Scott Mendelson

If you feel like finding me at the new (for now) "good place"... And if you want to subscribe to my S*bst*ck and/or listen to my weekly podcast, please do that, too. (The extra screenshots are mainly for the clean four photos cropped 16x9 appearance.)

@Fauxtaku "Fight for Family!"

@ScottMendelson Bring Him Home

Bad-faith misreading of the film’s finale notwithstanding, I for one look forward to LILO & STITCH 2: BRING HER BACK.

Sure, your eyes aren’t tricking you. That clip looks better than the new trailer, and the reason has nothing to do with talent. The VFX supervisor on Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014? Jerome Chen. The VFX supervisor on Brand New Day? Also Jerome Chen. Same person. Completely different system around him. In 2014, Chen had 50 effects artists at Sony Imageworks, the largest VFX crew the studio had ever put on a single project. They handled about 1,000 of the film’s 1,600 VFX shots on a $255 million budget. The crew shot on real film (not digital), on location in actual New York City, scanned Times Square with 36,000 photographs of over 100 billboards, and built physical lighting rigs on set so the CGI would match the real world. Now look at how Marvel makes Spider-Man movies. No Way Home had 2,500 VFX shots spread across 12 studios and about 3,000 artists. The budget was $200 million, $55 million less than TASM2 despite having 56% more VFX shots. Digital Domain, one of the VFX vendors, was delivering final shots days before the December 17, 2021, release. They kept reworking shots into mid-January, after the movie was already in theaters. Zoom out, and the math gets worse. Marvel released 6 films between 2008 and 2012. From 2023 to 2025, they pushed out 7 films and 7 TV shows. The Hollywood union representing VFX workers reported that Marvel pays artists about 20% below industry average and staffs one person where other studios hire three. Artists described 64-hour weeks and breakdowns on the job. Then, in February 2025, Technicolor, the parent company of MPC (three-time Oscar winner for Life of Pi, The Jungle Book, and 1917), collapsed almost overnight. 4,500 jobs gone globally. The studio had been actively working on Disney and Paramount films when the lights went out. Brand New Day has four months before release, and trailers routinely show unfinished shots. But the gap between a 2014 Spider-Man and a 2026 Spider-Man has nothing to do with technology going backwards. The industry has been asked to do three times the work for less money per shot while its biggest studios are going under.

@Great_Katzby I have to assume that the plan was for a Destin Daniel Cretton-directed AVENGERS 5 to showcase Shang-Chi so that SHANG-CHI 2 got a bump similar to the post-AVENGERS performance of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.

@ScottMendelson And yet no movement on a Shang-Chi sequel. Frustrating!

Before today's trailer, #SpiderManBrandNewDay's PLF score (22%) was one of the highest Greenlight Analytics has tracked (2021-Now). As of this AM, 65% of aware audiences plan to see it opening weekend. A huge base that doesn't need more marketing. They need a ticket link ASAP.

@tim_bays @Great_Katzby Wait... they aren't?! F***ing cowards! (Also hoping that everyone hilariously talks *around* what Frank Castle actually does in his spare time because they couldn’t acknowledge that he was a mass murderer)

@Great_Katzby For a second there I thought they were gonna go with the whole "Peter Parker grows extra arms to become an actual spider" plotline

This looks good. I know the comics offer a roadmap, but it remains impressive how much narrative/thematic meat is left on the #SpiderMan bone several film appearances into this iteration.

@carebecc I mean... I always say that if you take ARRIVAL’s “continuity” at face value, Amy Adams could still win/did win Best Actress in 2017.

K thought about it and have plans for how Ann Lee could still win

@ja_y007 @jonathanmb32 @ERCboxoffice Spring Break has begun!

Just saw it, but #Hoppers somehow took a 35% on its second Monday compared to its first. What? I don't understand this @ScottMendelson @jonathanmb32.@ERCboxoffice Legs are gonna be insane here.

nothing. they have nothing. executives decided that demographic is useless for making money when the pivot to streaming happened, and so they stopped making those shows. Leaving youtubers, grifters, and AI slop to fill the void. Owl House, Amphibia, etc. are the last of its kind.

Dear studios, when are you going to stop humiliating your own movies like this? When you hand red carpets and press lines to influencers who treat serious work like disposable content, you’re telling the audience to do the same.

Can Disney overcome 7.5 years of mixed Marvel emotions? Did WB show why offering less $ for theatrical glory is a good bet? Will A24 cement itself as a prime spot for romance? Can NEON open a buzzy (non-horror) pic? And More! bit.ly/40xlnxs

A mere three months late, behold the "most important releases of 2026 for each major (and minor) studio." Ironically, the one film that already opened is now arguably *more* important to its respective studio in light of the current madness. via @ScottMendelson

For what it's worth...

Should’ve been Rose Byrne

And OBAA wins Best Picture which was always going to happen, A good night for WB and a sad one too as this time next year it might not even exist as an independent studio and instead be run by someone who has yet to show he can properly run the studio he already has

@ZButson2 It’s in today’s general weekend post..

@ScottMendelson Looking forward to Scott’s coverage of Scream up this week now that it has become the biggest BO champion in the franchise!

With $164 million worldwide amid terrific post-debut holds here and abroad, Disney and Pixar’s latest is on course to potentially qualify as a “no asterisks required” original animated blockbuster. (HOPPERS-specific weekend box office punditry... via @ScottMendelson)

@jbillinson Absolutely agree, and I’ll “yes, and” argue that ‘Hearts Beat Loud’ is an unto-itself banger too.

THAT THING YOU DO! remains an incredible achievement in movie songwriting for this very reason

@TheEricGoldman I don’t disagree, but his specific riffing on Ted Sarandos in the intro was pretty brutal.

I wish Conan specifically called out Netflix as the main studio in question who wants their plot points repeated over and over but I still love the bit. #Oscars

Well, at least there's that... #Oscars

@DonaldClarke63 Next, they will claim STAR WARS is terrible because it's just THE HIDDEN FORTRESS filtered through FLASH GORDON...

One more time. The dumbest supposed criticism of SINNERS is noting, with an implied gotcha look, that the plot shares certain elements with FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.