Predator: Badlands Not So Bad - Week 1

It’s happening!!! The 2025 Holiday Blockbuster Pool is here and it actually started with a film that wasn’t DOA on arrival. Phew. 

Predator: Badlands opened with $40 million and the studio was quick to point out that this was the largest opening ever for a Predator movie. It’s also the largest opening ever for a Badlands movie. Where was the press release about that?

The reality is that despite numerous reboots and rebrands, the Predator brand hasn’t exactly been box-office gold since Arnie and Carl Weathers’ classic arm-wrestle high-five. Alien vs. Predator opened to $38 million in 2004, almost the same as Predator: Badlands, and you can bet movie tickets cost a heck of a lot less back then than today’s boujee prices. 

Still, $40 million is fine. Alien: Romulus opened around that last year and finished with $105 million total. This year, that might be a Top Five number. It’s better than last year’s Red One $32 million start and the competition is literally a ping-pong playing Timothée Chalamet movie. Time will tell. 

Amazingly, there’s another Schwarzenegger re-do, The Running Man, that’s coming out this week to try and knock Predator: Badlands off its perch. Where did all this Arnold nostalgia come from and why didn’t it lead to James Cameron making some new True Lies films? I’d rather see more of those films than more of The Sullys, airing 8pm Wednesdays on ABC this Spring… as long as you don’t have YouTubeTV. 

    

The Top Five If Today Was MLK Day:

#1. Predator: Badlands - $40 million 

#2. n/a

#3. n/a

#4. n/a

#5. n/a

 

*****

Extra Bonus Section

 

As per the Week 1 tradition here are my esteemed, extremely well thought-out and perpetually doomed to fail 2025 Holiday Blockbuster prognostications. Remember, I’m the guy who thought Strange World and Lightyear were going to save Disney. Genius!

So here’s what I really think will happen...

#1. Avatar: Fire & Ash - It’s sad that I feel like these films have become as meaningless to me as Transformers films, but not everything has to be about me. I still have Sisu 2 to look forward too! Instead, I think folks will flock to this because (I hope) they like it or because they feel like they have to to have a say about it. The last film made $575 million by MLK Weekend and I feel this will have a little less fanfare, so I went with $525 million for my guesstimate.       

#2. Wicked For Good - The last one made $475 million and I think this will be a little less green. Maybe not as many repeated viewings and sing-along editions.          

 

#3. Zootopia 2 - For me, this was the last of the “sure things.” The first one made about $350 million and even if this is less, it’s gotta be more than what #4 and #5 make.   

 

#4. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants - Yup, this one even caught me by complete surprise. We just were never a SpongeBob family (no offense!), yet when I saw the box-office totals for 2015’s Sponge on the Run movie was $165 million, more than my jaw hit the floor. If there’s an audience for this film, they’ve got the whole holiday break to find it. 

#5. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 - The first made $137 million and I feel this will hit pretty much the same way. In Josh Hutcherson I trust. Team Peeta 4 Life! 

Good luck, everyone!

2025 Holiday Blockbuster Pool Preview

As always, if I forgot some Oscar-bait Bulgarian film that’ll make three bucks and get 14 Golden Globe nominations, sue me. I’m just listing the contenders here (or at least movies that have a wide release). Let’s get on with it!!! 

November 7 

Predator: Badlands 

Apparently the Predator franchise didn’t hear they should be a series on FX and they’re releasing a new movie. They’re even making it PG-13 to try and capture all the young kids who’ve literally never even heard of a Predator movie. What could go wrong?!

November 14 

Now You See Me: Now You Don't

This series was sort of the National Treasure of the 2010’s. Family friendly, twisty turvy adventures whose actors made it seem better than they probably were. Did they ever make a lick of sense? Who cares! It’s magic. Suffice to say, this flick means a lot more to my fam than Avatar 3 :) 

The Running Man

Remakes of Arnie films from the past don’t have a great track record. That said, if you’re going to do a remake with cult-fav director Edgar Wright and current “everywhere” guy Glen Powell, why not. Let’s hope they make this work because this year’s Holiday Movie Pool needs some hits… or maybe I should say runs.    

