Movie Preview: August 2025

It was a wonderful, incredible, stupendous month at the July box office. And yes, I did just avoid the three obvious adjectives this time around. July was a month that was quality over quantity, that meaning a small handful of major releases as opposed to a bunch of small to medium sized releases. And the discussion we went into the month asking was how many $100 million openers were we going to get. Were “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” “Superman,” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” all going to hit that mark or was one of them going to get overshadowed?

The technical answer is that two of them opened above $100 million – the two superhero movies. With nearly identical openings, too. “Superman” at $125.0 million and “The Fantastic Four” at $117.6 million. “Jurassic World: Rebirth” opened slightly below the mark with $92.0 million, but that’s only because it opened on a Wednesday. It’s 5-day opening was $147.8 million. And given that it got the head start over the other two, in regards to in-month box office totals, it is the July winner with $308.9 million. Although “Superman” was right behind it with $302.4 million and is on pace to sneak past it soon. “The Fantastic Four” only had one weekend in the July box office, so it’s ensuing weekends are yet to be determined. The upcoming month will help determine which of these will ultimately win out in regards to their final totals as all three will likely to continue to be a strong presence throughout August, which is currently looking like the exact opposite of July. A good number of small to medium sized releases with not a lot of major title. Overall in July, the domestic box office came out to be $1.111 billion, the first month of the year to hit the billion mark. A far cry from the highest July ever, but an impressive mark nonetheless. Theaters, studios, and audiences alike all seem like they won.

But yes, now we move onto August, the final month of the summer that always serves as a cool-down month. August through October historically are the low points of the year for the box office, in between the summer and the holiday movie seasons. But honestly, these smaller months are oftentimes the funner months to explore. Lots of titles to learn about and share, even if their prognostication isn’t great. There’s often diamonds in the rough to find if you’re willing to put in the effort to find them instead of only seeing the major releases. So here’s what August has in store!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com, although the latter is proving less and less helpful these days. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

August 1 – 3

DreamWorks' "The Bad Guys 2"

The first weekend of August will see three newcomers enter the race, although the top spot will easily be taken by “The Fantastic Four” in its second weekend. I’m typing this post on Saturday, August 2, so in the middle of this weekend, so I have a bit more insight after seeing the Friday estimates. Despite great reviews and seemingly solid word of mouth, “The Fantastic Four” is in for a bit of a surprise tumble in weekend No. 2 as it looks to crash 60+ percent. For comparison, “Superman,” after opening to $125 million, fell just 53 percent in weekend No. 2 to make $58.5 million. It seems natural to look at that as a comparison and project “The Fantastic Four” to fall in the $50-55 million range. However, it’s instead looking at a total closer to $40 million, which will still be enough for No. 1 on the weekend, but it will wind up being a closer race than initially anticipated.

Of the three newcomers, two of them are currently in a battle for second place, but with the Friday totals in, it looks like the winner of this battle will be The Bad Guys 2, the latest animated feature from DreamWorks Animation. This is a sequel to “The Bad Buys,” which was a bit of a sleeper hit in the first half of 2022. It was a movie about a group of villainous animals who were working on reforming their act in order to become… good guys. And now the updated challenge in this sequel, after having turned things around, is an unexpected group of challengers…. The Bad Girls. The movie initially had a softer opening of $23.9 million, but also scored a Rotten Tomatoes score of 88 percent from critics, which also came with good word of mouth for its target audience, helping it leg out to $97.5 million domestically and $250.8 million worldwide. Prior to seeing any weekend results, I would’ve naturally pointed to that $23.9 million opening of the first as a gauge for what this sequel might do, while also looking at recent DreamWorks openings of “Dog Man” ($36.0 million) and “The Wild Robot” ($35.8 million) as the potential ceiling. Initial Friday totals have it slightly above “The Bad Guys,” while slightly below the other two, for a final weekend total somewhere in the range of $25-35 million, depending on how it holds over the weekend. And with a budget of only $80 million, that’s a good enough start to be seen as a success, especially if word of mouth among family audiences gives it another healthy run throughout August.

The competition here for the No. 2 spot of the weekend is on the opposite side of the spectrum in regards to target audience and that is the comedy The Naked Gun. This is a franchise that dates back to 1982 as the 1988 movie “The Naked Gun” was a spin-off of the 1982 TV series “Police Squad!” The TV show lasted just one season and six episodes before ABC canceled it, but the 1988 movie revived it and then spawned two sequels, “The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear” in 1991 and “The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult” in 1994. While the third movie was intended to be the final movie, you can, of course, never trust Hollywood when they say something is the final chapter, not even when they put that in the title of the movie. A fourth movie has been in various stages of production since 2009. It took them a bit to figure things out, but what they landed on was a legacy sequel with a new cast, led by Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Lt. Frank Drebin, who was played by Leslie Nielsen in the first three movies. Joining Liam Neeson in this movie are the likes of Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, and Danny Huston, as the gang is coming together to try to prevent the closer of the Police Sqaud. The idea of this franchise is fast-paced, slapstick, spoof comedy and so far this appears to be working as it currently carries a 90 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. This was initially prognosticated as the potential highest opening new release, with $20-30 million or more on the opening. But as the weekend has arrived, it’s looking to hit more in the $15-20 million after a $6.3 million start on Friday. But if word of mouth is as strong as initial critic reviews, this could have decent legs as the month progresses

The final movie of the weekend is a movie that got a head start on the weekend, opening on Wednesday, and is thus technically a July release. Although it’s official opening weekend lands here in August and that is the horror film Together. This has been a buzzy release coming out of Sundance this year, visiting the South by Southwest Film Festival in March along the way. NEON purchased it and has put together a successful marketing campaign to get horror fans excited. The movie stars real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a fictional couple in this movie who are struggling a bit with their relationship. After falling into a mysterious pit and drinking what they think is just normal water, they start growing closer together in more than just an emotional way. The movie does get rather intense with its body horror, much like “The Substance” from last year, so this is intended for more of a niche audience rather than a mainstream horror audience, and comes from first-time filmmaker Michael Shanks, who had previously worked on various shorts before diving into this as his first feature-length film. Given that it was a Wednesday opening, it has currently made $6.3 million in its first three days and is looking at an official opening weekend in the $5-8 million range, for a 5-day total around the realm of $10 million. The movie currently holds a 91 percent from critics, so those who have seen it so far have mostly enjoyed their experience, although it could wind up as more divisive among mainstream audiences who aren’t aware of what they’re getting themselves into, as shown by the slightly lower 78 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

