Last week brought a box-office opening for A24’s Primetime, new details about DC’s animated Dynamic Duo, and a collaboration between Particle 6 and Rob Minkoff on an AI-assisted family film.
Primetime Makes an Early A24 Box Office Record
A24’s Primetime opened in theaters on Friday, brought in $8.5 million and finished its first weekend with a domestic haul of $19.2 million against a reported $15 million production budget. By the end of its first weekend in theatres, it had recorded $4.2 million above its production budget.
The opening gave Primetime the third-best domestic debut in A24’s history, surpassing Marty Supreme, which opened to $15.7 million in 2025, and is now just behind Backrooms ($81.4 million) and Civil War ($25.5 million).
Primetime stars Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, the host of To Catch a Predator. The film follows Hansen in 2006 as he tries to turn his controversial television program into a primetime hit.
Primetime’s release was accompanied by other new-comers. Amongst these are Avengers: Endgame Encore which debuted at number one at the box office on Friday. Primetime ranked second. Heart of the Beast was third, followed by Resident Evil fourth, and Forgotten Island.
By the end of the weekend, the top five deck was restacked as Avengers: Endgame Encore ($26 million), Resident Evil ($23.3 million), Heart of the Beast ($20 million), Primetime ($19.2 million), and Forgotten Island ($12.8 million).
Dynamic Duo Casts Four Actors
DC’s animated Dynamic Duo received several updates this week. Reports began circulating on September 21 about the voice cast, and by Wednesday TheWrap confirmed Mason Thames as Dick Grayson and Logan Kim as Jason Todd. Lee Pace and Steve Buscemi were also confirmed as Red Hood One and Red Hood Two.
The film reimagines Dick and Jason as orphaned childhood friends who survive on the streets before their lives move in different directions. Dick is taken in by Bruce Wayne and becomes Robin, while Jason becomes involved with the Red Hood Gang. Chris Pine has reportedly been offered Batman, although that casting has not been confirmed.
Unlike popular projects like Superman, the Lantern series, and the upcoming Clayface film, this project will exist in a continuity called Elseworlds which is separate from the main DCU.
Before announcing the cast, Warner Bros. moved Dynamic Duo from June 30 to September 22, 2028. Reports reveal that the project will target school-age audiences, teenagers, and college students, with the studio looking toward the Spider-Verse audience.
Rob Minkoff Joins Particle 6 for Storm Dogs
Rob Minkoff, the director of Stuart Little and co-director of Disney’s 1994 animated The Lion King, has partnered with Particle 6 for an AI-assisted film. Particle 6 was founded by Eline van der Velden and is known for its AI-created performer Tilly Norwood.
Their project, Storm Dogs, is based on an original idea from van der Velden. It follows two-year-old Poppy, who becomes separated from her caregiver during a devastating storm. Five different dogs must cross flooded fields and damaged bridges to get her home safely.
Speaking to the AI approach towards the project, Van der Velden said she does not see AI as a replacement for human creativity. She believes it can give filmmakers more freedom while the industry learns how to use the technology responsibly.
She described the film as unusually difficult to make through conventional methods alone:
Particle 6 plans to combine live-action performances, traditional filmmaking and AI tools. Actors will not simply provide voices. Their expressions, movements, timing and emotions will help shape the photorealistic characters.
Van der Velden said, “Rob has helped create some of cinema’s most enduring animal characters. His understanding of character, comedy and emotional storytelling makes him an extraordinary creative partner for ‘Storm Dogs.’”
Minkoff will develop the story, characters and screenplay and serve as executive producer. “I have spent much of my career looking for ways to create animal characters who are funny, emotionally truthful and completely alive.”
Storm Dogs is still in early development, with production targeted for 2027.
Paper Tiger Opens the New York Film Festival
The 64th New York Film Festival began on Friday with James Gray’s Paper Tiger, giving the film its North American premiere after Cannes. The lineup includes films from Tony Gilroy, Ava DuVernay, Pedro Almodóvar, and Luca Guadagnino.
Paper Tiger stars Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson. Set in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn, it follows engineer Irwin Pearl as he gets pulled into a dangerous business scheme involving his former police-officer brother and Russian criminals.
After the screening, Gray joined Johansson, Driver, and Teller for a Q&A. He explained that he wanted the film’s ending to remain open rather than neatly resolving every part of the characters’ lives. Johansson arrived from London, where she is currently filming The Batman Part II.
The festival runs through October 12, with Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!, Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, and Guadagnino’s Artificial still to come. Artificial, added to the Main Slate earlier this month, will premiere on October 5.
It stars Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman and Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever and follows the development of machine learning and OpenAI’s 2023 leadership crisis.
