Avengers: Endgame 2019
Past $2.2 billion worldwide and second all-time in 11 days; its $145M third weekend would be a great opening for anything else, and the hosts argue it's swallowed the whole theatrical calendar.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
'Endgame' Reigns in Theaters, While Netflix Rules at Home—What's the Future? Plus ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile’ Director Joe Berlinger | Interview
May 7, 2019/ 71 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins on why 'Avengers: Endgame' has emptied the multiplex of everything else and pushed the smaller movies to Netflix, then Fennessey talks to documentarian Joe Berlinger about turning the Ted Bundy tapes into a Zac Efron feature.
17 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
'Endgame' in theaters, Netflix at homethe state of the movies
Long Shot 2019
The Lionsgate rom-com they'd both championed (and gave a Charlize Theron episode to) made about $10M — the exact 'wait and rent it at home' casualty they keep circling back to.
UglyDolls 2019
STX's bid for a franchise-and-merchandising machine opened to $8.5M; Fennessey jokes about a 4K home viewing on his Sonos Beam.
The Intruder 2019
Screen Gems thriller, the weekend's other studio release, at $11M.
Apollo 11 2019
The rare specialty film to do real business this year ($8M) — because the IMAX release is 'halfway to an Epcot ride,' something you leave the house for.
Knock Down the House 2019
The AOC-and-three-challengers doc that dropped on Netflix; Dobbins says it gave her the theater experience she wants but will never get the RBG-style rollout because it's streaming.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile 2019
The week's Netflix launch and the interview subject — a Ted Bundy story told through his girlfriend, played by Lily Collins, with Zac Efron as Bundy. Debated as a test of whether opening weekend still means anything for a movie that never leaves the service.
Unplanned 2019
Pure Flix's anti-abortion drama, $18M on a $6M budget — cited as the micro-targeting 'super-serve' strategy, same as Knock Down the House from the other side.
Joe Berlinger on 'Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile'
Joe Berlinger on
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile 2019
A blacklist script kicking around six or seven years (Jodie Foster once attached). Berlinger's note was to stop hiding that it's Bundy and instead build the relationship so the third-act reveal lands as betrayal — and to go darker than the script's 'Catch Me If You Can' tone. Read it to greenlit in about six weeks.
Joe Berlinger on
Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows 2000
The feature he disavowed after the studio recut it. He calls the original director's cut a prescient satire on blurring fiction and reality, gutted at the twelfth hour to add on-screen killings and needle drops for a soundtrack, tied to Artisan's 2000 IPO.
Joe Berlinger on
Brother's Keeper 1992
The doc he and Bruce Sinofsky made to feel like a narrative film — dramatic structure, an opening title sequence, an original fiddle score — choices old-guard documentarians attacked and young filmmakers now take for granted. Nobody wanted to buy it at Sundance; they self-distributed.
Joe Berlinger on
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills 1996
His example of the 'emotional truth' vs. 'literal truth' argument — you film six weeks of trial and use one hour, and you trust the filmmaker for that.
Joe Berlinger on
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster 2004
Came out of the Blair Witch 2 funk; the band's creative and existential crisis mirrored his own. Paramount paid $3M just for the DVD rights at Sundance 2004.
Joe Berlinger on
Crude 2009
The Amazon-pollution doc he resisted making until a trip down there — canned tuna in a poisoned river, a clean glass of water back home — made him feel he'd be a schmuck not to. An early Netflix (Red Envelope) equity project.
Joe Berlinger on
Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru 2016
His first full collaboration with Netflix; watching the hashtag trend worldwide from a hotel balcony sold him on their reach. More people mention it to him than all his other films combined.
Joe Berlinger on
Intent to Destroy 2017
The Armenian-genocide doc he thinks is one of his best, met with a shrug even inside the industry — his example that the buzz never predicts the work.
Joe Berlinger on
The Conformist 1970
His last-great-thing pick. A rewatch of the Bertolucci that let him lose himself despite the subtitles — the antidote to 'gotcha' film criticism he says lacks empathy.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Box-office pop quiz — 2019's nine $100M movies Captain MarvelUsShazam!How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden WorldDumboThe Lego Movie 2: The Second PartThe UpsideGlass
Box-office benchmarks TitanicAvatar
Still to come this summer Spider-Man: Far From HomeAladdinThe Lion KingStar Wars: The Rise of SkywalkerMen in Black InternationalPokémon Detective PikachuMidsommarDownton Abbey
Specialty films still coming out of the festivals Late NightThe FarewellBooksmartThe SouvenirBlinded by the LightBig Time AdolescenceClemencyAsk Dr. Ruth
In passing Black PantherGet OutHereditaryMoonlightA Star Is BornGreen BookRBGGod's Not Dead
Berlinger's documentary touchstones The Blair Witch ProjectThe Thin Blue LineRoger & MeNanook of the NorthCatch Me If You CanBaywatch
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Game of ThronesThe CrownVeepBarryFosse/VerdonWhat We Do in the ShadowsSurvivorThe Great British Bake OffFriendsLeaving NeverlandConversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes
Promos Binge Mode: Game of ThronesThe WatchThe RecapablesTalk the Thrones