Glen Powell, Jacob Elordi and Austin Abrams all flopped — Josh Brolin is getting the blame
Three young stars, three expensive flops, and the internet has found its culprit: the older bloke billed second. He was hired to be the safe bet.
Whalefall is sinking. 20th Century Studios' survival thriller took $2.6 million on Friday 16 October 2026, previews included, and Deadline now has it opening to $6–7 million, well short of the $11 million tracking had predicted. The film cost a net $60 million. Austin Abrams plays Jay, a young diver swallowed by a sperm whale while searching for his dead father's remains. Josh Brolin plays the father.
Deadline's verdict on the premise: "No one wants to watch him go through a Pinocchio experience, meaning being eaten by a whale." Fair enough. But on r/boxoffice, the joke has already moved on from the whale to the dad.
"Suddenly those are Josh Brolin movies like they weren't starring Glen Powell, Jacob Elordi and Austin Abrams."
— top comment in the r/boxoffice thread on the Friday numbers
Another user called three Brolin bombs in a row "something that wasn't on my bingo card this year". It's a good joke and a bad reading of the numbers. Look at who actually headlined those films, and the blame lands somewhere else entirely.
Three young leads, one Brolin
The pattern is the same every time. A rising star goes above the title, and Brolin stands a step behind him, the older face on the poster. Two of the three came from the same studio, 20th Century, which has now tried the trick twice in two months.
- The Running Man (November 2025): Glen Powell leads Edgar Wright's Stephen King adaptation, Brolin in the supporting cast. Paramount's big-budget bet, reportedly more than $100 million, opened to $16.5 million in North America, and THR called it Powell's first box office miss since becoming a movie star.
- The Dog Stars (August 2026): Jacob Elordi leads Ridley Scott's post-apocalyptic thriller, Brolin beside him. It cost more than $80 million and opened to $8 million, with a C+ CinemaScore.
- Whalefall (October 2026): Abrams in the whale, Brolin in the flashbacks.
Not one of them is a sequel or a superhero film. Not one of them sold on the name above the title.
Read more: Whalefall traps a diver inside a sperm whale, and viewers say it's really about his dad
The insurance policy that keeps not paying out
Brolin is not box office poison. He is insurance. A studio building a film around a 20-something star puts a familiar face nearby, someone the star's parents will recognise from No Country for Old Men or Avengers, so the film doesn't play only to people who follow Elordi on Instagram. It's a sensible idea, and it has now failed three times in a year.
Brolin was never the one meant to sell these films. He was there to make sure they didn't need selling.
The problem sits above him on the poster. Powell, Elordi and Abrams are proper stars on streaming and on social media, but none has yet got people to buy a cinema ticket for an original story without a franchise behind it. Pinning that on the supporting actor is a bit rich. To be fair to Powell, he and Brolin are close enough that Powell once rented Brolin's house in Atlanta. Brolin told THR the family no longer owns it, "probably because Glen stayed there."
Brolin's way out is a franchise
The other irony is where Brolin goes next. In the same interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he confirmed that Sicario 3 finally has a script, by Steven Knight, with Padraic McKinley directing and Benicio del Toro and Emily Blunt back.
"Steven Knight wrote a script that was incredible, and it was kind of undeniable. All of us reacted similarly. So we're very excited about doing it. We'll do it next year."
— Josh Brolin, to The Hollywood Reporter
So the man blamed for three original films will be fine with a sequel number on the poster. The young stars who actually led those films get no such safety net. And the studios watching these numbers draw the obvious conclusion: fewer big original films built on new faces, more threequels. Brolin will get the reputation. The cinemas will get Sicario 3.
Read more: Josh Brolin wants a Thanos vs Doom showdown, and Marvel fans are worried for his spine