• Join Puck

    Directly Supporting Authors

    A new economic model in which writers are also partners in the business.

    Personalized Subscriptions

    Customize your settings to receive the newsletters you want from the authors you follow.

    Stay in the Know

    Connect directly with Puck talent through email and exclusive events.

  • What is puck? Newsletters Authors Podcasts Events Gift Puck Careers

Box Office

Dogman

Turbulent Times in Toon Town

The success of this weekend’s ‘Dog Man’ is a reminder that animation sells, but the next major studio animation movie doesn’t arrive until mid-June. Why are theaters still being starved of wholly animated family movies?
Scott Mendelson • February 4, 2025
Scott Mendelson • January 28, 2025
The Oscar Lift That Isn’t
a complete unknown Timothée Chalamet
Sure, Oscar nominations can give any individual movie a boost—see: last year’s ‘The Zone of Interest’—but unless a big mainstream hit is catching a lucrative second wind, they don’t mean as much as they did pre-streaming.
Scott Mendelson • January 21, 2025
Five Crucial Box Office Questions for ’25
captain america: brave new world
With the strikes and Covid a distant (if bitter) memory, Hollywood is primed for a return to the old normal. Maybe? What will it take for this year to be The One?
Mufasa: The Lion King
Scott Mendelson • January 3, 2025
2024’s Christmas Box Office Happy Ending
An array of disparate success stories—from period horror gambles and animated sequels to an inter-gen biopic—made up for a lackluster summer and illustrated a new post-pandemic, post-strike, post-#Barbenheimer paradigm in this strange new box office world.
wicked movie
Scott Mendelson • December 10, 2024
The Post-Thanksgiving Cop-Out
The long green tail of ‘Wicked’/‘Moana 2’ helped break more box office records this weekend, proving that the public was still primed and ready to fill seats the week after Thanksgiving. Too bad the studios lack the courage to give them something big to see.
moana 2
Scott Mendelson • December 3, 2024
The Lessons of Wickana
Five sure-fire takeaways from the largest Thanksgiving box office on record, including Disney’s resurgence, the reframed success of ‘Gladiator II,’ and a new weekend calibration for ‘Wicked: Part One.’
wicked movie
Scott Mendelson • November 26, 2024
The Wicked & The Damned
It was no #Barbenheimer, but if the moviegoing trends of Thanksgivings past are prologue, Wicked: Part One and Gladiator II will have strong second weekends behind a strategic post-holiday push.
’Red One‘ is also another example of the industry overestimating The Rock’s bankability.
Scott Mendelson • November 19, 2024
‘Red One’ & The New Arithmetic of Flops
The Rock’s kidnapped Santa caper sure looks like a $253 million Christmas catastrophe for Amazon MGM Studios. It also represents the peril of a certain kind of genre and a limit to its star’s bankability.
wicked movie
Scott Mendelson • November 12, 2024
Thanksgiving’s Refreshingly Old-School Box Office Battle
For the first time since ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ opened days before ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet,’ in 2018, this year’s mid-November box office slate will mimic the pattern from the prior two decades. Everyone should win.
Matthew Belloni • November 5, 2024
Paramount’s Deal Dance, Costner’s Hubris & Clint’s Revenge
News and thoughts from my notebook on Bob Iger's campaign no-show, Amazon's post-election nail-biter, and initial takeaways from a key SEC filing in David Ellison's takeover of the Redstone empire.