The 2026 Summer Blockbuster Confidence Ranking

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0:43This 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+. 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. Watch new episodes of The Audacity, Sundays exclusively on AMC and AMC+. It is Thursday, April 30th. Tomorrow's May 1st, so it's officially summer in Hollywood, which means the summer movie season is upon us, which means the town's summer movie confidence scale is back.

1:24Craig, at this point, I think we need some fanfare for this episode. If you're not familiar, this is when I invite Scott Mendelsohn on the show. He's our resident box office guru. He writes for Puck and has his own sub stack about box office. And we rank the big movies based on how confident we are that each one will live up to expectations. This summer is going to be interesting because everyone in town seems to be cautiously enthusiastic based on the successes of the spring months, the overall gross being up double digits over last year. There's some heavy hitters as well. Toy Story, Minions, big directors, Nolan, Spielberg, but also some big question marks like the first Star Wars movie in seven years and a Supergirl spinoff.

2:04That means there will be winners and losers and hopefully we'll identify them here first today or embarrass ourselves trying. It's the summer blockbuster confidence scale from The Ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Belony and this is The Town.

2:22okay we are here with scott mendelson our box office guru another round of the summer movie confidence scale scott are you gonna try to put michael into your calculus here you cannot do that it's at the top of my list i'm most confident that it will be successful it came out last weekend so you're not you know what i am curious though adam fogelson said on the show yesterday that he thinks it could get to a billion do you believe it can based on current trajectories Not offhand, just because it's more of a known entity than Bohemian Rhapsody turned out to be. But still, I mean, there's a lot of wiggle room between Elvis, which is the next biggest grossing musical biopic, at least for now, and Bohemian Rhapsody, which is around 905.

3:02So... Sure. So you think it'll be somewhere in between there? In the higher end, but yes. Yeah. I think it'll get to eight, eight, maybe nine. I don't think a billion, but we shall see. All right. So here are the rules. If you're not familiar listening, we go through 13 movies that are set for release this summer, which we have identified as the potential biggest movies of the summer. We give them a score based one through 13, one being the lowest confidence. We have no confidence in that movie. 13 being the highest confidence. It's going to exceed wildly the expectations that people have for it.

3:40We go through it all. And at the end, we'll have a wild card, a movie that you and I will pick that we think could be a sneaky breakout this summer. All right, so let's start. Got to start. We're going to go chronologically here. So this weekend, start opening tomorrow. The Devil Wears Prada 2 from Disney. What do you think? Well, the caveat before we jump into this, because I think there are a lot of relatively safe bets, you're going to see some presumably very successful movies with very low numbers by default, because Mean Craig only lets us use each number once. That's the point. We got to have a ranking here.

4:16Not everything. We can't have confidence for everything. That being said, on this scale, you have Devil Wears Prada, which is an over under$100 million sequel that's going to open with at least 60, give or take, maybe a lot more. The tracking is at 73 on NRG right now. Okay, yeah, sure. So it might do as well as Michael. So yeah, 12. Oh, you're 12 on this one. Okay. See, I have 10. Fair enough. I think it's going to do well. I think that, you know, the last one did$326 million in 2006. This one is going to blow past that, I think. I haven't done the calculus for inflation, but I think this one could get to$400 or$500.

4:55But I think that given what Disney has done for this movie and the marketing campaign and the release date, that's the expectation for this one. They put money into this, and they think it's going to perform really well. And I think it's going to open. The reviews that came out today were not great. They sort of hit the ball on those and had the fan reactions go first, which is a typical summer movie tactic. But you'd think maybe this one would have gotten good reviews, and it's kind of not. So I think that it's going to do very well. I think it's going to do about a 10 on my confidence scale.

5:32Yes, and if this needs to be clarified, this isn't a matter of what i think will be the biggest or lowest grossing whatever i mean do i think it's going to do to infinity and beyond i don't know but in terms of what it needs to do to be successful it's already in the bag yeah oh sure it's a win there'll probably be a devil the worst product three in five years um you know meryl streep's willingness uh the factor there but millennial nostalgia for the win okay may 8th this is where it gets interesting mortal combat too this movie came on tracking at 50 million opening weekend and i was shocked when i saw that because the first one only did 84 million total and that was in april of 2021 and it was day and date on max so big asterisk there the budget for this one is only about 80 million so it's not like one of those 200 million dollar tentpoles that has to perform really well um what's your confidence Again, with the caveat that I'm relatively confident, this one by default ended up with a four.

