← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This episode of the Town is presented to you by AMC Networks. Billy Magnuson and Zach Galifianakis star in the new series the Audacity on AMC and amc. Plus, influence rises, people unravel, and CEO meltdowns are business as usual among Silicon Valley elite. Executive produced by Jonathan Glatzer, a writer, producer of Succession and Better Call Saul, The Audacity premieres April 12th only on AMC and AMC. Plus this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com thetown that's LinkedIn.com thetown Terms and conditions apply. It is Friday, April 3rd. Why do movies seem to be getting longer and longer? It's an issue Craig and I talk about a lot, and I often get asked by people outside the business. It does feel that way, right? Project Hail Mary, the current hit. It's 2 hours and 36 minutes, a length that would probably be unthinkable for a family film a decade or two ago. One battle after another. The Best Picture winner. That one's 242, though you don't hear too many people complaining when they like the movie. And those are just two examples. Question is, what does the data say about movie length? The film researcher Stephen Follows has crunched the runtime numbers on more than 36,000 films from 1980 to 2025. Turns out the average movie has actually not gotten longer. It's remained about 102 minutes for decades now. It's pretty interesting, right? Not what I would have thought, but. And there is a big but here. The movies that get wide releases in movie theaters, that's defined here as movies that GROSS More than $10 million at the box office. Those have gotten longer, about 15 minutes longer over the past 20 years. So you're not crazy by Genre, it's largely action movies that have gotten longer, not comedies or horror. And dramas in theaters have actually gotten shorter. So the question is why? At a time when attention spans are pretty clearly getting shorter, especially among young people, why are studios putting movies in theaters and asking their customers to spend more time there? It's a complicated issue and it requires more than just data. So I asked Todd Garner, the producer, to come on the show to discuss. Todd's not only an experienced producer of many movies, he's got the upcoming Mortal Kombat 2, and he's produced tons of studio titles. Comedies with Adam Sandler, action films like Triple X, Gone in 60 Seconds, Movies for theaters and streaming movies like Vacation Friends. And he was also a top executive at Disney in the 90s. He's got a great podcast called the Producer's Guide and a great perspective on the business. So we're gonna discuss the root causes of longer length and what the studios think about this issue. And we'll attempt to answer the age old question, why are so many movies so damn long? From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is the town. All right, we with Todd Garner, producer, podcaster. Miss. Anything there?
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B
Nope.
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A
Okay, good. Yeah, welcome.
- [03:47]
B
Not necessarily even in that order.
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A
Right. Okay, well, I wanted to have you on the show because this is a topic that comes up all the time, both on this show and in conversations around town. It's like the length of movies. People perceive it to be an out of control problem. The movies have gotten longer. Longer, longer. Studios do not know how to say no to directors. The leverage of the streamers has forced these traditional studios to acquiesce where they may have known better and would have taken a cut to the movie a generation ago. Now they just let it be. But finally, you and I got some data here from the researcher, Stephen Follows, where you asked him to look at the data and say, okay, are movies actually getting longer? And the result was a bit surprising to me because the result is that movies in general have not gotten longer. It's just the movies that go to theaters have gotten longer or the movies that GROSS More than $10 million. So the. The movies that get wide releases, basically. Did that surprise you?
- [04:57]
B
Well, yes and no. I mean, it's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy because that's. The movies the studios are making are big IP, big action movies, movies that cost over, you know, $100 million. Billy Ray and I were speaking about it and he. The writer. Yeah, Billy Ray the writer famously says it's easier to get a $200 million movie made today than a $20 million movie. So I think it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy because comedies aren't being released wide anymore. And it's very hard to get adult dramas release wide. And they have a tendency to be around the 90 minute mark.
