Remain 2027
M. Night Shyamalan supernatural romance co-written by Nicholas Sparks; Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor. Punted from 2026.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
The Winners and Losers of the Summer Movies Came Roaring Back. Plus: ‘Hope,’ ‘The Uprising,’ and 10 More We Missed.
September 11, 2026/ 181 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Amanda's back from Venice. The two tally a record summer box office and grade their own busted prediction game, then run through the late-summer titles they caught up on. After that, Sean and Ben David Grabinski spend an hour on Abel Ferrara.
57 films across 5 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.
Movie newsreboots, remakes, and a Shyamalan-Sparks romance
The Italian Job 2003
Paul Feig attached to a new version; neither host has seen this one.
Get Smart 2008
The Carell-Hathaway remake; cited as a dud they confuse with Date Night.
Date Night 2010
Carell and Fey; the movie their memories keep merging with Get Smart.
The winners and losers of the summera record $4.76B season
Spider-Man: Brand New Day 2026
$2.4B worldwide, $923M domestic. The everyone-movie: kids and adults both. Neither guessed near it.
The Odyssey 2026
Nolan's biggest, $1.63B; highest-grossing R-rated and IMAX release ever. $289M from IMAX.
Michael 2026
Bad pre-release press, still $1B worldwide and Lionsgate's biggest. First billion-dollar biopic; Jafar Jackson delivers.
Obsession 2026
Curry Barker's $750K horror made $512M worldwide off no stars. Breakout turn from Indy Navarrete. The season's real shock.
Backrooms 2026
Kane Parsons; $394M. A YouTube-lore IP for a generation that isn't them.
Iron Lung 2026
Markiplier self-distributed it to $50M-plus off pure fan demand.
Coyote vs. Acme 2026
Fans forced Warner Bros. to release it; headed for $50M-plus.
The Invite 2026
Smaller title that just did good business and stuck with people.
The Sheep Detectives 2026
Another modest hit that justified itself.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 2026
$700M worldwide on a two-month photo-call tour. Underserved audience: women who like to have fun.
Toy Story 5 2026
Roughly a billion; third-highest Pixar ever. A Jessie movie. Sean liked it more than Amanda.
Moana 2026
Live-action bomb, $315M worldwide. Sean's biggest prediction miss and maybe the end of Disney live-action.
Minions and Monsters 2026
$518M reads as failure only against a franchise that clears $900M a pop; still profitable on ~$85M.
The Mandalorian and Grogu 2026
$178M. Underperformance that felt like closing the TV-era chapter of Star Wars.
Supergirl 2026
$126M. Tier-two superhero movies don't work; emblematic of a brutal Warner Bros. summer.
Masters of the Universe 2026
$113M theatrical bomb, then a top Amazon streaming debut. Poses whether a streaming-only sequel makes more sense.
Look Back 2026
Live-action anime adaptation; Amanda saw it at Venice and hated the energy drop from the animation.
The summer movie preview gamebox-office and Metacritic predictions, tallied
Disclosure Day 2026
Sean nailed it cold: 74 Metacritic and $121M guessed against 74 and $117M actual.
Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour 2026
Amanda's big miss at $160M; it made $9.9M. Big Jim finally missed.
Power Ballad 2026
Guesses of $26M and $16M; made $2.6M.
Jackass: Best and Last 2026
A clip reel; overshot at $81M and $60M, made $18M.
One Night Only 2026
Guessed $76M and $38M; made $11.5M. Also torched Sean's fantasy league.
Super Troopers 3 2026
Guessed $48M and $22M; made $7M.
'Hope,' 'The Uprising,' and 10 more we missedlate-summer catch-up
The Uprising 2026
Paul Greengrass; Andrew Garfield as Plowman in the 1381 peasants' revolt. Electric first hour, then CGI crowds and third-act problems sink it.
Hope 2026
Na Hong-jin's Korean creature epic. A near-hour of unseen-monster chase draws applause, then the aliens (Fassbender, Vikander, Russell) show up in terrible CGI. Redeems itself with a practical highway climax.
Mayday 2026
Daley and Goldstein; Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh. A jingoistic Top Gun riff whose earnestness clashes with Reynolds's smarm. Nobody could figure out why it exists.
One Night Only 2026
Will Gluck's 'sex purge' rom-com with the sex removed. Barbaro and Turner are cute; the premise goes unexplored and the whole thing misfires.
Idiots 2026
Macon Blair; O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Dave Franco drive a rich teen to rehab. Closer to The Last Detail than Midnight Run; wanted it funnier. Formerly titled Shitheads.
Buddy 2026
Caspar Kelly's killer-kids-show puppet horror. First 40 minutes inside the recreated 1994 show are perfect; teaser-only marketing made it a sleeper hit.
The Rivals of Amziah King 2026
Andrew Patterson's first since The Vast of Night; McConaughey as a beekeeping bluegrass patriarch. Wild, funny first half topples into a flat revenge movie.
The Wrong Girls 2026
Dylan Meyer directs Kristen Stewart. Worth discussing, Sean's unsure it's worth recommending; Amanda hasn't seen it.
Practical Magic 2 2026
Weekend's other big title, held for next week's episode.