6:34But the reason I'm relatively confident... Four? Really? What's interesting about the first Mortal Kombat is that it was the most watched movie of 2021 on HBO Max among the Project Popcorn releases. Those are the ones that went directly to streaming the day and date of release in theaters. To the extent that follow-ups to Project Popcorn biggies like Dune and Conjuring and Godzilla v. Kong. They all opened spectacularly well compared to their relative predecessor. There was a certain breakout sequel nature, at least in North America. So it stands to reason that people that watched Mortal Kombat at home liked it and will theoretically show up for the sequel.

7:12The only reason I'm less confident is because maybe I'm wrong. People liked Mortal Kombat, but they weren't like jumping over the moon for it like it was, for example, you know, Dune versus Dune 2 or even, you know, Conjuring 3. oh, it's nice to see them again, and then Conjuring 4, it's the end of an era, let's all go celebrate. This is just another real combat movie. Carl Urban, how dare you? You are diminishing Carl Urban's star power here. No comment. That being said, if there are enough babalities, which is a move in one of the games where you turn your foe into a baby, then 15 by default.

7:48I don't even want to know what that is, but I'm giving it a 7. I'm putting it right in the middle. i think that that that 50 million tracking number has since come down a little it's at 48 this week so they have a little work to do there but that's a big number for this and i think this movie could get to two three hundred billion which is a win yes um you know mid-tier it's not going to be a huge blockbuster but i think the end of the summer will will categorize this one as a win moving on memorial weekend mandalorian and grogu this one is going to be fascinating because the rise of Skywalker, the most recent Star Wars movie, opened to$177 million, got to a billion, even though it was widely panned and has become among the most hated of all Star Wars projects.

8:35That one was the conclusion of a trilogy and conclusion of nine movies. So I don't think we can really give it a comp there. Looking back a little bit, Rogue One opened to$155 million, and Solo, which is considered the disastrous, you know, Lord and Miller fired, Ron Howard took over, even that one opened to 84 million. How confident are you in Jon Favreau's ability to relaunch Star Wars? I'm relatively a seven, by the way. Oh, you're giving Mandalorian Grogu a seven. If reports that it costs around 175, 180 are correct, then A, that's like 100 million less than Solo. And the thing with Solo is that A, nobody wanted it.

9:17b there was nothing in there to appeal to people that weren't in on the pitch immediately and the fact that it made only 103 million over its domestic debut four days was a problem because a it was very front-loaded that was from a 35 million dollar friday and b that was amid good but not superlative reviews mixed buzz and miserable like 65 million over through over overseas. Okay, but you're comparing Mandalorian to the biggest disaster of the Star Wars universe. Yes, and this is why I'm more confident. It's cheaper, and it has a lot more whatever, just show up and play. The pitch for this film has mostly been Lilo and Stitch, but with Baby Yoda in a Star Wars universe.

10:02And that's a good pitch. I'm even more confident because... But Lilo and Stitch was a successful theatrical movie. The Mandalorian is a Disney Plus series, so they They have to convince people this is theatrical. Yes. And I think they're doing a good job with that in some of these materials they've put out. But I have it as a three on the confidence scale only when compared to what a typical Star Wars movie should open to. The early numbers I've seen are like in the 90, 100 million range. And that's for the four day. And that's fine. But that's not Star Wars. um yes in a vacuum you know i agree with you that being said if it's well received well like yada yada yada it will leg out like you know little mermaid aladdin etc etc yeah not much coming after it no and if i may i was incredibly impressed by the prologue that was showed at cinema con a couple weeks ago yeah it was good i went from oh this movie exists and i guess john favreau was good at this stuff to oh my goodness i very much want to see this and i spoke to people that had never seen any of the show that enjoyed what they saw.

11:11So it's very newbie friendly. It's a Mandalorian kicking ass for about 15 minutes. That's cool. Yes, and there's very little of, you know, baby Yoda trying to steal every scene, which is encouraging. Right. Yeah, others had different impressions of that footage, but I did enjoy it. And I think so. So you're more confident in it than I am, but I'm only comparing it against Star Wars. And I think that's going to be the challenge for Disney is to convince people that this is, of restarting the franchise this is not to be compared against the skywalker which is why assuming it's good well-received yada yada yada the hope is that on a curve it's treated more like a batman begins than an amazing spider-man so if it does 600 and change worldwide and everybody loves it then awesome wonderful right all right moving on to june 5th masters of the universe there's two movies on this date there's masters of the universe and there's scary movie this is going to be a fascinating weekend because i have masters of the universe as my one so do i i am the least confident in this movie of all of the movies this summer i don't even know what to comp this movie to is it dungeons and dragons from 2023 somewhere between dungeons and dragons and maybe power rangers okay but dungeons and dragons opened to 37 million and got to 205 million That's not enough for a big budget He-Man movie.

