they need DC to actually be a successful lucrative franchise for them. And Superman is the biggest swing. It's the whole reinvention of DC under James Gunn and Peter Safran rests on that movie. If Superman flops, what happens with their whole 10-year plan to be the new Marvel? I know, but it's not going to flop. The fear is that it's going to get into that $400 million no-man's land where people show up and...

and yet they don't care, they don't remember, they don't want more. My opinion, and I'll probably get an angry call from Warner Brothers, if that movie doesn't cross 700, it's not a huge success. It's just not.

Yeah, I mean, look at some of the movies that we now consider flops in the DC canon, like Justice League. They actually did okay. They did okay, I know. They did okay. It's just that nobody cares about them. And when they saw them, they hated them. Well, the real issue was that it got compared to Marvel, right? And this was when Marvel, like everything they touched seemed to hit a billion dollars. And so the fact that DC was stuck in the 600 to 800 range with these characters didn't seem good enough. But now 600 to 800 is very solid.

Do you guys think Marvel's success helps DC's success? Do you think one buoys the other? Do you think if Marvel is succeeding, that the general interest in superhero movies is up, which then helps DC? Or is it the opposite? I think it helps. I think at this point, these studios are cheering for each other to have successes in theaters. It's not like the old days where you want your rivals to fail. Like, everybody wants theatrical to be viable. And unless your movie is opening exactly opposite

another movie, or you're fighting for IMAX screens or something like that. I think that these studios now are excited when there's a big hit from a rival studio because A, it shows that people are still interested in theaters. B, they're seeing the trailers when they go to these theaters and they're potentially getting more interested and movie going gets movie going. I think the failure is a bigger issue than the success. I do think that the success of Marvel helped

and in some ways vice versa. But when the movies start to not work and there's this perception that superhero movies aren't that good anymore or there's a lack of enthusiasm, it does bring down the whole genre. Agreed. Agreed. We're agreeing way too much. This is not, I don't like this.

This episode is brought to you by AMC+. Dark Winds is back. Produced by Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin, this all-new season of the critically acclaimed AMC Studios series has been praised for its exhilarating storytelling, breathtaking southwestern landscape, and captivating indigenous cast. Binge the first and second seasons now and stream season three of Dark Winds only on AMC+. Learn more at amcplus.com.

This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios, The Amateur. When his wife is murdered, Charlie Heller, the CIA's most brilliant computer analyst, must trek across the globe and use his only weapon, his intelligence, to hunt down her killers and enact revenge. Starring Academy Award winner Rami Malek and Academy Award nominee Lawrence Fishburne. Amateur. Rated PG-13. Only in theaters April 11th.

Are we going to do Paramount or Sony? Let's do Paramount next. What do you got for the movie that matters the most to them? I'm going to admit that this is not the movie that matters the most, but it's the biggest wild card. And I'm going to go with the Trey Parker movie on July 4th. Oh, I almost picked that. We know nothing about a movie that is coming out in two and a half months. This is the South Park guys collaboration with Kendrick Lamar, your favorite.

It is a racially tinged rom-com, I am told. The initial reporting on it, they changed it a little bit. It is not, there is a slave element to it, but it is not what people thought it was at the beginning. And it is a very politically incorrect rom-com from the South Park guys collaborating with Kendrick Lamar. And there's original music in it. Yeah.

The reason I'm picking it is because, look, you'll probably say Mission, and it is their biggest movie of the year, and they need to figure out what they're doing with the franchise to last another performance. That is what I was going to pick. Right. But I think Mission, like with some of these other ones we have, like, Mission will do okay no matter what. Maybe okay is not good enough. That's not good enough, yeah. That movie cost $400 million. But I think Paramount desperately needs...

new movies, new hits, new something, right? Because there's... Mission is also the end of the franchise, theoretically. Come on, Craig. It's never the end. Come on. I'm just saying, for a while, it's the end of the... It's most likely the end of, like, the traditional Tom Cruise Mission Impossible. Not if it's a hit. And the reason why I was going to pick it is because... I think it's the end. I think it's the end. Guess who's a producer-financier on Mission Impossible? Skydance. Skydance.