August 8 – 10

Disney's "Freakier Friday"

With a steeper than expected second weekend drop for “The Fantastic Four,” that should lead to an open competition for the top spot this weekend. The most likely scenario sees Disney handing the baton off to… themselves, with their release of Freakier Friday, the sequel to the 2003 hit “Freaky Friday,” which starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan as a mother and daughter who swapped places. And now in this sequel, 22 years have passed and lightning has struck twice. Except this time it’s more than just mother and daughter. Lindsay Lohan’s character has a daughter of her own and is about to get remarried to another guy, who also has a daughter of his own. As the families prepare to unite, grandmother, mother, daughter, and step-daughter all swap and have to go on an adventure to figure out how to get back into their own bodies and learn what lesson they need to learn. The first movie in 2003 earned $22.2 million, but held very well to finish with $110.2 million and has remained a favorite among fans of Disney. If you adjust those numbers for ticket price inflation, they equal $41.6 million and $206.7 million. Does “Freakier Friday” have the potential to match those numbers and be a late summer hit? Box Office Pro seems to think so. Their long range forecast put it in the $40-50 million range for its opening. My gut instinct is that those numbers are a bit high and that an opening closer to the unadjusted total of the original seems more realistic ($20-30 million). But nostalgia could very well boost this into becoming a hit. Jamie Lee Curtis is now an Oscar winner and Lindsay Lohan is in the midst of a career resurgence. And if the cards hit right, this could be the movie that dominates the rest of the month.

There is competition, though, and that comes via a movie that has been building more and more momentum in the last few weeks, and that’s the latest horror movie from Warner Bros., Weapons. This comes from writer/director Zach Cregger, who built quite the name for himself with the 2022 horror film “Barbarian,” which was praised by many horror fans as one of the best recent horror films, which has thus led horror fans to be very excited about his next movie, “Weapons.” The poster itself describes the movies plot: “Last night at 2:17 a.m., every child from Mrs. Grandy’s class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark… and they never came back.” Mrs. Grandy is played by Julia Garner in the movie and she’s joined by Josh Brolin, Alden Ahrenreich, Benedict Wong, and others. The town is trying to figure out what happened to these kids and what went wrong. Outside of the buzz from “Barbarian” and Zach Cregger, the movie itself has had very strong initial reviews. Only 17 counted on Rotten Tomatoes as me typing this. But all of them have been positive, giving it an early 100 percent score that the marketing has taken advantage of to build up buzz. Social media reaction seemed quite strong, too. This all leads to what seems like the potential for a breakout hit. “Barbarian” itself opened to just $10.5 million, so there’s no guarantee of huge success, but it does seem to have the potential to open in the $20-30 million range, which movies like “Smile,” “The Black Phone” and “Longlegs” debuted in. The highest opening for a horror film this year has been “Final Destination: Bloodlines” at $51.6 million, followed by “Sinners” with $48.0 million and “28 Years Later” with $30.0 million, so it’s been a good year for horror that “Weapons” looks to continue.

While the main battle of the weekend will be “Freakier Friday” and “Weapons” fighting to knock of “The Fantastic Four,” further down the list will be a movie simply looking to land a spot somewhere in the top 10 and that is Sketch, the latest movie from Angel Studios. This movie is a fantasy comedy that sees a widowed father trying his best to raise his two kids when the daughter drops her sketch book into a magical pond and results in all of the monsters from her sketch book to come to life. Like “Weapons,” early reviews also have this movie at a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but that’s also just with 18 reviews counted. While neither is likely to stay at that mark, that’s still a good early sign in regards to audience reaction to the film. Angel Studios in the last few years has been extremely with their releasing a wide variety of different small to medium budgeted films. They’ve had a couple of breakouts now with “Sound of Freedom” and “The King of Kings,” but many of their movies have also consistently landed in the $10-20 million range with their final domestic totals. The $5-8 million range for openings seems to be the average. Although outside “The King of Kings,” their other three movies from 2025 have been on the lower range of their openings, that being “Brave the Dark” ($2.3 million), “Rule Breakers” ($1.5 million), and “The Last Rodeo” ($5.4 million).

August 15 – 17

Universal's "Nobody 2"

This is the part of August where things become murky and tricky to predict. Whatever happened in the battle of “Freakier Friday” vs. “Weapons” in the weekend before is likely to be what also headlines this weekend. And the weekend after, too. Four new movies get added to the mix this weekend and only one of them looks to be a real contender to even debut in the top 5 and that movie is Nobody 2. In 2021, “Nobody” took a page out of the John Wick book by delivering a stylistic action movie led by a middle aged man who was once a part of a secret organization and is trying to put that behind him, only for it to come back to the forefront. Bob Odenkirk was the lead role of the movie and he had a family to protect when his past came back to haunt him. The movie wasn’t a huge hit, opening to just $6.8 million in March 2021. Although the box office was still very much in COVID recovery phase at that time. Very few things were a hit. People who saw it generally liked it, though. And it had a very minimal budget of just $16 million, so it earning $57.5 million worldwide was enough for Universal to greenlight this sequel. This time around, Bob Odenkirk’s character is on a vacation when more shenanigans happen. And… nobody ruins his vacation. Projections are in about the $8-12 million range, which would be an improvement on the original, although perhaps Universal would hope for a tad bit more given that we’re four years later and the state of cinema has returned to a relatively normal phase compared to early 2021.

Like I mentioned, the rest of these movies this weekend are not likely to make much of an impact on the charts. They might even be in the realm of a moderate release in a few hundred theaters rather than a full wide release of 1,000+, but we’ll see. In that context, it does seem awfully strange that one of these movies that is poised to barely register is the latest from director Spike Lee, Highest 2 Lowest. Spike’s last two feature-length films were “BlacKkKlansman” in 2018 and “Da 5 Bloods” in 2020, both of which were awards players. “BlacKkKlansman” even won Spike his Oscar. So it seems a bit strange that Apple is quietly dumping this in the middle of August, with A24 handling the theatrical release, before putting it up on Apple TV+ in early September. It seems like they would want to make some sort of awards push, even on name recognition alone. But anyways, speaking of awards prestige, the movie also stars Denzel Washington, winner of two Oscars and nominated for quite a bit more. The movie is an English-language remake or reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film “High and Low,” which itself is loosely based on the 1959 novel “King’s Ransom.” The original novel centers around the moral dilemma faced by a wealthy man when he is forced to choose between using his wealth to fulfill a personal ambition or saving the life a kidnapped child. Both adaptations are loosely based on that idea, but seem to include a similar moral dilemma. Early reviews are so far pretty good at 89 percent.

