Interesting! Report: Leonardo DiCaprio Meets His Toughest Box Office Challenge in PTAās $150M Gamble ā $20M Opening Currently Projected Puckās Matt Belloni has a fascinating new study out this week, one that questions whether Leonardo DiCaprioāthe last true āprestige movie starāācan still deliver the kind of box office numbers that once made him Hollywoodās most bankable actor. His latest project, Paul Thomas Andersonās āOne Battle After Another,ā is shaping up to be the ultimate stress test for DiCaprioās enduring star power. The $150M+ political satire (Warners insists the budget is closer to $130ā140M, but many whisper higher) runs two hours and 40 minutes, is R-rated, and comes from a filmmaker who has never cracked $76M at the box office. The question hanging over the industry: Can even DiCaprio get audiences to show up for this? Belloni paints the scene well: summerās over, and DiCaprio is heavily doing the publicity rounds for PTAās priciest gamble yet. Heās notoriously press-averse, but Warner Bros. clearly knows the stakesāheās already appeared in Esquire (interviewed by Anderson, not a journalist) and the studio gave the film a nearly three-week runway after its Los Angeles premiere before the September 26 release. Still, early tracking has the film opening at just $20M, which would be catastrophic given the investment. Thatās where Puckās study comes in, via Greenlight Analytics. DiCaprioās awareness remains sky-high at 86 percent (99th percentile among actors), with strong marks for āgood actorā (71 percent), ālikableā (61 percent), and āauthenticā (58 percent). His fandom score is an impressive 60 percent, and 37 percent of respondents said theyād pay to see him in theaters. However, the data also exposes cracks: his ātrendyā score sits at 48 percent, and nearly a quarter of respondents consider him overrated. Younger audiences under 35, in particular, are less inclined to see his films theatrically. Compared to peers, DiCaprio remains one of the most respected actors aliveāranking ahead of Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt in āgood actorā perceptionābut he lags behind broader-appeal stars like Dwayne Johnson when it comes to raw theatrical pull. His lack of social media presence and his refusal to touch I.P. or superhero franchises keeps him in a rarefied lane, but also limits his reach with younger moviegoers. This wouldnāt matter as much if DiCaprioās films were consistently profitable. But recent box office history tells a different story: āKillers of the Flower Moonā topped out at $158M worldwide, despite the Scorsese team-up. A decade earlier, āJ. Edgarā barely made $80M worldwide on a $35M budget, despite the Clint Eastwood pairing. Belloniās takeaway? DiCaprio is still the āunicornāāarguably the last star whose name alone can carry a prestige non-IP pictureābut his box office ceiling has lowered. If āOne Battle After Anotherā performs like āKillers of the Flower Moon,ā Warner Bros. could be looking at another āprestige flop.ā The larger question is whether DiCaprio needs to recalibrate. Does he continue his one-for-one auteur strategy, or start balancing them with more mainstream genre films (āInceptionā) or ensemble projects (āOnce Upon a Time⦠in Hollywoodā)? His legacy is secure. But as he turns 50, even DiCaprio may need to rethink how to sustain his drawing power in a theatrical landscape thatās increasingly hostile to expensive, original adult dramas.