Chris Lee

Senior Reporter for @Vulture-@NYmag covering Hollywood. "Very fire"

[Vulture @vulture]

Younger viewers have dismissed Steven Spielberg’s alien epic ‘Disclosure Day’ as ‘for boomers,’ further curtailing its ability to leg out into profitability. https://t.co/UfqYbVXT1r

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

#MandalorianAndGrogu is set to become the lowest-grossing Star Wars. “It makes sense for them to continue exploiting their most appealing piece of IP,” notes an exec at a rival studio. “But if it doesn’t work, what’s the play then? Go back to streaming?”
https://t.co/RhAh6UAw4J

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

@lmoses Your story about the audit was so interesting. I could have written another 1,500 words about Saudi financial opacity

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Desert Warrior was supposed to be Saudi Arabia's Braveheart. Instead, the $150 million action-epic took 4.5 years to reach theaters and flopped, earning $472,000. I examine the production challenges, wars and creative differences that hampered its release: https://t.co/7I6kRw1BnE

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Even studio insiders feel the lack of pedophilia allegations in #Michael is glaring: “If you don’t address the central conflict in the person’s life,” one tells me, “it’s like you’re doing a biopic on Hitler and you’re skipping the years 1942 to '46” https://t.co/XONM7d86hd

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

Maturbation on the moors for the win. Emerald Fennell cements her place among Hollywood final-cut filmmakers with a No. 1 opening weekend for Wuthering Heights. https://t.co/Nx840rNapi

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean movies made billions and he seemed like a Hwood made man. Until Lone Ranger became an era-defining flop. After nothing for a decade, he's back with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. I asked him "Where have you been?" https://t.co/n6C0X05fCj

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

In the poster for James L Brooks' Ella McCay, idealistic millennial lieutenant governor Ella McCay struggles to put on a shoe. In the film? She puts on shoes just fine! But that hasn't stopped fans from paying homage to Ella's iconic standing-on-one-foot shoe imbroglio

[fran hoepfner @franhoepfner]

i blogged about the #EllaMcCayChallenge & spoke to its ingenious creator @michaelsroberts 👠https://t.co/auUbjnTIub

[LA Press Club @LAPressClub]

Best Arts or Entertainment Limited Series Podcast, Radio/Podcast
Charlotte Silver, Joe Adalian, Rebecca Alter, Bilge Ebiri, Chris Lee, Vulture, “The
Disney Dilemma”
https://t.co/Fytc3k8775

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

In Hollywood success begets sequels. With Wicked For Good debuting to $226M, I asked Universal's chief marketing officer if any sequels or spinoffs are in the works: "We have almost a responsibility to figure out how we can continue in this universe" https://t.co/r1TgFadYP3

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Black Bear released the Sydney Sweeney boxing biopic #Christy on over 2,000 screens to a disastrous $1.3M debut. I examine the economic crosswinds buffeting indie filmdom that are responsible for so many flops from A-list stars this awards season https://t.co/EJLfIvAkYu

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Netflix released #KPOPDEMONHUNTERS in theaters twice, is putting @JayKellyFilm in "historic movie palaces," the @Stranger_Things finale in the multiplex and giving GDT's Frankenstein the "biggest theatrical release." Has Big Red learned to love theaters?? https://t.co/K6jQFWThra

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

For the past 2 years Blumhouse has delivered a string of flops. Now Black Phone 2 opens to a so-so: $27.3M. I delve into the company's sequelization woes (M3gan 2.0!) and evolution from making cheapo originals to $$$ reboots of The Exorcist and Halloween https://t.co/EyBJNUAygP

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Highly recommended: this fascinating profile of Iranian dissident filmmaker/2025 Palme d'Or winner/iguana dad Jafar Panahi by the ever wonderful @roxana_hadadi

[✍🏼 roxana | ✊🏼 zivar | ⚒️ hadadi @roxana_hadadi]

gonna keep bumping my profile of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, of which I am very proud, would love if you read, at @vulture:

https://t.co/pUPnsHr2nk

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another won the weekend with $22.4 million but still faces a long road toward profitability. Nevertheless, it stands as capstone to Warner Bros.' $4 billion year: the studio's 7th No. 1 movie in a row. https://t.co/vKCLtuuR2y

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

At 18 Nico Ballesteros became @kanyewest's video biographer: sitting in on meetings with Lady Gaga, Elon Musk & Trump; chronicling the rapper-designer-Nazi sympathizer's disintegrating marriage to Kim K. Here Nico talks me thru his 8-year Ye odyssey https://t.co/QBCWpPEyvm

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

@DEADLINE But what did Setoodeh clock this standing O at?

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

#JurassicWorldRebirth, #HowToTrainYourDragon and #TheBadGuys2 all carry end-credits warnings: "THIS WORK MAY NOT BE USED TO TRAIN AI." I unpack how such warnings are basically unenforceable at a time when no one has figured out data scraping vs Fair Use https://t.co/QNGMbmlSru

[Chris Lee @__ChrisLee]

@radar_online fight the power

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

Superman entered the movies marketplace with any number of potential frailties: the absence of a marquee star, perceptions of superhero fatigue (especially abroad), IP that unlike Spider-Man or Batman has ebbed and flowed from public consciousness for the past two decades. But pinning its underwhelming financials on anti-American sentiment presents more than a few troubling implications for an already beleaguered Hollywood.

In an era when President Trump’s whipsaw imposition of tariffs has been wreaking havoc on world stock exchanges, DOGE cuts to humanitarian aid have eroded American “soft” power, and U.S. military support for Israel has come under intense criticism, is overtly American aesthetic the kiss of death for Hollywood’s premium movie product?