Lionsgate will also be joining the party this weekend as they release the crime thriller Americana, a movie that has sat on the shelf for over two years. It initially debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2023. Lionsgate acquired the distribution rights to the film a year later and is now just getting around to putting it out. Oftentimes, late August is one of the times of the year that’s more of a dumping ground for studios as they get some of their lesser titles out of the way. That’s what this very much feels like. That said, this movie has a stacked cast with the likes of Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey, Simon Rex, Eric Dane, and Zahn McClarnon, and also has quite the wacky premise that’s a crime thriller, action, modern Western centered around several people’s lived being intertwined in a death match fighting over an expensive ghost shirt. The reaction from those who saw it was generally positive, although somewhat muted. So there’s a chance that this movie could provide some solid entertainment in the doldrums of late August, even though it’s not expected to break the $5 million mark at the box office.

And the final movie listed by the-numbers.com as a wide release is one of those movies that I’m not 100 percent sure is a movie that really exists, if you know what I mean. It’s a movie that’s officially titled Eli Roth Presents: Jimmy and Stiggs. Despite having Eli Roth’s name in the title and posted heavily over the trailer, this is a movie where Eli Roth is merely serving as executive producer. I honestly can’t find a ton of information on this, but this might be a case where Eli Roth’s production company is helping produce or release this. The movie itself is written and directed by Joe Begos, who is known for movies like “Christmas Bloody Christmas,” “VFW,” and “Bliss,” all low-budget splatter fests that are unrated. The trailer I found for “Jimmy and Stiggs” only has 60,000 views and the movie doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, but it might be sneaking into a few theaters near you. The trailer here is certainly quite the wild ride, so it’s the type of movie that might find a niche audience somewhere.

August 22 – 24

Focus Features' "Honey Don't!"

I mentioned at the beginning of last section that whatever wins the battle of “Freakier Friday” vs. “Weapons” might be the headline of that weekend… and the weekend after, too. That’s because “the weekend after,” this current weekend here, only has one new wide release, Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t!, which does have quite the stacked lineup of Margaret Qualley, Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, and Charlie Day. The Coen Brothers have a long history of successful in the realm of cinema and I’m sure they’ll get back together to make another collaboration at some point, but right now they’re doing their own thing. Joel got serious in 2021 with his adaptation of “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” but Ethan recently has been in the comedy realm with “Drive-Away Dolls” last year and now “Honey Don’t!” this year. This one specifically is labeled as a neo-noir dark comedy and is about a small-town private investigator who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church. Ethan wrote this with his wife Tricia Cooke and the two of them have stated that they wanted to do a trilogy of “lesbian B-movies,” of which this one would be No. 2 in that after “Drive-Away Dolls.” About “Honey Don’t!,” Tricia Cooke stated that they wanted to make a film noir with a lesbian lead character. So they did! However, “Drive-Away Dolls” wasn’t quite the success they were probably hoping for as it only opened to $2.4 million and lasted just three weeks in theaters before getting dumped and finishing with just over $5 million domestically. That doesn’t bode well for movie No. 2 in this trilogy here, especially since reviews are coming in as fairly mixed as it currently holds a 43 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. So I wouldn’t bank on this making much of an impact.

Might there be more that does come out this weekend, at least in a moderate release? It seems odd for just one small release and that’s it. GKIDS will be re-releasing “Ponyo” in theaters on August 23. A24 is handling another re-release of “Ne Zha 2,” this being a dubbed release here in the states. Ron Howard has a psychological thriller called “Eden” scheduled for limited release. That movie stars Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Bruhl, and Sydney Sweeney and is about a group of outsiders settling on a remote island, theoretically based on factual events. MUBI has the crime drama “Lurker” that was released at Sundance this year. So one or more of these might end up taking more theaters, but I’m not sure which ones it’ll be.

August 29 – September 1

Sony's "Caught Steeling"

The fifth and final weekend in August is the 4-day holiday weekend of Labor Day in the United States, as Labor Day falls right on Monday, September 1 this year. Labor Day in the past has been seen as box office poison, but that turned out to be more of a self-fulling prophesy as movies like “Shang-Chi” and “The Equalizer 3” in recent years have proven that you can do well this weekend if you actually try. Will this be a Labor Day weekend that will find success or will it be holdovers again that stay on top of the charts?

I honestly am not sure at this point, but if there is a new movie that has potential to take the box office crown, it’s Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Steeling, a movie primarily led by Austin Butler in the lead role, but also includes Regina King, Zoe Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio, and... as the poster officially says… Benito Martinez Ocasio (aka Bad Bunny). The movie sees Aronofsky diving into the crime thriller realm, telling the story of a former baseball player finding himself immersed in the criminal underworld of New York in the 1990s. Aronofsky’s films tend to lean on the more challenging realm with serious themes and troubled characters. He’s not one to make a happy, feel-good movie for mainstream audiences. Movies like “Requiem for a Dream,” “The Wrestler,” “Black Swan,” “Mother!,” and “The Whale” showcase his darker, divisive style, so we’ll see what he has in store with “Caught Steeling,” which does seem to have a more mainstream feel. Sony has been pushing it quite a bit in their marketing, too. It’s hard to find a comparison in terms of what this has the potential to do because most of Aronofsky’s films are smaller releases or slow roll-outs, with “Noah” being the one major exception. Perhaps “Mickey 17” from this year is a comparison, with Bong Joon Ho teaming up with Warner Bros. That movie opened to $19 million back in March, but I’m curious to see what this has in store.

Another movie with decent potential that has been advertised quite a bit is the comedy The Roses, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in the lead roles. The two of them play a pitch perfect couple with everything seemingly going right, but, as Searchlight describes, underneath the facade of the perfect family is a tinderbox of competition and resentments that’s ignited when Theo’s (Cumberbatch) professional dreams come crashing down. The movie is an adaptation of the 1981 novel “The War of the Roses,” which was adapted into the 1989 movie of the same name starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as the lead couple. Directing this adaptation is Jay Roach, who early on directed the Austin Powers trilogy, along with “Meet the Parents,” “Meet the Fockers,” and “Dinner for Schmucks.” Two of his more recent films include “Trumbo” and “Bombshell.” The movie is written by Tony McNamara, who recently has written screenplays for “Poor Things,” “Cruella,” and “The Favourite.” The exact potential of this movie is also something that I’m not sure of, but recently comedy has struggled to find an audience in the theatrical market, even with a good cast and crew. My gut instinct says this feels like something that’ll open in the $10-15 range, but I’m not certain.