And Skydance is about to take over the studio and they want this to be a viable franchise going forward. Look, Paramount decided to take the somewhat risky movie and put it in the middle of summer. It's their July 4th weekend movie. So that means they think it has the potential to be a big hit. The South Park movie. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's with one of their most important partners. Like after Taylor Sheridan at this point, Trey and Matt are at or near the top of the list of people that matter. And you are their unofficial spokesperson. So I trust you. And they haven't made a new movie in...

When was Team America? Long, long time ago. Long time ago. I mean, they've had other stuff. They've been doing Broadway. They made a lot of money from Book of Mormon. I'm not worried about them financially. They've made enough money from South Park that they never have to work again. But they've been hit and miss in movies. Like the humor, I love them. And I think the South Park movie is one of the best animated movies of all time. But, you know, this could be basketball.

One, I will defend baseball. Two, yes, animation they haven't missed. South Park and Team America were hits. Yes, those are both great. No, listen, I am excited. This is probably the movie I'm most excited about for this year. I mean, we talk so much about fucking original movies, right? You've got two of the kind of the great creators of the modern Hollywood era.

with one of the most interesting and influential musicians in the world teaming up on a new movie. If that doesn't work, like, what are we doing this for? I know. And then you look at the rest of the Paramount slate for the year and it's like Smurfs, the Naked Gun, the Running Man. Like, yeah, I hope this one works too. Apparently, the premise as it was described to me initially was that it's a rom-com where it is revealed that the ancestors of the guy were owned...

as slaves by the ancestors of the girl. And it's like a guess who's coming to dinner situation, which is like gone horribly twisted. I think I heard some version of that too, but I admit I haven't. No, but I followed up on it. It's actually, it's not that now. They tweaked it a little bit. So it's something a little different from that.

that. Right. This is going to be Donald Trump's favorite movie of the year. Exactly. I know. How will it drop into the whole culture wars? Fox News, their head might explode. That would be good for box office, probably. Yeah. And Kendrick, obviously very hot right now. Okay. Enough of that. Let's move on to Sony. Sony, God, this slave. I want to hear, could you find one that you thought was

I do. I have one. I mean, I feel a little bad for them. It's weird that Sony only has like 11 movies they are releasing. It's very slight. Very, very slight. They did like seven Spider-Man movies last year, so they don't have any this year. No, that wasn't last year. That was the year before, I think. No, no. They had Madam Web and Venom. Oh, those Spider-Man movies. Yeah, no, sorry. I'm talking about the spinoff. I have already purged them from my consciousness of severance.

But yeah, Sony, the one that's interesting to me is 28 years later. That would have been my pick. Yeah. I mean, this is an interesting one because Sony is so desperate for franchises. They just don't have that many franchises. And the ones that they have kind of engineered over the past two years, like,

you know, Jumanji and Ghostbusters. Those are kind of lagging, although they do have a new Jumanji in the works, but they are in the market for anything franchise related that they can pick up. Like they did a Garfield movie. They picked up Paddington and they picked up this sequel package to 28 Days Later from Danny Boyle. And they see this as a three movie trilogy franchise if this first one can work. And it's a zombie movie.

It's going to come right after Last of Us. And I think given the pedigree of the filmmakers, I think this could actually work. And it says a lot about the Sony strategy because they are so in need of franchises that they will buy them if they come on the market and they just need them to work. And this needs to work.

The issue with it is, you know, we looked at the Universal slate and we talked about Jurassic, even though they had a bunch of horror movies that will almost certainly be bigger than this movie. The original 28 Days Later made like $80 million at the box office. I mean, even if this thing is a huge hit, we're talking, what, a couple hundred million dollars? I think $300 is a big win. Yeah. So I cheated.

I decided that I was not going to pick a Sony movie because I just didn't see one on the calendar. You're going to pick the Tarantino movie that they would have had if you had decided to make it? No, I'm picking Marty Supreme.

So I think the most interesting swing, a way more interesting risk, risk reward scenario than any Sony movie this year is the A24 movie from one of the Safdie brothers with Timothee Chalamet. A24 is... And Gwyneth Paltrow and Intimacy Coordinator. And Gwyneth Paltrow has been talking a lot about their sex scenes, yes. A24 is...

trying to fund their own movies, trying to make much bigger, more commercial movies. It's a very big risk for them. They've raised a bunch of money. They've got a big valuation and they need some of these self-produced, self-financed movies to work. This is the biggest one of the year. And if this thing doesn't, they've got a few of them this spring that look, you know, we'll see how they do. But this one's got to work.

