One Box Office Battle After Another for PTA

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to discuss the weekend box office performance of ‘One Battle After Another’: Was the film a flop or a hit? With Warner Bros.' film slate done for the year, Matt and Lucas discuss the studio's performance this year and how it could affect chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, as well as the studio as a whole, amid a potential sale to David Ellison (02:58). They also discuss President Trump’s renewed threats of imposing tariffs on films made outside the United States (22:59). Matt finishes the show with a prediction on what will happen with AI actress Tilly Norwood (25:26). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Lucas Shaw Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you care about Hollywood, and I assume you do if you're listening to the town, you should really be getting the whole story about Hollywood. That's what you get with Puck. I'm a founding partner at Puck, and I write a newsletter called What I'm Hearing. It's got exclusive news for insiders and analysis of the biggest stories. Puck has a bunch of great journalists. We just hired Kim Masters, who also covers Hollywood from the inside, plus media, sports, fashion,
0:21.7	politics, and finance. It's a must-have for plugged-in people. Fans of the town get a
0:26.6	discount on the description page of this episode or at puck.news slash the town. Go further into
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1:06.1	It is Monday, September 29th.
1:08.7	Of all the movies on the 2025 theatrical slate, one battle after
1:13.1	another was maybe the most anticipated for the town. Not just because it's a Paul Thomas
1:18.2	Anderson movie with a major star in Leo DiCaprio and a budget that far surpasses anything he's
1:23.5	ever worked with. Even Warner Brothers admits the movie cost $130 million. Most sources
1:28.5	peg it higher than that. It's also yet another referendum on the strategy at Warner Brothers
1:33.2	under Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi, of spending big money on Auteur filmmaker-driven original
1:38.1	projects with big stars. So this weekend, one battle after another opened and it did okay,
1:43.8	not great, question mark.
1:45.9	22.4 million domestic, about 48, 48.5 million worldwide. On one hand, it's the biggest opening of
1:53.2	PTA's career, a great number for an R-rated political satire dromity. And the reviews and exit scores
1:59.4	are all very strong, indicating it should hold
	...

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