“Caught Steeling” and “The Roses” look to be the two main new releases this holiday, but one movie floating under the surface will be the release of The Toxic Avenger, a slightly different type of superhero film. This is based off of the 1984 cult classic, which was initially ignored, but eventually caught on within the next few years and wound up spawning three sequels, a stage musical, a comic book series, a video game, and an animated television series. The general idea is that the main character is a janitor who falls into a pit of toxic waste and is transformed into a deformed monster that sets out to do good and get back at all the people who wronged him. The new movie is also labeled as a black comedy and a splatter film and came close to not being released. It initially premiered at the Fantastic Fest in September 2023, but then had a hard time finding a distributor due to its gore and graphic content. It was eventually picked up by Cineverse who is planning on releasing it as unrated, thus one also might see it titled “The Toxic Avenger Unrated.” Even though it has gotten it’s official release, that still makes it hard to sell for audiences, meaning this might be targeting a specific niche audience rather than something that’s poised for a breakout.

Movie Preview: July 2025

We’ve arrived at the highest grossing month at the domestic box office, historically speaking. And we have three mega-hits lined up that should help 2025 properly align with history.

Quickly looking back at June, though, you might remember that in my intro to last month’s post, I noted that in 2024, May earned $550.3 million at the domestic box office, while June rebounded with $965.9 million. After this year’s summer started very strong with $967.6 million, coming close to doubling the previous May, I didn’t want to make any solid predictions, but I was feeling vibes that things might flip-flop. And while things didn’t completely bottom out in the realm of a $550 million month, I was more or less correct as June wound up with $813.1 million. “How to Train Your Dragon” soared high, earning over $200 million domestically by the end of the month, but it was the May holdovers in “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” that slotted in next as most of the June releases didn’t pull their weight. The second highest grossing June release was “F1,” which actually did very well with a $57 million opening, much higher than I was thinking. But that only occupied the final few days of the month. “28 Years Later” did very well in compared to the previous franchise entries, but wasn’t necessarily a horror breakout hit on the level of “Final Destination: Bloodlines.” Meanwhile, “M3GAN 2.0” and “Elio” were straight-up flops, while “Ballerina” opened on the lower end of the John Wick franchise.

But yes, that leads us to July, where the quantity of releases is quite low. But that’s because, as mentioned in the start, we have three mega-hits lined up and the other studios have decided to not spend a whole lot of effort competing with them. Those three movies are “Jurassic World Rebirth,” “Superman,” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” We’ll do a deep dive into each of them to see what the potential is, but it’s mostly just those three movies this month, with a few smaller ones scattered in between. So let’s get going!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

July 2 – 6

Universal's "Jurassic World Rebirth"

It’s Independence Day week here in the United States, with the 4th of July falling on a Friday. That should lead to strong grosses across the board, especially with holdovers like “F1” and “How to Train Your Dragon” getting continued business. But the lone new wide release is the first of our trio of mega-hits and that is Jurassic World Rebirth. This is a movie that technically qualifies as a sequel to “Jurassic World: Dominion,” but is more of a soft reboot. Chronologically, we’re five years after “Dominion,” but we’ve essentially said that Earth’s environment proved inhospitable to the dinosaurs, so the remaining ones have gone back to living on the tropical islands, which is basically the filmmakers choosing to undo all the events of the previous trilogy and take the franchise back to its roots – dumb humans being chased by dinosaurs on a remote island. And of course this movie has a group of scientists on a secret mission to dino island, although the cast is completely different, returning no one from any of the previous six movies. The new cast is led by the trio of Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey. The movie also was written by David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay for the first two Jurassic Park movies in the 90s and hasn’t been back since. Hired on as director is Gareth Edwards, director of “Rogue One” and “The Creator,” as well as 2014’s “Godzilla.” So on paper this has a lot going for it, ditching the much maligned previous few movies, bringing back the original writer, and having an all-star cast and directing team. Will that successfully attract people in swarms to the theaters for Independence Day week?

The answer to that is that it’s quite likely. Although initial reviews are splat down the middle, with a less than encouraging 52 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. For the sake of comparison, “Fallen Kingdom” earned a 47 percent, while “Dominion” got a 29 percent. So technically in increase in the percentage of positive reactions, but not enough to even match the 72 percent of “Jurassic World.” Rounding it out, it falls in line with “The Lost World” (56 percent) and “Jurassic Park 3” (49 percent). So beyond the classic first movie, this is a franchise that has failed to provide consistent positive reaction and at some point one would think franchise fatigue would start factoring in if they can’t make a movie that everyone enjoys. For the sake of box office comparison, both “Fallen Kingdom” and “Dominion” had similar openings in the realm of $145-150 million after “Jurassic World” exploded onto the scene in 2015 with a $208 million opening, an all-time record at the time, beating out 2012’s “The Avengers.” Adjust that number for a decade of ticket price inflation and you have a staggering $280.1 million opening. And even when you adjust the original trilogy for ticket price inflation, the-numbers.com’s inflation adjusted tool pegs those at $137.0 million, $177.7 million, and $101.5 million, so 30 years of dinosaurs has proven to continue to draw people to theaters, despite consistent mixed reactions to all the sequels. “Rebirth” opens on a Wednesday, being the first in the franchise to do so, so there’s not a perfect direct comparison here. But opening somewhere between the adjusted opening of “Jurassic Park 3” ($101.5 million) and “Dominion” ($145.1 million) is the generally expected, although that will be spread across the extended five-day opening.