November 21 

Sisu 2: Road to Revenge

I’m obviously just listing this as a huge fan of Finnish filmmakers everywhere, but mostly because the story of an old guy killing Nazis never gets old. Shameless plug, go check out these people’s holiday classic Rare Exports for an evergreen treat that never gets old. 

Wicked: For Good 

I guess calling it Part 2 was too cliche. The smash from last season is back for the second act. Will it recapture the same magic or were all the “popular” songs in the first half?

November 26 

Zootopia 2 

I guess the gap between Zootopia 1 and 2 is the same as Now You See Me 2 and 3, yet this feels as left field as Inside Out 2. Maybe it was the success of that mothballed franchise that made Disney think what other great first film could we revise? More importantly, I don’t know how they’re going to top Shakira’s, I mean, Gazelle’s Try Everything song, but I’m here for it. 

December 5 

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

The first film opened with over $80 million and that was while also being “free” to watch on Peacock. Whether that is evidence that people still love going to theaters or that no one has Peacock, who knows. Will this flick take the franchise to even greater heights and, more importantly, can I still be the only person who watched it for free on opening night on Peacock?

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

I’m certainly not the one to ask about this as I always thought Kill Bill should only be one movie and not at 4 hours and 18 minutes. Yes, that’s the ask this time and I’m sure there will be some fun cos-play on opening night. Instead, I’ll be pausing Peacock every 20 minutes to go the bathroom during the barely 90 minutes of Five Night’s 2. Being old is awesome! 

December 12 

Scarlet

I can’t explain why studios are avoiding this weekend in December. The only potential “hit” I see this weekend is an anime film I know nothing about. Still, having paid attention to the recent hits of Demon Slayers and Chainsaw Man, I’ll list this film here in case it means something to someone else and they’d like to put it on their list. 

December 19

Avatar: Fire and Ash

If there are bigger films I’ve cared less about, I can’t think of any. Avatar 2 was a confusing snooze to me, but it clearly cleaned-up at the box-office. Will this film do the same or have The Sully’s not been gone long enough for us to miss them yet?

David

Angel Studios follows-up their King of Kings Easter hit with the Christmas story of… King David? I mean, maybe by lineage he is the great, great, great with a lot of other greats grandfather of Christmas. I just hope they found voice acting room for Richard Gere since he played David in the 80’s live-action movie. 

The Housemaid

Sydney Sweeny and Amanda Seyfried star in a mystery/thriller directed by Paul Fieg. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. If it’s anything like the first A Simple Favor, that’s all I need. And if it’s anything better than Fieg literally stealing money to make Jackpot for Prime Video, we’ll call that a win too.  

Is This Thing On?

Bradley Cooper’s latest directing/starring vehicle has him as a comedian in the middle of a divorce. Calling it a ha-ha version of Marriage Story is probably a stretch, but the write-up I saw that said “sweet-solued, funny, and tender” doesn’t seem so daunting.   

The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants

I have it on good accounts that this is a SpongeBob SquarePants movie. We may be spared from any Antonio Banderas as a live-action pirate scenes, but as always, I’m not really in charge of that department.  

December 25

Anaconda

Jack Black and Paul Rudd are BACK in the giant snake movie that started it all! I don’t really know if it started anything, yet I’m excited people still exist that want to make ridiculous movies. Anyone can make films where everyone is miserable and hates their lives. It takes a special person to make movies about those people getting killed by a ginormous serpent!

Marty Supreme

It’s a movie starring Timothee Chalamet as a ping pong master. Sometimes I just want to be a fly on the wall when people share their pitches to film producers. I’m sure it’ll be great and win numerous awards, but how is this better than Balls of Fury and Ping Pong Playa? There’s already SO MANY great ping pong films. 

Song Sung Blue

As a huge fan of tribute bands and paying $10 to see them over paying $300 to see people who can’t even chew solid food anymore perform, I’m intrigued by this movie. Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson star as singers going nowhere until they bring joy to millions (ok, maybe 75 people in a park on a Wednesday night in the summer) as a Neil Diamond tribute band. I hope it’s So Good, So Good, So Good!