Abel Ferrara, with Ben David Grabinskion the new Criterion Channel collection Sean helped curate
Ben David Grabinski on
King of New York 1990
Both call it his masterpiece. Fishburne's gravity, the Walken hotel scene, Bozelli's lighting. Ferrara wrote it as his Terminator.
Ben David Grabinski on
Bad Lieutenant 1992
A deeply Catholic film; the Keitel part almost went to Walken. Set against a fictional Mets comeback.
Ben David Grabinski on
Ms. 45 1981
Grabinski's near-favorite; a silent-star-caliber lead performance and an exultant revenge romp.
Ben David Grabinski on
The Addiction 1995
Kelsch's handheld black-and-white; a vampire film as heroin allegory. A top-five vampire movie for Sean.
Ben David Grabinski on
China Girl 1987
Ferrara's West Side Story in Little Italy/Chinatown, really about a boss who doesn't care about you. Needs a 4K.
Ben David Grabinski on
Body Snatchers 1993
His studio scale-up for Warner Bros.; tested badly and burned him. Grabinski's underrated-90s-genre pick.
Ben David Grabinski on
The Blackout 1997
One of the bleakest movies either has seen; part-VHS, ripped from Ferrara's own life. Dennis Hopper in Frank Booth mode.
Ben David Grabinski on
New Rose Hotel 1998
A seven-page Gibson story stretched to pure mood; last Ferrara-Walken pairing, first with Dafoe. Replays scenes with different takes.
Ben David Grabinski on
Zeros and Ones 2021
Sean Price Williams DV; Grabinski's late-period favorite, 'the closest we've gotten to Metal Gear Solid 2 in a movie.'
Ben David Grabinski on
Tommaso 2019
Sean's late-period masterpiece; Dafoe as a Ferrara stand-in wrestling with God.
Ben David Grabinski on
Welcome to New York 2014
Depardieu as a DSK figure. The edited iTunes cut guts the POV; the uncut version is in the collection.
Ben David Grabinski on
Dangerous Game 1993
Written around Madonna, then pivoted to Keitel's filmmaker; shaggy, both too long and too short.
Ben David Grabinski on
The Funeral 1996
Chris Penn's performance freaks Grabinski out more than Henry does; a very bad hang.
Ben David Grabinski on
The Driller Killer 1979
His dirtbag era; a Texas Chainsaw-inspired attempt to make money on horror.
Ben David Grabinski on
Nine Lives of a Wet Pussycat 1976
His first feature, a porno.
Ben David Grabinski on
Cat Chaser 1989
An Elmore Leonard adaptation with Peter Weller he wasn't happy with.
Ben David Grabinski on
Fear City 1984
Berenger and a Billy Dee Williams role that never becomes the buddy movie it teases. Song title: 'Method to Your Badness.'
Ben David Grabinski on
Go Go Tales 2007
The single hardest of his films to track down; not in the package.
Ben David Grabinski on
Alive in France 2017
Documentary of Ferrara screening films and performing music in Europe.
Also mentioned raised along the way
News roundup The NotebookWhat Lies BeneathA Place in HellSpider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseThe 40-Year-Old VirginBruce AlmightyEvan AlmightyDan in Real LifeLittle Miss Sunshine
Summer box-office asides Avengers: DoomsdayDune: Part ThreeOppenheimerThe Dark Knight RisesDeadpool & WolverineSinners300One Battle After AnotherDays of ThunderF1Anything But GhostsHadestownThe Devil Wears PradaToy Story 4Toy Story 3The IncrediblesIncredibles 2Inside OutInside Out 2AvatarShrekPirates of the CaribbeanCat in the HatMoana 2TangledPonyoE.T. the Extra-TerrestrialMarie AntoinetteStar Wars: The Rise of SkywalkerStar Wars: StarfighterThunderboltsLast Days
Catch-up asides Possible LoveParasiteGame NightDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among ThievesTop GunThe Hunt for Red OctoberSaltMidnight RunThe Last DetailTerrifierThe Vast of NightWhen Harry Met SallyAnyone But YouEasy ABlade RunnerFinding EmilyFallBy Any MeansYoung WashingtonThe Brink of War
Ferrara conversation asides The TerminatorTexas Chainsaw MassacreHenry: Portrait of a Serial KillerNear DarkGoodfellasCarlito's WayThe Godfather Part IIIMiller's CrossingPrince of the CityOut of SightGet ShortySnatchThiefMarty SupremeDaddy Long LegsBeverly Hills CopThe ScoreHoney, I Shrunk the KidsOldboyThe Last Temptation of ChristInsidious: The Red DoorRRRBig Trouble in Little ChinaScroogedPersonality Crisis: One Night OnlyDeath WishDeath Wish 3West Side StoryThe BeekeeperThere Will Be BloodThe ShiningDeath ProofCollateralInland EmpireWhale Fall
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The BearThe MandalorianSkeleton CrewAhsokaDarth Maul (series)East of EdenHarry Potter (HBO series)The Da Vinci Code (series)The Handmaid's TalePee-wee's PlayhouseToo Many CooksYule LogGet Smart (1965 series)Aqua Teen Hunger ForceGrey's AnatomyCrime StoryThe Gladiator (1986 TV movie)
Web series The Backrooms (YouTube series)The Amazing Digital Circus
Video games Iron Lung (video game)Metal Gear Solid 2
Ads State Farm