July 11 – 13

Warner Bros.' "Superman"

After the first weekend of July sees “Jurassic World Rebirth” as the lone new wide release, this second weekend of July also sees our second mega-hit get the weekend all to itself and that is James Gunn’s Superman. For the casual movie-goer, the question might arise of “Why do we need another Superman movie?” And the answer to that can get quite long and complicated, depending on how deep you want to dive into the weeds of the DC Universe. The short answer is after the Snyder-verse came crashing down (the DC Extended Universe primarily ran by Zack Snyder), DC is again starting over, this time handing the reigns over to James Gunn, director of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, as well as DC’s “The Suicide Squad” (the 2021 version) and the HBO Max series “Peacemaker,” a spin-off show from that movie. While the latter two weren’t mega-hits financially, the quality was high enough for Warner Bros. and DC to give him the keys to the car to reboot the whole universe his way. And James Gunn has decided to start off with a Superman movie, casting David Corenswet as his new Superman and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. James Gunn also has Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner from the Green Lantern realm, and Kendra Saunders as Hawkgirl. So Gunn’s version of Superman is a Superman who exists in a DC World where many of the other characters already exist rather than it being an origin story. And lest you think this is too many characters from one movie, a potentially valid concern, might I remind you that this is the guy who did “Guardians of the Galaxy,” so balancing a lot of characters while showing a deep love and appreciation for the comics is definitely his thing.

Will this movie work out? Well, folks at Warner Bros. and DC certainly hope so. There’s a lot riding on this when it comes to the future of DC. And James Gunn certainly has a lot of work to do in re-establishing good will when it comes to DC movies. Audiences are also growing more tired of comic book movies in general as even Marvel has been met with a lot of criticism in recent years as people grow tired of their formula. So there’s definitely an uphill battle to climb, especially as the remaining Zack Snyder fans won’t stop pestering this new DC and casual fans might not be the most pleased with all of this as the answer to why a new Superman movie is necessary. But despite all that, the buzz here has been mostly positive, so it seems James Gunn is one who is up to the task. What does that mean financially for this movie? Well, we’re establishing slightly new ground with a reboot of the whole universe, but the last time Superman got his own movie was “Man of Steel” in 2013, which opened to $116.6 million. The high in that DCEU was “Batman v. Superman,” which opened to $166 million. Box Office Pro doesn’t have their long range forecast out for this yet, which is a disappointing to me as they used to do 6-8 weeks in advance, but some sources on the internet claim this is tracking for an opening around $130 million, which would put it in the realm of “The Batman,” which opened to $134 million in 2022, making $369.6 million total domestically, which feels like a valid comparison. New Batman. New Superman. Lastly, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” James Gunn’s most recent comic book movie entry, opened to $118.4 million, finishing with $358.9 million domestically. So there’s a few points of comparison to look at.

July 18 – 20

Sony’s "I Know What You Did Last Summer"

No mega-hit scheduled for this weekend. The last of those movies from this month will be in the final weekend of July. Meanwhile, while audiences wait for the big Marvel movie, this third weekend of July presents an interesting trio of movies to hold them over. The first of those is yet another horror franchise revival with the release of I Know What You Did Last Summer. So far each month of the summer has had one of these horror franchise revivals, both being rather successful, with May’s “Final Destination: Bloodlines” and June’s “28 Years Later” becoming the new highest grossing movie in their respective franchise, opening to $51.6 million and $30 million, respectively. Can we make it three for three here? The original “I Know What You Did Last Summer” opened in 1997 and was a slasher flick that centered around a group of teenagers getting stalked by a hook-wielding killer one year after they covered up a car accident in which they killed a man. The movie spawned two poorly regarded sequels (1998 and 2006) and a TV show in 2021 that got canceled after just one season. So that doesn’t bode particularly well for this new movie. The plot here follows a new group of teens who are going through a situation that’s almost identical to the original incident, so they search out the original survivors for help, which qualifies this as a legacy sequel, even going the “Scream” and “Halloween” route of using the exact same title as the original movie. The question here is can this be another horror breakout? The original two movies in the 1990s both opened to around $15 million. Press the inflation adjusted button and that translates to just under $40 million. Does this franchise have enough cultural relevance to pull that off? Or are we in for an opening that falls closer to the unadjusted openings of the first two movies?

Depending on which way that goes, the fight for the highest grossing new entry of the weekend will be between that and another franchise revival, this one going for family audiences with Smurfs. As a franchise, the Smurfs have been around since the late 1950s, getting their start in a series of comics. Since then, there’s been a variety of different TV shows and movies involving the Smurfs that have kept them relevant across many generations, most recently being the trio of movies from the 2010s, as well as a third TV series that started up in 2021 over in Belgium. The plot of this one feels awfully familiar. Papa Smurf has been kidnapped by the evil wizards Gargamel and Razamel. And now Smurfette leads the rest of the Smurfs on a mission to the real word to save him. So like the 2011 movie, we get a live-action and animated hybrid. And it wouldn’t be smurfing without some smurfs singing and this movie is pushing heavily the fact that Rihanna is Smurfette and has written original music for this movie. Not sure your 5-year-old cares about new music from Rihanna or the long list of voice actors that have been conned into doing this, but this does have optimal timing in that family audiences haven’t had a new movie for them in about a month at this point. The 2011 movie opened to $35.6 million and topped out at $563.7 million worldwide, so the ceiling here is pretty high. Although each of the two sequels saw diminishing returns, with “Smurfs: The Lost Village” opening to $13.2 million in 2017. So there’s quite a bit of range of possibilities for both this movie and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

There is a third movie coming out this weekend, although it’s a movie that’s poised to open up quite a bit further down than the others and that is the fourth movie from director Ari Aster, Eddington. As a director, Ari Aster began his career by directing two fairly popular horror movies in “Hereditary” and “Midsommar.” Anyone who is a fan of indie horror might bring up one or both of these in recommending original modern horror movies to other people. Aster’s third movie, 2023’s “Beau is Afraid” was quite the different animal. His goal was seemingly to one-up himself in regards to intense content, which he definitely accomplished, for better or for worse. The movie itself was quite divisive. And was also not horror. It might better be classified as a psychological drama or even a dark comedy. With his fourth movie, was Aster going to go back to horror and tone things down a bit? Or was he going to make another movie that’s closer to “Beau is Afraid”? Well, early word out of the Cannes Film Festival, where this movie debuted back in May, is that it’s closer to “Beau is a Afraid.” It’s also not a horror movie, it stars Joaquin Phoenix, and is a COVID-centric movie set in May 2020 in the town of Eddington, New Mexico, following a stand-off between a small-town sheriff and the mayor, sparking a major conflict in the whole city. Seem like a movie that general audiences will be interested in heading out to? Likely not. It’s listed as a wide release, although “Beau is Afraid” started in four theaters before then expanding to 965 theaters and eventually 2,125. It’s peak weekend saw it earn $2.6 million. Regardless of strategy here, it’s not likely to be a huge earner.