2025 Summer Blockbuster Pool - Final Report

School’s back in session, the Hollywood Bowl shuttles are winding down, and Halloween Horror Nights is already up-and-running, so it must be time for the end of the 2025 Summer Blockbuster Pool!

Let’s take a look at some of the films that made this summer so memorable… or, sadly, some films we’ve already forgotten even came out this summer. 

The “A Note About August” Section

While the month doesn’t feel like it’s a part of the “blockbuster” season anymore, there were still a steady stream of successful film releases. 

-  Weapons became the star of the month with $132 million and outdid last year’s Longlegs success by $50 million. As always, Amy Madigan beats Nicolas Cage every time! 

- Family films Freakier Friday will get to $90 million and Bad Guys 2 will make it to $80 million. Combined, that’s another $170 million hit PG movie.

- The Naked Gun probably broke even with its $50 million run. Follow-up sequels of 2½ and 33⅓ seem less than likely though. 

- Side note: Darren Aronofsky has made some of the most interesting and original movies in the past 20 years. Not all great, mind you, but certainly unique. This time he made like a Guy Ritchie-esque movie and was out-gained in the weekend box-office by a Jaws re-release. I won’t mind trying to catch Caught Steeling at some point, but seeing Prince’s Sing O The Times in IMAX was way more “must see” to me. 

The Pretenders List

It’s great that so many films did well for themselves this year (Take a bow, Final Destinations: Bloodlines!), but a few took epic nosedives. 

- Smurfs got smurfed from the get-go. 

- I still don’t know how I Know What You Did Last Summer did THAT poorly. 

- Megan 2.0 showed why that old adage of “Let’s do the opposite of everything that worked in the first film” isn’t actually an adage. 

- Nobody 2 was a sequel to a film that was a “hit” on streaming… and no one wanted to actually go to theaters to see it. As The Rock would say, “Know your roll, jabroni.”

- Ballerina might’ve worked better as a Black Swan sequel. As a John Wick side-story, it’s about as memorable as a side ad on my Roku screen. 

- If you ever, and I’ll spare you… DON’T!... Google “What went wrong with Elio,” you’ll find all the multiple writers, voice casts, and directions this film traveled… In an animated film that you can’t exactly do “reshoots” for. 

The “I Think That Was A Hit” Division

- Karate Kid: Legends made over $50 million. For them, I think that’s a win. I mean, that’s about what Ralph Machio’s My Cousin Vinny made 33 years ago.  

- 28 Years Later was NOT the Weapons of the summer, though it probably thought it could be. A $70 million total with the promise of two more movies in this new trilogy? I think they’ll take it. Way better than Kevin Costner’s Horizon film did!

- $138 million for Final Destination: Bloodlines?! Hell to the yeah. The studio would’ve been fine with half of that. 

- F1 self-drove itself to $188 million. Huge hit for Brad Pitt and Apple TV. Maybe he can pay me back for whatever Wolfs was :)  

- ThunderBolts* made Marvel fans feel like they believe again in the MCU… And then came IronHeart on Disney+... Argh.

- Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning won’t go down as a “go to” M:I film, but put Cruise in a brand film and people still show up. If we could get A Few Good Men sequel, my family would be there every night of opening weekend. Just have Daniel Kaffee have to defend Col. Jessup this time around and the scenes write themselves! And did Kaffee become a Washington Nationals fan? These are the things we need to know!

And with that, because Monday was Labor Day, it’s time to acknowledge and congratulate the actual Top 5 Films of The 2025 Summer Blockbuster Pool!!!  

#5. How To Train Your Dragon - $263 million

First off, shout out to the #5 film of 2025 being a $70 million improvement over the #5 film of 2024! Now that that’s over, this live-action call worked like a charm for the franchise and what could have been a The Mummy flop for Universal Studios became a rebirth of a beloved brand. It will be interesting if they use this franchise to truly go in a new direction of stories or simply remake sequels that have already been made, yet this type of success guarantees the films will go on. 

#4. Fantastic Four: First Steps - $266 million

A week ago this film would’ve been #5, but that’s why we go all the way to Labor Day. It lets those later releases have a chance to catch the front-runners. While this did become the highest grossing Fantastic Four movie of all-time, there were still boo birds saying it wasn’t enough. Tell them to go watch some more Thor: Love & Thunder if they want to see a “winner.” I’ll stick to this one. 