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A
Yeah, those movies have actually not. I mean, the data, let's just go through the data. Because the average movie has not gotten longer. It's been about 102 minutes for decades now. That's, that's the average. But the movies that GROSS More than $10 million in theaters, they have gotten 15 minutes longer over the past 20 years. Today it's over 120 minutes. That's two hours. Used to be 107 minutes. That's where people are picking up on it. And you're right, it's the action films. Action has gone from averaging 102 minutes in the 1980s movies that you and I love, you know, the Schwarzenegger movies, Van Damme, all of those were, you know, much shorter. Today they are 116 minutes. And comedy and horror have actually not changed at all. That's what's interesting. And dramas have gotten shorter when they're in theaters, which doesn't surprise me because people were more likely to see dramas in theaters before. So those movies might have been a little more, you know, sort of given them a little bit longer leash. It's the action movies. The I, the age of IP has given the studios and the directors, I think, a feeling that they have to go longer on these movies. Do you agree? Do you, do you hear that feedback from studios?
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B
Oh, oh, wait. Well, I mean, I have a movie coming out called Mortal Kombat 2 and the fans want it to be longer. I mean, it's, it's so, so it's, I think, I think you hit on half of it, which is that these big movies are now filmmaker driven. I can remember now the movies that we're talking about, the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, the Bruce Willis movies, those used to be producer driven, right? So, so you think about Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer and those guys back in the day, Larry Gordon, back in the day, they would preview the movies nine times out of ten the audience would say it's too long and they would go to town on it and make it shorter. And in fact, Joel Silver used to have a thing called the Wham O chart where every 15 minutes he had to have a giant explosion or some sort of action beat happen.
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A
The Whammo Chart. I love it.
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B
Yeah. To keep the audience, to keep the audience interested. So I think you're right, half right, that now these really talented, really good filmmakers are working in those genres ip, the Marvel Universe, dc, et cetera. Plus they're making the only big originals that are getting made, you know, are Christopher Nolan or big huge filmmakers like Jim Cameron or Quentin. And so if you look at the 150 minute Nova Club, it's pretty much all those, those guys in the original space.
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A
Yeah. And Jim was on this show and said that when he was previewing Avatar 3 for Bob Iger and the suits at Disney, Iger was like, no, we're good on time. Like, don't need to cut. That's fine. Like don't. And this is a movie that's over three and a half hours.
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B
Yeah. Well, it earns it. Right. So I think, like you and I talked about this offline when you first reached out to me, which is Project hail Mary is 156 minutes long and I loved every minute of it. Right. So no one complains about a long movie. That's good. And I think so I think one half of it is, yes. You're having big filmmakers with a lot of power telling the stories they want to tell. And look, they're artists and they're filmmakers and they have a 10.
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A
Isn't that the problem a little bit that every filmmaker thinks their movie is great and theirs is going to be the Project Hail Mary that nobody minds if it's 2 hours, 35 minutes and most of them are ending up being wrong?
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B
I don't know about that because I think that if you look at the biggest movies of the last few years, a lot of them are over two hours long.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So I think Alexander Payne once said, like, just make the movie as short as it is good. You know, a two hour comedy is sometimes death, but if you're laughing along the way, then maybe it deserves it. But I also think that the other half of it is in this IP driven Marvel dc. I'm seeing it with Mortal Kombat. The fans love it. They want to get into it. They're seeing Easter eggs that no one sees. So you may be correct that if you're not a hardcore fan of the Marvel Universe or the DC Universe, you're not getting all those Easter eggs. You're not getting. Oh my God. That was exactly a frame. Like this Spider man trailer that just came out. The fans were all like, that's a frame from volume one. They know everything. So they're enjoying it in a different way. And it's sort of luscious to them in a different way than a casual fan is. So you're not getting those dopamine hits that they're getting. Right. And so we've been so trained on our phones to need that dopamine hit every few minutes that if they're, if you're not getting it, you're like, oh, my God, this movie is just interminable.
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A
Right.
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B
But if you're getting that dopamine rush because you're seeing things that the casual fan wouldn't see. And by the way, if you're a filmmaker, if you're Kevin Feig or you're James Gunn, you want those fans to get those dopamine hits because they're the loudest. So it's a hard one.
