For ‘Materialists’ Girls, When the ‘Dragon’ Is Enuf

Due to a false alarm about potentially malfunctioning Wi-Fi, we ended up with two special guests for the price of one. Kirsten Acuna, having recently begun a new gig as a staff editor at People Magazine, dropped by to discuss the second of three high-profile live-action remakes for 2025. And since we weren’t sure if Jeremy Fuster would be able to make it, Aaron Neuwirth made his third appearance since early March, seemingly trying to stake his claim as the Steve Martin of The Box Office Podcast. The topics for this episode aren’t exactly surprising. However, we discussed why How to Train Your Dragon performed so well, particularly considering the actual box office results of the 2010-2019 animated trilogy, and whether other DreamWorks titles can justify such a “real-world” makeover. We noted the relatively strong domestic debut for A24’s Materialists, while Jeremy’s passionate displeasure with the misleading marketing, as reflected in the comparatively mixed audience scores, sparked a back-and-forth over the values and vices of selling a less mainstream genre flick as a comparative crowdpleaser.  Get full access to The Outside Scoop at scottmendelson.substack.com/subscribe