12:38That's why I gave this movie to Lucas in our draft. I gave him as a bomb. So I think this movie could open lower than Scary Movie 6, which I have as an 11 on my confidence scale. I think this is going to be a pretty big hit and way bigger than the expectations, given that the last Scary Movie in 2013 opened to$14 million and did only$78 million worldwide. So the expectations for Scary Movie 6 are probably low, and some of the early tracking I've seen is extremely strong, and I think there's a demand for this movie. So I'm giving that one an 11 and Masters of the Universe a 1. Where are you on these two?

13:22I agree. I think, look, He-Man was the first IP that I was ever a fan of. I was psyched when I was 7 for the Masters of the Universe movie, but that was 40 years ago. I'm not the first person to say this. Hollywood needs to stop targeting people my age in terms of these big budget fantasy adventure pictures. No, I just did an interview with a bunch of high school kids. I interviewed them in advance of the summer movies. They didn't know what He-Man was. They were baffled by Masters of the Universe. Some of the, a couple of the girls knew who the star was, Nicholas Galzantine. But again, they're not going to a He-Man movie.

13:58And as far as scary movie, I mean, first of all, it's an 11 because I don't know what the budget is, but I can't imagine Paramount went nuts in terms of overspending. So even if it only performs like Scary Movie 2 or Scary Movie 5, which you said over under 70, give or take, that would still be profitable if disappointing. But Scary Movie 1, Scary Movie 3, and even Scary Movie 4 are open with over under$40 million. So when these films hit, they hit big. And there is going to be generational nostalgia for people my age, for better or worse, that showed up to the first one. Craig's excited. Craig likes all these movies.

14:32And there's going to be a certain... The Wayan brothers are back. They got the franchise back after it was somewhat stolen from them after the second film. Long story, whatever. Yeah, I'm sure Harvey Weinstein was involved somehow. And I feel bad because I really like Scary Movie 3, even though, yeah. And Anna Faris is back. Nice to see her. I think that's going to be a sleeper and people are going to be like, holy shit, Scary Movie 6 beat Masters of the Universe. My only quibble, and this isn't even really commercial, is that I remember when Scary Movie came out. The talk was how vulgar and extreme and taboo and all that it was.

15:10So I hope they don't try to sell this movie in a way that expects us to forget that. That, oh, this scary movie is the first, you know, it's so extreme. It's crossing every line. It's like, yeah, we played that game already, and that's fine. Whatever. That was a long time ago. I think they'll be okay. The materials I've seen so far have been good. All right, let's move on to June 12th. This one is a heartbreaker for me. Disclosure day. I have it in our draft. It's, I don't know. I have it as a four. Three. You just can't be confident that it's going to live up to the Spielberg that we all remember when you look at his track record from the past decade.

15:53The only movie that he's directed in the past decade to get to more than 200 million worldwide is Ready Player One in 2018, which got to 582. Now, we can make arguments about whether West Side Story would have performed outside of COVID. He has gone in different directions and done smaller movies like The Post and like The Fablemans. But the Spielberg brand as summer blockbuster, I'm a little worried about. Even though the new trailer is much better, the public hasn't seen it yet, but we saw it at CinemaCon, it is much better. What do you think? I have it as a four. Agreed. I mean, in Beard, we trust.

16:32But thus far, Universal is selling this as it's a Steven Spielberg UFO movie in the abstract. Without, I would argue enough, okay, but what makes this movie different from whatever? What is specifically this film about? and to general audiences especially ones that are young enough that you know did not grow up on spielberg what have you you know that's that's that's a challenge um it looks fine again allegedly none of the third act is in the marketing again in beard we trust my one slight again i'm giving it a three but with the exception of the bfg in 2016 every time spielberg has attempted to go explicitly commercial he has been relatively successful even 1941 technically made money even though everybody hated it and so theoretically i mean like hook oh no it's yeah i made 300 million on a 70 budget um so when he goes commercial including ready player one which was a i think a much better movie than we were expecting because it was spielberg um so the extent that this is you know a three instead of a one it's because yes he's been making historical melodramas most of which are very good they're all good the question is not whether it's going to be good the question is will it perform well that's what i mean i mean yes the historical melodramas when we think of his track record in the last decade they weren't meant to be big box office biggies but when he goes commercial he tends to hit okay so we'll see all right so so you have it as a three i have it as a four uh i hope i'm wrong i hope this one hits and becomes a thing if even if it bombs universal is gonna have such a good year this year that it can be their one battle after another their prestigious one for me that this is what the minions pay for no but this was not pitched as a one for me that was the fablemans this was pitched as i'm back baby ufos a one for me for universal yeah okay all right june 19th toy story 5 i have this as my 13 i am the most confident as perhaps i've ever been about a movie the last one opened to 120 million and did a billion i think this is going to blow past this i think what we've seen in recent years with movies like inside out that just got went way bigger Zootopia 2 that went way bigger than the previous one if people remember these titles and like what they see in the new one they go back they tell their friends and all of a sudden it's at 1.5 billion I would not be surprised if that happens I would never bet against it but by default I'm gonna go with 10 just because there's a few other titles that I'm even more confident.