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A
Well, it's a little bit about how fan culture has kind of taken over the movie making process as well in many cases with these larger movies where you got to satisfy the fans. And I've, I've spoken to studio executives about this, and there is a feeling that if you are going to justify the theatricality of the movie, there needs to be added value or the perception of added value. And that's where you get to three or four endings where these superhero movies, they have a climax and then the villain's got to turn into a giant version of the villain, where you then have to battle that. So there's a, there's a perception that if you're battling streaming here and you're battling phones and all the other things out there, the movie needs to be perceived as an event. And a way to do that is to lengthen the movie.
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B
Yeah, and more is more. Right, but. And so there's two issues with that on the, that's the positive side. So if you're a fan, you, you're getting that, you're getting the, oh, and the next rush. Oh, and this, the two endings and the mid credit and the end credit, you're getting all that. If you're a person who has kids, you're trying to go out for the night, you park your car, you have 45 minutes of previews. The movie's three hours. That's a big commitment. That's one piece of it. And then the second piece of it, on the negative side is unlike streaming or your phone can't just stop it and use the restroom. So you're sort of feeling like this guilt of like, am I going to miss something? Am I going to walk out? It's all awkward to walk out sometimes. So movies have a higher bar in that regard of, you know, making the audience feel good, feel that they got their money's worth, but not overstaying their welcome.
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A
But in studio conversations do you ever hear pushback, that the movie's getting too long or get it down under 2?
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B
Well the 2 hour thing is an interesting thing because that, that is a, that's sort of old school. That's like you're probably even you're used
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A
to be in the contracts. Right.
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B
Well the reason why is because of vhs.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So you didn't, I don't know if you guys remember going to Blockbuster and you had like the two out like the Titanic on vhs. You're like God damn, it's two hours, it's two tapes.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do remember that.
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B
So that was a thing, that was a real thing in the late 80s, early 90s.
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A
Well also they were being formatted for television as well for sure. And they wanted to fit with commercials. If you had a 1 hour 40 minute comedy that was perfect for a 2 hour slot with commercials, I can
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B
tell you I have never in my 30 plus years of making movies as a studio executive, as a producer ever at a preview, audience heard them say make it longer. And I've never heard a marketing guy ever come out of a preview and go, you know what? That movie was 20 minutes too short. Like it's just the nature of the beast of like well if you loved it at two hours, you're going to really love it at, you know, 110 minutes. Right.
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A
So yet it persists. Yet in this genre of action movies the length persists. And with some of these awards movies the length persists.
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B
Well you said it right, you're living by the sword and you're diving, dying by the sword. If you're going to be in business and you're going to let Christopher Nolan direct a Batman movie, you have made a deal with him because you so appreciate his talent and you're going to let him tell his story and because he's an artist, he's not going to go for the wham o chart. He wants stuff to sit and breathe for a minute and you've made that deal and it's paid off by the way, every single person that's ever worked with him. So I think that if you're. And it's so much more, the studios now are really putting so much faith in the director because what else do we have to put faith in, in the business?
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A
Well, Sydney Sweeney but yeah, go ahead.
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B
And so true. In the right genre. Yes. And so, you know, if you're, if you're going to make that deal for, you know, the 15th DC movie or the 75th Marvel movie and you're getting a filmmaker like Ryan Coogler, you're probably not after a Preview, go, it's 20 minutes too long. Figure it out. You're, you know, you're dealing with an artist, so you want to be smart about it.
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A
And the data shows that the bigger the budget, the longer the film. $100 million plus movies now average 129 minutes and 20 years ago it was 122 minutes. So that is proof of, you know, evidence of what you are arguing there. If you're entrusting your big franchise movie to the filmmaker, you're making it whatever they want to make it.
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B
Yeah. And back in the day, the producers, you know, they're, they're, they're much more amenable to the audience and they, and they are much more eager to give the audience what they want if they're the ones who are, you know, the movie is branded after.
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A
I don't know, though. You just mentioned, you just mentioned Bruckheimer. F1, the movie. 2 hours, 35 minutes.
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B
Well, he learned that from pirates too. So, so I will say this about Jerry.
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A
Pirates, also very long movies. Top Gun, Maverick, very long.