July 25 – 27

Marvel's "The Fantastic Four: First Steps"

In the last weekend of the month, it’s time for the third and final mega-hit of the month, which sees the arrival of the Fantastic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. This will officially be the 37th movie in the MCU, which of course began in 2008 with “Iron Man” and it arrives at a time where Marvel is having a slight bit of an identity crisis. They need a new face for this current era of the Avengers in a post Endgame world and they’re hoping that the Fantastic Four can provide that. This current movie is set in the 1960s in a retro-futuristic parallel Earth that is poised to have a major Galactus problem as his Herald, the Silver Surfer, comes and relays the news that their planet is marked for death. It’s up to the Fantastic Four to try to save it. In the realm of film, this is a franchise that’s had quite the cursed reputation as none of the films have really been well received. The 2015 movie, “Fant4stic,” is widely seen as one of the worst comic book movies ever made. However, the IP was previous owned by Fox, which means that Disney and Marvel got the rights back in 2019 when Disney purchased Fox. So if there’s anyone who can save this franchise and do it comic book justice, the MCU proper seems like the correct ones to do it, because the Fantastic Four comics are one of the more popular comics out there in the Marvel realm. To bring this crew to life, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach have been cast as the Four, with Julia Garner as Silver Surfer and Ralph Ineson as Galactus. Plans have already been made for this crew to play a major role in next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday,” as those who watched the end credits scene of “Thunderbolts*,” or the cast announcement video of “Doomsday” will be well aware of.

What will that translate to in regards to box office? Well, after the strikes threw them off their groove in 2024, and the two releases so far in 2025 have been fairly moderate in regards to box office success, Marvel is really needing a win here. Despite all the post-Endgame criticism from fans, Marvel was actually on quite the streak with six straight movies opening above $100 million, that going from “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in December 2021 through “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” in May 2023. That streak ended in November 2023 as “The Marvels” became their first major flop, which was followed by the strikes throwing off their 2024 schedule. Even with that, though, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” their lone release of 2024, became a billion dollar hit and their second highest-grossing non-Avengers film worldwide, behind just “Spider-Man: No Way Home. But so far in 2025, both “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Thunderbolts*” opened below $90 million ($88.8 million and $74.3 million), so they’re hoping “Fantastic Four” can be the one that puts them back above the $100 million mark for opening weekends. A little bit unknown territory with this being the first time the MCU has done Fantastic Four. And plenty of competition with the previous two mega-hits (can we really have three $100+ million openings in one month?), but if this does well, it has a similar late-summer slot that “Guardians of the Galaxy” did in 2014 that helped it go from a $94.3 million opening to $333.7 million domestically. Nothing huge in August to stand in its way.

One final quick note on the month is that “Fantastic Four” does get a companion film released on the same weekend. Not a movie that’s remotely going to be any sort of competition, but horror fans who don’t want to see the latest Marvel fan have the option of seeing IFC Entertainment’s latest horror film House On Eden. This movie is the latest team-up of IFC and Shudder, IFC doing the theatrical release prior to it eventually heading over to the Shudder streaming service. We talked about this last month with “Dangerous Animals,” but other horror films in this realm include “Stopmotion,” “Late Night with the Devil,” “In a Violent Nature,” “Oddity,” “Azrael,” and “The Rule of Jenny Penn.” Some of those being wide releases, others being more limited or moderate releases. “Dangerous Animals” last month ended up opening in 1,636 theaters and earned $1.6 million that weekend. It got dropped from most of its theaters after just two weekends, though, and is currently sitting at just $2.7 million. That’s probably the upper range for “House On Eden.” It could very easily be a movie that’s in just a few hundred theaters rather than something that starts in over a thousand. The movie itself is about a group of paranormal investigators out hunting their latest evil spirit, so pretty basic for the horror genre at this point. It’s also done “found footage” style. We haven’t seen one of those in a while because that subgenre died off, which means this movie is probably about 10-20 years too late, but it’s still an option. Either in theaters or a bit later on Shudder.

Movie Preview: June 2025

After a slow start to the year, the box office has officially caught fire the last two months. April managed to be a good primer for the summer movie season, which then led May to kick off the summer with a bang. A record breaking Memorial Day weekend led the way, with both “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” doing very well. We went from one of the worst Memorial Day weekends in 2024 to one of the best in 2025. Top that off with “Thunderbolts*” doing decent Marvel numbers to start the month off – albeit not quite as much as they maybe wanted, along with another $123 million in May for April’s breakout hit “Sinners,” as well as a $100 million outing for “Final Destination: Bloodlines” as that became the highest grossing movie of that franchise by quite the margin. “Karate Kid: Legends” missed the memo that we’re supposed to all be doing well, but even with that failure, the month as a whole nearly managed to hit $1 billion, finishing at $967.5 million domestically. For comparison, last May only earned $550.4 million, so this was a huge improvement.

Shall the momentum then carry on into June? Well, it’s a distinct possibility. It’s interesting, though, comparing 2024 to 2025. In 2024, as mentioned, we started the summer off very slow, then had a breakout June that hit $965.9 million before July went higher and crossed the $1 billion mark. I don’t want to predict that things will be flip-flopped here with May and June before July heads to the stratosphere with “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” “Superman,” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” But I’m currently seeing just one movie that looks like a guaranteed hit in June, with a handful of others that have a lot of questions marks surrounding them. Maybe all the question marks wind up surprising and becoming breakout hits and lead to another great month, but I’m not so sure, so let’s dive into specifics here so that you know what I’m talking about here.

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

June 6 – 8

Lionsgate’s "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina"

We start June off with one major release and a handful of smaller ones. With that one major one, it’s Lionsgate and they’re going to make it absolutely clear what universe this movie is from with the title From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Director Chad Stahelski spent the majority of the last decade doing nothing but John Wick movies and came up with a four-movie saga that got increasingly more popular as it went on, to the degree of “John Wick: Chapter 4” opening to $73.8 million domestically and finishing with $187.3 million domestically and $447.3 million worldwide. If you watched the movie, you’ll note that clearly Stahelski meant for that to be the final movie in his saga, but Lionsgate, thinking with their bank account, was clearly not ready for the franchise to be over. So while they continue to try to get Stahelski and star Keanu Reeves to return for an official fifth movie, it’s off into the spin-off realm we go! Taking place at around the events of the third film, hence Reeves making a cameo appearance that’s probably a much bigger part of the advertising than it should be, this movie follows a character named Eve, played by Ana de Armas, who is a trained assassin seeking revenge after her father’s death. The movie is the first movie in the franchise not directed by Stahelski as it’s Len Wiseman, director of the Underworld movies and 2012’s “Total Recall” remake. That might have John Wick fans slightly nervous, but one hopes that Wiseman took enough notes from Stahelski to make this at least a satisfactory entry in the universe, which based on early reaction seems to be the case so far.

