Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Top Gun Maverick Forecasts and a Conversation with Ross Melnick

On this week’s episode of The Boxoffice Podcast, hosts Daniel Loria and Shawn Robbins look at the latest opening weekend forecast for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Can the new Marvel movie cross the $200 million mark over its domestic debut in theaters? The hosts also look ahead to the latest tracking figures for Memorial Day weekend, where Top Gun: Maverick will open alongside The Bob’s Burgers Movie to kick off the summer box office. The world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick has exhibitors raving about the movie—but can the film connect with a younger generation of moviegoers? 

In the feature segment, Daniel speaks with Ross Melnick, professor of film and media studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Melnick’s new book, “Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World,” looks at how the American conception of the movie theater was exported around the world. In a wide-ranging conversation going over 90 years of theatrical exhibition history, Loria and Melnick draw parallels between film history and today’s multinational expansion of the movie theater business.

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Episode Resources:

• Cinema Treasures

What to Listen For

• 00:00 Intro
• 04:08 Doctor Strange domestic opening forecast
• 12:29 Cinema Treasures
• 15:18 It happened in about a 15-year period
• 19:15 MGM and Paramount building cinemas overseas
• 26:24 The export of the American concept of a movie theater 
• 35:44 Decline in building the massive movie houses
• 41:04 The perception of privatized spaces