Yeah, I think it will. Timmy, man, Timmy has shown he's a draw. $100 million for the Bob Dylan movie. Like, that's decent for that. But the Safdie brothers have not exactly been like box office juggernauts. And I think Timmy is a big added value moment. Look, I'm excited to see it, but it is an unknown, unproven commodity. And as you know, our own personal beliefs do not factor in at all. Yes. Just because we're excited to see the Kendrick Lamar movie doesn't mean everyone else is. Yeah.

I know. I feel like we're projecting a little bit. All right. We will see. Thank you, Lucas. Thanks, Matt. We're back with the call sheet. Craig, you're a big Bourne guy, Jason Bourne.

Yeah, I'm a fan of the Bourne movies. I've even seen the Jeremy Renner one. Oh, you have? Yeah. I don't believe I saw that one. I thought maybe I did. There are four Bourne movies with Matt Damon. We will acknowledge, I guess, reluctantly, the fifth one with Jeremy Renner that came between three and four. That's Renner, man. He's had two opportunities for big action franchises, and both of them have...

Had his shot and then they went back to the original star with Mission Impossible and Bourne. I could read an entire article about like spinoff movies with new characters that they tried to make work that didn't work. And they just kind of pretended it didn't happen. The like franchise extension IP management move to bring in a new star. Like Shia LaBeouf is the next Indiana Jones. They just kind of let that go.

Yeah. So we got word from Hollywood Reporter last week that the Bourne rights are up for grabs. Universal's contract with the Ludlam estate has expired. They tried to put together a version with Edward Berger, which sounds like it would have been cool, but didn't work. And now the rights are up for grabs. And Universal could...

come in and get them back. But most likely they will try a new studio to try to reinvigorate. I doubt Matt Damon is going to have anything to do with it. He only did the other ones because of Paul Greengrass involvement. The most likely scenario is that I'll go to a new studio or streamer and they will try to reboot it and have a new look and feel to it. So is the IP just a free agent now? Or did Universal get first dibs at trying to retain it? Or is that not how that works? No, the contract expired.

So they had a certain amount of time to put together a new movie. The Edward Burger thing didn't come to fruition and the contract expired. It wasn't like a termination thing. But now it's on the block and they're testing the waters. They've got WME shopping it. And there's a lot of potential buyers out there. I don't think Amazon...

would do it because they have Bond and that's a little bit similar, the sort of international super spy thing. But Netflix would certainly be interested in this. It seems to be in their wheelhouse. They're looking for IP. They could make these movies for 80, a hundred million dollars with the right star. And they could be, you know, Netflix style movies, uh,

The more likely scenario in my prediction is that this will go to a traditional studio. And honestly, I think Skydance is probably looking at this and saying, hey, this could be something we can do something with at Paramount when that deal closes. So I think Skydance probably would pony up for these rights.

Do you think that the Ludlum estate would want the Bourne movies and whatever's to come of them to be on Netflix and be watched on televisions at home? That's the thing is, you know, I have no original reporting on this. I've not spoken to the WME reps for the Ludlum estate, but you got to assume that the traditional studios do have a little bit of an advantage here because they're used to having these movies be released as big theatrical movies and not as

as Netflix streaming movies. The upside for Netflix, obviously, is they have that huge audience. They've got the worldwide platform and they know they'll be seen. But I got to think that if you're looking at this as a big movie franchise, you kind of want big movie theaters. And who knows? It needs to stay in theaters. Otherwise, it'll become extraction on Netflix. You can't do that, especially if it's not Matt Damon.

Maybe, but you know what? Amazon's had a lot of success with like the adaptations of the white guy with a gun books with Jack Ryan and Reacher. And, you know, this could be the Netflix version of that or even Apple or one of those. I just think that the experience that Ludlam Estate had with the theatrical success and the Ludlam books should be bigger than they are. Like that guy was a huge author.

It seems like these spy characters would be very relevant these days, although maybe some of the Cold War politics is not as relevant. But I think Skydance will go for this in a significant way. Obviously, Netflix can just blow everyone out of the water and pay whatever they want. But in this situation, I think the theatrical component will be a factor. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horlbeck, RIT do Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you later this week.