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B
Well, I've made, I've made, I think between, I think like 10 or 11 movies with Jerry. And I will say this, he is 100% always backs the filmmaker, but we'll also know where he's starting to feel a little restless. He is the audience. So if you're getting those dopamine hits in a way that, that propels it along, he is the first person to say keep it in because you'd rather have a lot of good stuff than just take good stuff out just to fit in some sort of arbitrary length.
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A
Greg, you had something.
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C
Well, I just wanted to point out, you guys haven't mentioned the exact numbers yet about the really long movies and how much that has gone up where I feel like, because the average film, like there's a lot of horror and comedy and drama that's kept the average down. But the percentage of very long films has gone way up. Films over two hours went from 16% of wide releases in the 80s to 40% in the 2000s. And films over two and a half hours went from 2% to nearly 10%, which is a huge jump that when you go to the theaters now A lot of these movies are minimum over two hours and most of them over two and a half.
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B
Well, we have the 150 Club here, so there's the 10 in the last 10 years. And you'll know the director of every one of them, right? Oppenheimer, Avatar, the Way of the Water, the Irishman, Avengers, Endgame, Zack Snyder's Justice League, the Batman, Dune. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. No Time to Kill in the Hateful Eight. So it's like it's a lot of Quentin and a lot of Nolan and Cameron and Scorsese. He's responsible for most of them.
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A
Right.
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B
And artists, geniuses, auteurs of our time. And if you're. I defy any horror studio executive to say to any of those gentlemen, you know what? We could lose time.
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A
But here's the thing is that with exceptions, those movies all did well. Yes, the audience did not seem to care. At least the numbers show that if
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C
the movie is good, it doesn't matter and people probably like it even more.
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A
The kind of movie that comes from your favorite filmmaker of choice.
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B
And Brutalists.
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A
Yeah, the Brutalist. I mean, we don't have to talk about the artsy movies because there's always going to be those. I don't think the Brutalist was a mainstream hit, even though it got a bunch of Oscar nominations. Like that movie was never going to be huge. But the movies that do have an audience, if the movie is long and it's good and the filmmaker has a fan base, it doesn't seem to matter. The question we have not addressed here is, do the theater owners have any voice here? Because they don't like this. Every time a movie's over two and a half hours, they lose an evening show out of that and it can impact the box office. I've talked to executives at theater chains about this exact issue and they feel powerless. They nervously check that runtime when it's finally delivered to them.
- [18:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, it was way worse when it was one theater and that was it. Now that you have multiplexes, you can move stuff around. And I will say yes. I'm sure they would love for everything to make $200 million and run 90 minutes. That would be a dream because you could just keep rolling it over in the same theater, but because they have the ability to move things around, with the exception of imax. Really. But even in your IMAX theaters, you probably have some 70 millimeter and some digital prints as well. In your theater, you can move stuff around and it's not like look at this summer. It's not like there's so many movies that the theaters are throwing their hands up going, oh no, a two and a half hour movie. We're going to lose a showing because you can slide a movie that's maybe not doing as well at night down earlier.
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A
I noticed it last weekend when AMC added more screens for Project Hail Mary and there were things that were added during the weekend because they were noticing a surge in. In interest in that one. I get that.
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B
And probably there was a couple movies that weren't that were either at the end of the run or weren't performing as well that, that got the.
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C
Yeah, there's not enough going on. It used to be there was like four or five big movies at a timeout and now it's like it's just Project Hill Mary for three weeks.
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A
Well, we'll see this weekend. This weekend's going to be packed in theaters with Mario and Project Hail Mary. And Hoppers is still doing well, so. And they got a. A 24 movie that's a wide release in the drama. But, but I get it, that's. It's less of an issue when you have multiple options there.
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B
Yeah. When you're at the Cinerama Dome, it was harder. Right. If you're showing a Quentin movie, you're showing it three times, not four.
- [19:57]
A
Yes, but Quentin owns his theaters now, so he doesn't have to worry about it.
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B
There you go. Smart man.
