When Amazon MGM Studios hit CinemaCon in the spring, execs made sure theater owners knew the company’s commitment to the theatrical business was authentic, with a promised slate of 14 movies in 2026. So in the face of Amazon MGM’s latest flop, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt — which scuffled at the Venice Film Festival and New York Film Festival on the awards circuit before cratering this weekend with $1.55 million from more than 1,200 theaters — Richard Rushfield and Sean McNulty found a little silver lining.
“You take swings at the box office, sometimes they hit, sometimes they don’t. This one seems to be just a little bit outside,” Sean says of the project, a #MeToo drama about cancel culture at Yale with Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri.
For Richard, there’s even celebration in the failure. “I’m sure they knew what they had on their hands and could have said let’s put this out on streaming,” he suggests. “They probably could have convinced the people involved, ‘You’re better off. The results are not going to be good here.’ But they stuck with their theatrical promise.”
After the Hunt was one of three new movies in wide release this weekend (Amazon MGM put it in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles last week), with Universal’s Black Phone 2 and Lionsgate’s Good Fortune. But of that trio, only Black Phone 2 scored with audiences, earning more than $27 million in North America and providing Blumhouse a much-needed hit after multiple misfires, including M3GAN 2.0, Wolf Man and The Woman in the Yard.
“Just because you release three movies, doesn’t mean that America’s gonna come out to see them,” Sean says of this weekend’s lineup. “Which, I think, is a reminder that it does come down to the movies and the creative as to what you’re offering. And just because something’s an original film does not mean, ‘Oh, great, we’re all gonna go see that.’”
Also in this episode: Seth Rogen’s box office life, before and after the pandemic, following Good Fortune; the curious case of the Penske trade coverage on One Battle After Another’s budget; and another plea to see Roofman.
