Any time a movie can combine one of the best working directors with a generational talent in from of the camera, expectations are high. That’s been the case for One Battle After Another from its very inception, before the тιтle was even known, thanks to the pairing of Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio.

However, the feelings of excitement over that union quickly shifted as the movie’s $115 million budget came to the surface. That price, the highest by far for a PTA movie, raised concerns about the film’s chances to be seen as a success. With it veering more into the action genre than the director’s past works, questions even came regarding the film’s awards potential.

The skepticism surrounding One Battle After Another has been evident throughout the last two-plus years, especially amid reports that the actual budget went higher. The Wall Street Journal reported a $140 million price tag, while Variety pegged it at $175 million; Warner Bros. states the budget is $130 million.

That hasn’t deterred excitement in the film from hardcore movie fans who can’t wait to see what a DiCaprio-led PTA movie is like, in IMAX no less. After all the questions surrounding Warner Bros.’s decisions with the movie, what comes next will be fascinating to see unfold.

One Battle After Another Has Proven Warner Bros.’s Gamble Was Worth It

Thanks to the budget alone, One Battle After Another was announced as something of a risk. DiCaprio is a certified box office star, and that’s what the studio is banking on here, but PTA’s movies have never been huge financial performers.

His movies tend to be more awards-driven rather than ones with box office potential. This was the expectation for One Battle After Another, too. Yet, Warner Bros. giving it a late September release date raised some eyebrows. The decision to skip a premiere at any of the big fall festivals – TIFF, Venice, Telluride, and New York Film Festival – had the same reaction.

One rational thought from these movies was that the studio was less confident in the movie and how it would be received. Anything less than an enthusiastic response at a fall festival can kill a movie’s awards season hopes. Even with DiCaprio and PTA, it was fair to question if One Battle After Another could deliver the goods.

After all, PTA had never made a movie at this size and scope before, much less in this type of action-thriller genre. Any fears ᴀssociated with the film’s quality have now been laid to rest, as One Battle After Another‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is at 97%, showing the rave response from critics.

It now appears that Warner Bros. has played it perfectly with the movie’s rollout. Instead of putting the film in the thick of a busy festival where each day brings new buzz about a different тιтle, this film sat back and let other awards contenders compete against each other for attention.

Now that the dust has settled on TIFF, Venice, and Telluride, lifting the One Battle After Another review embargo has given it the full attention of Hollywood. With some critics already heralding it as a masterpiece and one of the best movies of the 21st century, all eyes have now shifted to this тιтle.

To be clear, the “masterpiece” term is being thrown around a lot with this film. Reviews for Rolling Stone, ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, IGN, IndieWire, ᴀssociated Press, and Inverse are a few that directly use the word to describe the film in the review or headline.

This puts the movie in a grand position just one week before it hits theaters. The emphatic praise coming the film’s way is sure to create more awareness for it, all while stealing the spotlight in early awards conversations from its compeтιтors.

One Battle After Another‘s late September release date should also work to its benefit now. It becomes the тιтle that will kick off a few months of consistent arrivals of new Oscar hopefuls. Similar to how Sinners has stuck with audiences all year, One Battle After Another can now get out ahead of its rivals and make a run as the best movie of 2025.

It has the reviews to compete with the best of this year. It also has the potential to make a run to Oscar glory next spring. There’s no question WB was right to take the gamble on a $100M+ PTA movie starring DiCaprio. The movie has beaten one battle after another, which now just leaves arguably its biggest one.

Will One Battle After Another Be A Box Office Hit? Does It Matter?

The box office performance aspect of One Battle After Another‘s release has been a dark cloud looming over the film for a while now. How much a movie makes is not always a direct reflection of its quality. But, in this case, everyone should want a movie as good as this one seems to be to find great success.

Audiences’ lives will not change whether One Battle After Another is determined to be a financial hit or flop based on how profitable it is or how big a loss Warner Bros. takes on it. There is the reality that a movie like this doing incredibly well would be a great sign for the state and future of the movie industry and theaters.

One Battle After Another is loosely based on a 1990 novel, “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon, but it is primarily seen as a new, “original” movie from the mind of a brilliant director, headlined by a bankable movie star. In a time when sequels, remakes, and reboots are becoming more and more popular, this movie becoming a hit would be encouraging.

It would be a sign to Hollywood that audiences don’t only need known IP to get them into theaters. Warner Bros. has proven that a few times in 2025 with Sinners and Weapons both crushing. They can now hopefully deliver a third unexpected box office hit here.

However, the odds of that happening are a bit more uncertain. Early box office tracking for One Battle After Another suggests a $15M-$20M opening weekend domestically. That’s only a fraction of the film’s budget and would not set the film up well to break even in theaters.

I don’t expect One Battle After Another to go down as a box office hit. It needs to gross at least $325 million worldwide to achieve that using the typical Hollywood math of making 2.5x the budget. Even with DiCaprio’s stardom, that figure seems unreachable.

That outcome would create a predictable narrative that the movie was a box office failure, which would be both discouraging and accurate. Warner Bros. needs to hope that the rave reviews increase interest substantially in the next week, creating more walk-up business for the film so it can exceed projections.

In a perfect world, we could all just celebrate the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson made a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio that is as good as One Battle After Another, regardless of how it does in theaters. But, doing so will be a lot sweeter if the movie does become a surprise box office hit.