- [20:06]
D
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- [21:36]
E
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- [22:06]
A
So let's talk about the streamers, because there is a perception out there that the streamers do not care about length. It's actually better for them if movies are longer because it's more engagement, it's more time spent and the data doesn't really get into whether the streaming only movies are longer or do you get the sense when you make a movie for streamers that they care at all about this issue?
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B
Yes. I mean, well, they have a different issue because their barrier to entry is so low that if you aren't and they track it to the second, they can tell you the moment people checked out. So if you're not keeping people interested the whole time, you're going to lose them. Much different than in a theater. You don't have 50% of the people walking out on on streamers. You're like, nope, I'm out. So.
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A
So they have a version of the Wham O test. The Joel Joel Silver is genius and created a test that the streamers now use.
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B
Yes. And so they you want to make sure you keep your audience engaged the entire way because you will lose them. So. So I've never had them say hey, can you make it longer? Because we Want to hold the eyeballs longer. Because that's not going to work if you have a shitty movie. If it's eight minutes long, it's not going to work. Right. So it doesn't matter if you've made it an hour, 20 or 90 minutes. So it's like, okay, that 10 minutes, is that going to matter? Well, no, not if it's not good. If it's good, you got an extra 10 minutes of people watching, staying on this site. So they, they have a much different metric. But you're right, they don't care as much if the movie's playing great. They're not. There's not some arbitrary number that they're trying to hit. They're like, but.
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A
But they want it front loaded is what you're saying.
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B
Yes and no. I know there's been that, like I guess Matt talked about you have to restate the plot every 15 minutes. I have never heard that from them. But what I do know is yeah, you got to grab them from. Same thing back in the day. Those movies you're talking about too, right? The Arnold's movies. You always had a pre credit, right? Someone always like Lethal Weapon, you know, she jumped off a building or someone gets shot. You set up this, you grab the audience. So that is definitely true at Netflix. You want, they're going to click on it. You want to hold them to get them into the story so that, that is a true statement. But beyond that you got to hold them the rest of the way as well. So they have, they have a different set of issues because the walkout is, the walkout is so easy.
- [24:26]
A
Yeah. But the version of that for Netflix is the periodic grab moment. The consistent. There can't be a long. Do you get that specific feedback from Netflix? We this, there's too long between set pieces. There's too long between moments.
- [24:46]
B
I haven't had that from the executives. You will definitely hear that from the audience. I mean the audience will usually tell you. And having, you know, it's the most fun and the most hectic and the most painful is that preview. You feel it when you're sitting in there and you're like, oh, this is, this is 20 minutes, nothing happening. If you can reduce that pain by pushing those good moments together, then great. But again, if you're working with a really high end, powerful filmmaker, they may love that. That may be the exact thing they want is for that slow pondering feeling before the thing kicks in again. That's the difference to me between Raiders of Lost Ark 1 and 2 Raiders of Lost Ark 1, you have these quiet moments where they're talking. Raiders of The Lost Ark 2 is just balls to the wall. Action, action, action, action. I prefer the first one, quite frankly.
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A
Yeah. But the audience maybe not. I don't know.
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B
Well, the audience probably would tell you. Yeah, the audience probably would tell you. Oh, those, those moments are a little slow. And if, and if you're not, you know, if you're not Spielberg and Lucas, you may fall trapped to that.
- [25:53]
A
Yeah. The interesting thing also in the data is that it's not a franchise problem per se. The franchises actually they, they both got longer standalone films and franchise films. The only. The gap between them is only about three minutes. So it's not like once you have a big IP driven franchise, that's when the, the rails come off and you can make these movies as long as you want. A lot of these movies are long to begin with. And I think that's a, that's a, it's a reflection of the kind of action superhero age where if you're launching something. Yes. You want more bang for your buck in it.