19:19Well, a few more confident than Toy Story 5 with an iPad as a villain. Yes. If only because the expectations are such that like, are they going to find themselves at the defensive if it only does $1.1 billion or some nonsense. No, I mean, they're judged against the previous installments, both of which did a billion. And again, it's a 10. And the only reason it's not a 13 is because I can only give one 13. All right. Well, I think you're underestimating this one. This one is going to, I think this is going to be the biggest movie of the year. um it's and i'm including endgame not endgame doomsday yes we'll get we'll get closer to the end of this yes okay next supergirl june 26th i have this as a two i am not confident i was open to it i i enjoyed the superman movie last summer it got to 618 worldwide and opened to 125 but The footage they showed at CinemaCon, not great.

20:15Seems like lesser and kind of, you know, IP milking. So I am dropping this to a two. I'm not that much more confident in that it's a five. The only reason I'm slightly, and again, I was not thrilled about the footage at CinemaCon. It was, you know, the production values was there. It just felt very chaotic and busy in a way that just let them breathe. And like lame. Yeah. Yeah. nothing cool about it um but you know we'll see they're gonna sell this as you know female driven superhero meets john wick which is with the dog that everybody loves so again you're gonna have you're gonna have which is which millie alcock revealed is not a real dog is cgi um shocker i hate to break it to everyone the chimps and michael not real cgi that being said i know this is cheaper than superman i was assured that it was not like a daredevil do electric come down in terms of budget uh because that sometimes happens with female-led superhero movies spoiler supergirl cost less than superman 2 in 1980s oh god are you gonna make a helen slater reference i am i just made a helen slater reference she was great but the movie was yeah um yeah but yeah assuming this is well relatively well received relatively well reviewed and it costs a little bit less than Superman.

21:34I mean, if it does 500, everyone should be happy. Because again, this isn't the 2010s where a studio lives or dies on the superhero franchises. I think we're looking more like 300, 350 for this one, which I think is a half of Superman. Not great. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued. Ask your doctor about ZepBound, Terzepatite, the first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, in adults with obesity. ZetBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA.

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23:51All right, July 3rd, Minions and Monsters. The previous Minions, Rise of Gru, opened to 107 million in 2022, on its way to 940 million. But the most recent in the extended franchise, Despicable Me 4, opened to less than that, 75 million in 2024, but it ended up doing more worldwide, 972. where are we with this one? Chris Melodondry seems to be very happy with this one. He showed us two extended sequences at CinemaCon, basically recounted the plot, tried to tell us that this one is about the love of cinema and the birth of cinema, basically saying it's Babylon in animated form. I thought the footage looked great.

24:40I have this as an eight, though, because I think that given what Despicable Me 4 did, I think that this one is going to be probably less than that. This is a 13 for me. Oh, no way. We have a big divergence there. You are the most confident of all the summer movies about this one. Because I can't imagine it cost more than 120. And that's being intentionally hyperbolic. These films tend to cost. But we're judging expectations here. The Minions movies have been hit for 15 years now. and and is this one going to vastly exceed those expectations you're saying it is vastly exceed maybe not but match absolutely i mean the consistency of the minions despicable me sequels prequels and follow-ups have been nuts i mean offhand despicable me 2 did like nine you know 970 minions did 1.1 none got to a billion though no no minions got to 1.1 billion Oh, it did?

25:40Okay. Despicable Me 3 got to$1 billion in 7.20 to 17. And then Minions 2 did like$9.40, and that was with China not delivering anything. And then Despicable Me 4 got to like$9.72. I mean, these films make like within 15 % of each other. So you think this one will get to a billion? Oh, I don't know. I don't think it'll get to a billion, but I think$8.50 in a walk. Then why do you have it at 13? You're so confident in this movie, but you don't think it's going to get to a billion? I don't think it has to get to billion, but I'm incredibly confident that I'll get into, you know, 850, 950, whatever.