 

#3. Jurassic World: Rebirth - $338 million

Ironically, the Despicable Me 4 movie landed in this spot last year and I talked about how it's a series that seems to be a surefire $300 million hit. Let’s go ahead and add Jurassic Park/World to that list. I remember seeing Rebirth and it was one of the quietest packed opening weekend theaters I’d ever been to. It was like everyone kept waiting for the movie to start and then it was over. Guess what, $338 million. Well done, Universal… You did it!

 

#2. Superman - $352 million

There was a lot of pressure on this film and a lot of damage control in the waiting if things had gone south. Instead, one of the delights of the summer is the #2 film of the season. The top trio casting was perfect as was the tone in showing what it means to be “super” these days: i.e. saving squirrels and unironically enjoying fake pop-punk bands like The Mighty Crabjoys even if critics and “cool kids” say they're not good. I may not save squirrels, but I love a lot of music no one thinks is cool. Stay super, Superman!

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $423 million

Hysterical. Last year at this time I was talking about what a huge hit Inside Out 2 was and how Disney was back. Just six months ago, everyone was laughing about how bad the live-action Snow White was and how Disney’s lost their mind, and then Lilo & Stitch happened. It’s like these things are cyclical or something! L&S delivered all that could be expected for the Mouse House as it’s still surprisingly touching and just plain weird all at the same time. I guess that’s what Ohana is all about.

Fantastic First Steps as Other Brands Bomb - Weeks 12 & 13

The last real big-budget film of the summer finally launched and audiences were ready for the ride. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps stepped-out to a $117.6 million debut. While this is a little less than Superman’s $125 million and certainly Rebirth’s almost $150 million, it’s clearly above Thunderbolts*, Dragons, and every other Fantastic Four movie ever released. It’s also just about even with 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy 3’s start and that film finished around $360 million. Marvel and Disney would certainly take a win like that. 

Nostalgia wasn’t so kind to Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The little blue people hit a sour note for their musical with a $11.1 million start and the Gorton Fisherman killer from IKWYDLS failed to slay with a $12.8 million opening. Clearly, whatever lightning struck for Final Destination: Bloodlines did not hit the rebooting attempts of the I Know franchise. As always, Jennifer Love Hewitt deserves better! 

Catching up on some old favorites… Jurassic World: Rebirth is at $301.8 million and Superman is at $289.5. While Rebirth started with more of a bang, the tortoise is seeming likely to win the race as I expect Superman to surpass the dinos before Labor Day weekend. Does the Fantastic Four also have time to play the slow and steady game or is it too late to catch those raging raptors? 

I’ll try to keep the updates rolling, at least bi-weekly, during August even though this now seems like a month Hollywood is avoiding. It’s like they’ve already moved onto the fall season and there’s nothing but a couple cool-looking indie horror films I’m interested in. They’ve remade The Naked Gun with 99% less O.J., but can it even be 1% as funny? We’ll see. 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $420.2 million

#2. Jurassic World: Rebirth - $301.7 million

#3. Superman - $289.5 million

#4. How to Train Your Dragon - $257.1 million

#5. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $196.7 million

Superman Soars and Jurassic Roars - Weeks 10 & 11

Good golly, it’s fun to have theaters full and people wanting to see movies this summer. Last year had so many “Uh, $50 million openings aren’t so bad” moments, that it’s exciting to have some flicks knock it out of the park with legit triple-digit openings this season. Hopefully, the Fantastic Four can make it three-for-three next week!

Jurassic Park: Rebirth didn’t lay an egg with a $147.8 million five-day opening. Americans love their fireworks, dinosaurs, and air-conditioned screenings and this 4th of July Weekend was no exception. Also, kudos to Scarlett Johansson for passing Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. for highest grossing actor in history! 

Also, a special shout out to Hollywood for not using A.I. and letting actual humans write this script. There’s no way ChatGPT would’ve given us a 45-minute sub-plot about a family no one cares about, mercenaries with the personality of a #2 pencil, and opened every scene with a “Let’s remind the audience what we’re doing here again” line. I mean, my Echo Dot could’ve come up with something better than this. 