In regards to box office, the challenge here will be to see if “Ballerina” can dethrone “Lilo & Stitch,” which after opening to $146 million over the 3-day Memorial Day weekend, and $182.6 million over the 4-day weekend, officially fell 58 percent in weekend 2 to make $61.8 million. One might expect it to hold slightly better in weekend 3. As such, another 50 percent drop would put it in the $30 million range. If it holds slightly better, than somewhere between $30-40 million would be where “Lilo & Stitch” would be expected to hit. And that’s the exact range that Box Office Pro has for “Ballerina” in their current weekend forecast, so this could be a competitive weekend if that holds true. Spin-offs rarely hit the heights of the original series, so of course “Ballerina” isn’t expected to come anywhere near $73.8 million opening of “John Wick: Chapter 4” or even the $56.8 million opening of “John Wick: Chapter 3.” But if it does hit in the $30 million range, that would put it in the realm of “John Wick: Chapter 2,” which opened to $30.4 million.

As mentioned, “Ballerina” is the only major release of the weekend, but we do have a couple of medium sized releases coming through. The first one of that bunch is actually the nationwide expansion of Wes Anderson’s latest movie The Phoenician Scheme. This opened in 6 theaters on the final weekend of May, taking in $560,499, for an impressive per theater average of $93,417. Wes Anderson has always been a much bigger hit with the platform releases rather than being a huge mainstream draw. In fact, a lot of his movies have had a much slower roll-out with his niche appeal, but “The Phoenician Scheme” goes straight from 6 theaters to 1,678 theaters, which nearly identically matches the strategy of 2023’s “Asteroid City.” That movie opened to a slightly higher $853,382 in 6 theaters, then expanded to $1,675 theaters in its second weekend and made just over $9 million. With “The Phoenician Scheme” opening slightly smaller, maybe that sets it up to also make slightly less with $6-8 million or so, but we shall quickly see. Those who have seen the movie describe it very much as a Wes Anderson film and if you’ve seen any of his previous films, you’ll know what that means. His type of movies are basically their own genre and he doesn’t seem to have much of a desire to skew from that. They’re also always an acting party, with many actors perfectly content to show up in just a scene or two. Benecio del Toro is the top billed cast member for this movie, but below him on the poster is Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, and Hope Davis. And that’s not all the cast. Just the ones who managed to get their name on the poster.

Clocking in just under “The Phoenician Scheme” in regards to theater count is the horror film Dangerous Animals, which opens in 1,636 theaters. This is a movie whose theatrical distribution is being handled by IFC Films before it eventually heads over the streaming service Shudder, which is a release strategy taken by a variety of horror films from last year and this year, including “Stopmotion,” “Late Night with the Devil,” “In a Violent Nature,” “Oddity,” “Azrael,” and “The Rule of Jenny Pen.” Of that group, the two movies that match the theater count that “Dangerous Animals” is getting are “Late Night with the Devil” and “In a Violent Nature,” which opened to $2.8 million and $2.1 million, respectively. The buzz for “Dangerous Animals” has felt slightly muted, but reviews have been solid so far at 84 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie stars Jai Courtney as a shark-obsessed serial killer, while Hassie Harrison plays a girl named Zephyr who gets kidnapped and wakes up on his boat and has to figure out how to escape before she gets fed to the sharks.

The last movie I’ll mention here for this weekend is Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye. I say movie here, but this is a collection of episodes from the anime series “Dan Da Dan” (I’ve also seen it stylized as “Dandadan”), which began airing last year and has a second season coming soon that will be released by either Crunchyroll, Netflix, or Hulu, depending on where in the world you live. Last year the first three episodes of season 1 were released theatrically as “Dan Da Dan: First Encounter,” while “Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye” this weekend is the first three episodes of season 2. In North America, it’s Hulu that’s releasing the series, while GKIDS is handling the theatrical event. An official theater count hasn’t been reported as of me typing this, but “First Encounter” this past September was released in 610 theaters domestically and earned $925,506, so I’d naturally expect something similar here.

June 13 – 15

Universal’s "How to Train Your Dragon"

In the intro of this post, I mentioned that it feels like there is one movie this month that feels like a guaranteed hit. That comes this weekend with Universal’s live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. I’m not really sure an introduction to this needs to be made, but “How to Train Your Dragon” was a 2010 animated film by DreamWorks Animation loosely based on the 2003 novel that is the first in a series that is currently 12 books deep. So there’s no shortage of source material here. DreamWorks’ movies capped off as a trilogy, with the second and third movies being released in 2014 and 2019, respectively. There were also three different TV shows that started on Cartoon Network in 2012, then transitioned to Netflix, Peackock, and Hulu. So this is definitely a franchise that remains quite popular and has many directions of where to go if they continue to do live action movies. Is it too soon to do a live action remake of a movie that came out in 2010? I suppose the answer to that question is up for debate, but just last month audiences said yes in a big way to “Lilo & Stitch,” which was a 2002 release. Disney is going for the 2010s next year with a live-action remake of “Moana,” so it looks like both the 2000s and 2010s are both now on the docket when it comes to these live-action remakes. “How to Train Your Dragon” this month will be a critical step in studios confirming from audiences that this is the direction they want studios to go. Don’t want it? Answer is simple. Don’t go. But the trailer reaction so far has been very strong and Box Office Pro is projecting this to open in the realm of $80-100 million, so the indication here is that audiences are wanting these remakes, despite what you might gather from people online. And if this does indeed work, DreamWorks might get all sorts of ideas of what to do next, beginning with a sequel to this one, already scheduled for June 2027.