26:14I think that's about what's expected and does not justify a 13. I'm actually angry at your ranking of 13 for that one. Okay, live action Moana. That one is the following week. I believe it's July 10th. Where are we on Moana? The How to Train Your Dragon live action opened to 84 million last summer on its way to 636. Lilo and Stitch got to$146 million in its opening weekend and a billion total. Does the proximity of the Moana animated movie and sequel help or hurt the live-action retread at the box office? I think it hurts by default. I don't think it hurts terribly, but I also think it helps. It just feels too recent.

27:01Yeah. the the whole point of these live action remakes are nostalgia and how can you be nostalgic for something that was like 10 years ago i mean i guess you can i mean how to train your dragon was also pretty recently 2010 nostalgia has been pretty big the last few years that's partially because today's kids that's what they grew up on i know it just doesn't but but you're not offering anything new here the materials we're seeing is it's it's the movie that you've watched a million times on disney plus i agree and i am what's your forgive me do you want to that's why i i have it as a five six i think it's going to perform i mean if you look at the numbers on these movies they all do fine and it's going to do okay i just don't think it has breakout potential like a beauty and the beast or aladdin things that had value add elements to them i just don't think you know the rock was in the first one exactly so it's just more of the rock like it's not like having will smith as the genie yeah that's basically what i was about to say is that even some of the other remakes or whatever you want to call them like it's angelo jolie as maleficent that's interesting it's will smith as the genie well that's interesting it's the rock as maui well we already saw that so i know and his hair is ridiculous i'm sorry you know the rest of the movie looks okay for what it is, but then when he shows, at least in the footage we saw, when he shows up, it starts to look like a commercial.

28:29Where someone shows up and they reprise their kind of character to hawk a product. I know that's a little disrespectful, but it is what it is. Right. He's going to whip out his tequila at any moment. Alright, so I have it as a five. What number do you have it? Six. Six? Okay, so we're about the same on that. It'll be an interesting one because obviously it's huge on streaming and very beloved property, but Too soon. Too soon, Disney. All right. The Odyssey. Mid-July, the Nolan release. Oppenheimer opened to$82 million. Got to$975 million. Obviously, Barbenheimer was a big factor in that one. We'll never know how much.

29:07This one, much more commercial. Much more, much bigger feeling. Still, it's got, you know, dad movie. History Channel vibes to it. uh where are you on it with the caveat that i think it will be successful in terms of rate of return and all that jazz in eight for a couple reasons first of all the expectations could be unrealistic to the point where it ends up on the defensive if it only does like inception numbers in north america and interstellar numbers worldwide that's exactly my thought you and i and all the people that cover this stuff are so excited for this movie and the cheers at CinemaCon for the Trojan Horse sequence were amazing.

29:50I have it as a nine around where you do, because I think that the expectations here are so high that when it opens fine, people are going to be like, wait, what are we talking about here? Chris Nolan just got spanked by Spider-Man? Yeah, of course Chris Nolan got spanked by Spider-Man. That's kind of how it works. And that's what happened with Interstellar, where I had to write like, you know, why it's not a flop after it only opened to$49 million. And then it legged out to 189 domestic and 677 worldwide, not counting reissues. And this might happen here too. And the only reason, and again, it will make at worst most of the money, if not all the money.

30:29So if it only makes most of the money, it's that it's probably, and again, I have not seen the film, it's probably going to be something less of a surprise and more of a known entity than Oppenheimer turned out to be. At the end of the day, if this film is essentially what you think of in your head when you say, oh, Chris Nolan is making The Odyssey, again, that still presumably will be very good. He's got a killer cast. I mean, Holland, Hathaway, Damon, Lupita Nyong 'o, who I think is a butts-in-seat star, relatively speaking. You think Lupita Nyong 'o is a butts-in-seat star? She works very rarely, and she has the sort of a Jodie Foster thing where she has such a sheen of quality that people know that if she joins a project, it's worth paying attention to.

31:13Interesting. So you think people showed up for the Quiet Place prequel because of her? Some people did, yes. And I certainly gave it the benefit of the doubt that I might not otherwise have given it. Okay. Yeah, I would say Zendaya is a much better bet. Oh, yeah, yeah, her too. And, you know, I don't think Anne Hathaway is a butts-in-seats star unless it's like Devil Wears Prada. Added value. Matt Damon is, and Tom Holland, and, you know, when he's in a Spider-Man promotion cycle. No, I mean, Hathaway has such a long history of doing quirky and or very good pieces of Pulp Fiction that I also think she gives a certain benefit of the doubt when she joins a given project.