Meanwhile, the last son of Krypton (but not the last dog… and not the last cousin) had a rebirth of his own as Superman debuted to $125 million. People were ready to believe a man could fly again and the fresh coat of James Gunn paint seemed to do the trick. I was even tempted to try and bribe an AMC employee for one of the cool Superman promo t-shirts they were wearing, so the hype was working and people were buying. 

Warner Bros. was banking a lot on this film being the new start of their DC Universe and, truth be told, its debut was… fine. Honestly, it has another weekend with zero competition (Sorry, not sorry Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer), so there’s lots of room for old fogeys (people my age) who need people telling them “They need to see this” to get their butts into a theater. Remember, Top Gun: Maverick’s opening wasn’t what made it bonkers, it was the sustained tickets being sold to people who hadn’t gone to a movie in years. Suffice to say, it has a chance to be the mega-hit Warner Bros. wants it to be. 

Still, Man of Steel opened with $116 million 13 years ago. A $9 million improvement when some theaters are now $22 a pop? I’d be a little nervous if I was actually invested in this… and I am because I picked this as my #3 film of the season :) 

Meanwhile, in case you were hoping for F1 to race its way into the Top Five podium, you can pump those brakes. It’s at $136.2 million so far but there’s no next gear that can help it catch the other contenders at this point. It was a nice road-side stop though!

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $414.6 million

#2. How to Train Your Dragon - $239.9 million

#3. Jurassic Park: Rebirth - $232.2 million

#4. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $194 million

#5. Thunderbolts* - $189.9 million

F1 Leaves Others In The Dust - Weeks 8 & 9

Whenever there’s not a clear #1 film opening over a weekend, other films show up trying to compete and make a name for themselves. We’ve just had two weekends like that in a row with one clear winner, one mid, and two notable oops. 

F1 had a “maybe it can be minor hit like Ford vs. Ferrari” vibes coming into last week, but it ended-up doubling its early projections with a swift $57 million debut. That’s almost double what Ford vs. started with in 2019. The Brad Pitt starrer became his biggest opening weekend ever and the film looks like it might cruise through July as a nice alternative to the big dino and superhero flicks. 

28 Years Later entered the season as an oddball summer release. Cult status and big box-office don’t often go hand-in-hand (i.e. Blade Runner 2049), so in some ways a 10-day total of $50 million seems impressive for the film. Still, it dropped 67% in its second weekend, meaning there’s not going to be much “laters” left for this film to stay in theaters. 

Megan 2.0 tried to ride the wave of being a surprise low-budget, teen friendly, horror hit in 2022 and instead took a detour toward action, comedy, and Terminator 2. This was clearly a pitstop no one wanted to stay at as Megan 2.0’s $10.2 million debut was $20 million less than the original version! Yikes. It’s one of the biggest drop-offs for horror film sequels ever. Maybe they can add a patch and call it 2.1 when it starts streaming at home.

The ad-nauseum film of the summer has already become Elio. The Pixar film that only The Good Dinosaur will be thankful for was a bust of a bust for Disney. 25% of my Google home page feed is “why did Elio tank” and “what was Disney thinking.” In case you were wondering, the other 75% is usually about Nintendo, the NBA, and which craft brewery is closing this week. 

Regardless, Elio had the worst opening ever for a Pixar film ($20.8 million) and is at $41.9 million after 10 days on a $200 million budget. For all the massive success of Lilo & Stitch, all the naysayers are going to talk about are this year’s Snow White and Elio duds. Dem’s the breaks.  

Speaking of L&S, it did cross the $400 million mark! Kudos to 626.

Meanwhile, How To Train Your Dragon crossed $200 million as family films are doing great this summer… As long as you’re not Elio. 

Also, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is about $3 million away from Thunderbolts* and looks like it should reckon past it over the 4th of July weekend. 

This week, we’ll see if there’s a new trilogy brewing for our Jurassic friends or whether Rebirth leads to Reboot.

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $400 million

#2. How to Train Your Dragon - $200.2 million

#3. Thunderbolts* - $189.7 million

#4. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $186 million

#5. Final Destination: Bloodline - $136.7 million