- [26:34]
B
Yeah. Well. And if you're, if you're a massive fan of Spider man and you're watching this movie and like I said, and you're a deep fan, you're gonna get the deep cuts and the little tiny Easter eggs that probably you or I wouldn't get if we're not that deep into the lore and they're loving it. And the filmmakers are very aware of that. And so when they get those little moments where people are going on online, going, did you see in minute 52 where the thing that was right, that's what you want to keep engagement with your fans who are the ground zero of when you're making a movie. No one. You're not just going to get. Probably walk ins to the, to the fourth Avengers. Those people have, those people have been there with you. And the people that do walk in, that's not really your core audience.
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A
I know. Although, although. The problem then became with Avengers is everybody, it was like, I can't follow this. It's too much homework.
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B
Well, that, that, that's a whole different story.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah. Let's look at your movies because you could go in the Craig Horbeck hall of Fame here. Craig does not like long movies. Your runtime across 41 films that you have produced is 102 minutes. Congratulations. Like, you are a hero.
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B
But it's a little bit, it's a little bit of a skewed result because I Do a lot of comedies.
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A
True.
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B
That's okay.
- [27:52]
A
You know what? Take the W. Take the W. It's okay. Only one film of yours is, is over two hours, and that's Pearl Harbor.
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B
Yeah, well, and that movie is a big giant movie that had a lot to say and so it probably deserved that length.
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A
Yeah. Releasing Oppenheimer at three hours is a ballsy move, I think. Only Nolan, only Nolan gets that. The other filmmakers, if this were a minus filmmaker, it's two and a half hours.
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B
Yeah. I didn't even know that any minus filmmaker could even get that movie made, quite frankly.
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A
I mean, maybe not.
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B
I mean, that's the thing. He's the goat.
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A
Netflix would do it. Netflix would do it for sure.
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B
Yeah.
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A
All right. Well, this is fascinating. I don't think this is a problem. This is a pacing problem rather than a length problem. I personally don't like long movies, but I don't think the business cares. As long as the audience is there and they keep showing up. For these longer movies, I don't think we're going to see any change.
- [28:55]
C
I think it's a lot of the slower stuff like crime 101 was like 220 or like. Yeah, I remember like Den of Thieves 2 was two and a half hours and it's like the, the big set piece movies I understand a little bit more. No one's going to be mad that Dune 2 is long. I'm not mad that Dune. Dune 2 is long. It's kind of the more like middle of the road movies where I'm like, this should be tighter.
- [29:13]
A
Yeah.
- [29:13]
B
Well, here's what, here's what we didn't talk about, which you're probably right, Craig. Especially in those mid level kind of sequels or one, something like Crime 101, they probably tested well because your, your buy in to the test, your recruit ratio is probably higher, so your buy ins already. If you're going to den of thieves 2, you probably love den of thieves 1. And you're not gonna tell the filmmakers it's too long. You're gonna be like, oh, it was great. So they're not aware, they're not looking for that. And just a casual fan like you is like, oh my God, this is brutal. I mean, as long as it delivers like Project Hail Mary where that movie ended and everybody just sat there in stunned silence and even watched the telescope images in the credits because they just had such an amazing time. As long as we keep going down that track, I don't see that there's a problem with it.
- [29:59]
A
And the sequel will be three and a half hours. So we'll see. All right, thank you, Todd. Appreciate the time.
- [30:04]
B
Thank you, Matt.
- [30:07]
A
We are back with the call sheet. Craig, you and I went to the premiere of the drama last week a couple weeks ago. It's always fun when you see a movie before the press and reviews hit because surprises are still surprises. At least it was for me. And this movie has a big surprise in it. The drama Zendaya, Robert Pattinson. We don't do reviews on this show. But you know what? Give me a review.
- [30:36]
C
I really enjoyed the movie. I agree that it's, it's very surprising in certain ways. The marketing suggests that it kind of takes some interesting turns but it. You're not prepared for what actually happens in the movie.
- [30:46]
A
No, let's, let's review the marketing on this movie because it's an interesting one. It has a very dark turn in it and a very kind of non commercial element. Yet the marketing for this movie is, correct me if I'm wrong. It's basically positioning it as fun rom com with an indie sensibility. Right?
- [31:06]
C
Yeah. If you, if you really focus on the trailer, you can see that they are suggesting things will turn. But if you're just kind of seeing billboards and posters, you think this is more of just a comedy with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya.
- [31:18]
A
I cannot wait to see social media when this, when real people start seeing this movie.
- [31:24]
C
This is a movie that will have very strong word of mouth. This will be a great dinner party movie. A lot of people will dis. If you go see this with friends, you will talk about it for hours.
- [31:32]
A
Which is why I think the cinema score might suffer. It might get a low cinema score because it's not necessarily what people expect. But for a 24 in releasing this movie, they kind of don't care as long as they open. They just want this movie to open. It's a $30 million romantic comedy. Ish. With Zendaya. If they can get TO Challengers numbers $100 million worldwide on this, they're going to be very happy. So let's look at the tracking. It's 15 million for the weekend domestic according to NRG. Energy has it at 16. I've seen a little lower. So we'll set the line at 15. That is exactly what Challengers opened to two years ago. So do we think this is going to out open challengers? Is Robert Pattinson the added element that gets this over 15 or not?
- [32:20]
C
I'm going to say yes. I think.
- [32:22]
A
Oh, you Are.
- [32:23]
C
Yeah.
- [32:23]
A
You believe in Zendaya as a movie star?
- [32:25]
C
I mean, we're talking about $50 million opening, but. Yes, Yes, I do. I think Pattinson and Zendaya are close to as big as you can get for people under 40 years old. And the marketing suggests that this is a funny comedic wedding drama. And I think that will work on the opening weekend. Enough to get over 15.
- [32:42]
A
I am going to take the under.
- [32:44]
B
Okay.
- [32:45]
A
I just think that the word of mouth travels so fast now and the word's going to get around that maybe it's not what it looks like and it's a little darker and oh, my God, maybe the stunt factor will work. I don't think it's going to get above 15. I just don't. And you know what? This movie opens to three to five. If it's not Zendaya, like, put a random, you know, up and coming Amazon summer. I turned pretty star in this movie and shots fire. It doesn't do anything. It opens to three to five. But these are real movie stars and I think it'll get into the low teens. I just don't think over 15.
- [33:26]
C
We need to figure out what the genre is for this movie. Up Rom com. I don't know.
- [33:30]
A
Sure. Yeah, that's. That's good.
- [33:32]
C
Yeah.
- [33:33]
A
Just invented it.
- [33:33]
C
Okay.
- [33:35]
A
I mean, I think they would love. They would love for that. They just want noise. They want people to talk about this movie. Like you said, there will be noise.
- [33:42]
C
And maybe this is a movie that only works in LA and New York, but I do think people will talk about it. And I think the open, maybe it, like, trails off and doesn't do well for the next month, but I think opening weekend there is enough to get it there.
- [33:55]
A
Okay, we shall see. All right. Oh, by the way, I made an error on. On yesterday's show, I said that Casablanca was based on a book. It is not based on a book. I meant to say Gone with the Wind, Dumb brain fart. So error there, but. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Todd Garner, producer Greg Horbeck, our editor Matt Pevic, and I want to thank you. We'll see you next week. Group chat. Getting quiet. Drop a TikTok clip. Trends, memes, hot topics, instant reactions, endless replies.
- [34:27]
B
Keep the vibe alive.
- [34:28]
A
Download TikTok now.
- [34:33]
F
Don't miss the Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters.
- [34:36]
B
Miranda.
- [34:37]
E
Hi.
- [34:37]
B
Pull yourself together. We have work to do. And by we, I mean you.
- [34:41]
F
Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are back all day. Dog on May 1st.
- [34:47]
D
Look what TJ Maxx dragged in.
- [34:49]
E
I am the new features editor at Runway.
- [34:50]
D
No, you are not.
- [34:51]
F
Icons reign forever.
- [34:53]
B
Cute. Wait. Wait. Up to God. That's not what you're wearing to the dinner. That's all.
- [34:58]
F
Get tickets now. The Devil Wears Prada 2. May 1st directed by David Frankel. Radio PG 13th may be inappropriate for children under 13.