Like the first weekend of June, “How to Train Your Dragon” is the lone major wide release, but we also have a trilogy of movies opening below it. And with two of them, you might think that we’ve entered awards season when you look at the titles. On that note, we’ll start with the much buzzed about release of The Life of Chuck. This movie debuted last year at the Toronto International Film Festival and wound up winning the People’s Choice Award at the festival. Every year since 2012, the winner of this award has gone onto being nominated for best picture at the Oscars, with a few best picture winners being in that club. So it was a big deal that “The Life of Chuck” beat out “Anora,” which did win best picture, and “Emelia Pérez,” which was nominated for 13 Oscars, those two movies being the two runners up for the People’s Choice Award at TIFF. It also made it a bit of a surprise that NEON chose to NOT release the movie during awards season last year, but instead put it out in the summer of this year. But current buzz, based on continued strong reaction to the movie, suggests that this is likely to be a film that has strong longevity throughout the year and winds up on the awards season ballot for this upcoming Oscars. The movie is directed by Mike Flanagan and is based on a Stephen King novella. Based on those two names you might think that this was a horror film. But it is not. This is described as a life-affirming, genre-bending drama telling three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Chuck Krantz, the adult version of whom is played by Tom Hiddleston, with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Mark Hamill getting the main co-star credit on the movie’s poster.

The other movie that makes it feel like we’re heading into awards season is the movie Materialists, which is the latest movie from director Celine Song. Now I mention this in awards context, not necessarily because of any buzz the movie itself is getting, but because Celine Song’s first movie was the drama “Past Lives,” which did get nominated for both best picture and best original screenplay. “Materialists” is her second directorial feature, so there’s been a certain level of buzz about what she’s doing next. And that next movie here looks like its an homage to the early 2000s romantic comedy, as Dakota Johnston plays a matchmaker currently struggling with her own romantic life, torn between an old ex played by Chris Evans and a new lover she met played by Pedro Pascal. One might wonder, given the success of “Past Lives,” as to why this isn’t coming out later in the year. But “Past Lives” wound up being a summer release as well. And awards or not, perhaps Celine Song is perfectly happy to use her success with her previous movie to simply provide a good summer rom-com for audiences. While its not necessarily projected to be a huge hit, this nevertheless has the pieces on paper to be a sleeper hit, or at least be a movie that remains part of the general conversation longer than just its initial theatrical run.

With the final release of the weekend, to heck with awards or giant summer blockbusters, we’re going Samuel L. Jackson in a Western with the movie The Unholy Trinity. We’ve got buried secrets in an 1870s Montana town that leads a young man to return to claim his legacy, while the Sheriff is determined to maintain order and a mysterious stranger is bent on destroying it. Get out your guns, horses, and appetite for adventure with Pierce Brosnan as the Sheriff, Samuel L. Jackson as the chaotic mystery man, and the somewhat newcomer Brandon Lessard playing the young man caught in between the two. This comes from distributor Roadside Attractions, who are known for their smaller and medium sized releases, so this won’t be a huge release. But hey, if you hate the trend of remakes and don’t want to give DreamWorks your money, this is one of three original movies hitting your local theater that you can see instead. Can’t say Hollywood is out of ideas when you don’t put enough effort into seeking out their original ideas that they release.

June 20 – 22

Pixar's "Elio"

Last June it was Pixar that really blew up the box office with their massive hit, “Inside Out 2.” A year later at nearly the same spot in the calendar, they are back with their latest original flick Elio. This is a movie about an Earth kid named Elio Solis who has a dream of being abducted by aliens. One day his wish comes true and he’s beamed up to the “Communiverse,” and interplanetary organization with representatives from many galaxies and they mistakenly think Elio is Earth’s leader, which sends him on quite the space adventure where he has to figure out who he is and where he’s truly meant to be. Pixar has actually been advertising this one for two years now. The initial teaser came out in June 2023, ahead of its initial scheduled release date of March 2024, but that was pushed back to this month due to the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023. Despite having the trailer out for a long time, though, this appears to be a Pixar movie that’s having trouble gaining traction, not helped by the fact that it has “How to Train Your Dragon” looming right before it the weekend before. In all the history of Pixar, there’s only been six of the 25 theatrically released movies (“Soul,” “Luca,” and “Turning Red” went straight to Disney+) that opened below $50 million. When you adjust for ticket price inflation, that number goes from six movies to two movies: “Onward” and “Elemental.” And even then, “Onward” was hurt severely by being released in the early stages of COVID and only got two weeks in theaters before theaters shut down. An opening in the $60-80 million range used to be common for a Pixar original as Pixar was a strong enough brand on its own to get people excited to see whatever they put out, but that seems to be a thing of the past for Pixar.

There’s probably a variety of reasons for that. The biggest being that we’re simply in a phase where audiences are less interested in seeing original films and are more likely to show up for the sequels and remakes. But also, the fact that Disney sent those three Pixar originals straight to Disney+ during COVID got people out of the habit of seeing Pixar in theaters. Disney has been trying to make up for that and get people to go back to theaters for all of their movies really, but for the case of Pixar, it hasn’t exactly worked. “Elemental” ended up holding well after its very disappointing $29.6 million opening. And of course “Inside Out 2” went through the stratosphere, but again that was a sequel to a very popular film as opposed to an old-fashioned Pixar original. Pixar could really use a win to maintain upward momentum, but tracking from Box Office Pro has it pegged in the $35-45 million range. And given the lack of buzz on this, that seems to be a range that makes sense. And if that range is correct, that might only be good enough for No. 2 on the weekend, behind the second weekend of “How to Train Your Dragon.” This might be a movie that will have to rely more on good reviews and word of mouth, much like “Elemental” did. But nevertheless, for those who are tired of sequels and remakes, here’s your opportunity to support an original animated film. If “Elio” can’t gain any traction, then you’ll know why moving forward there will be more movies like “Toy Story 5,” “Coco 2,” and “Incredibles 3” (three movies currently in production) rather than more originals like “Elio.”

Competing with “Elio” this weekend will be another horror franchise revival, with the movie 28 Years Later. This will be the third movie in this series, with “28 Days Later” coming out in 2003, followed by “28 Weeks Later” in 2007. It hasn’t quite been 28 years since the second movie in real life, but it has been 18 years, which is a significant gap between sequels. When it comes to horror franchise revivals, the most recent example comes from just last month with “Final Destination: Bloodlines” not only successfully bringing the franchise back, but also becoming the highest grossing entry in the franchise, even when you do adjust for ticket price inflation. And that had a similar gap as “Final Destination 5” was released in 2011. The question here is, has the “28 Days Later” franchise gained enough popularity over the years for horror audiences to be excited for this new release? Fans of the movies have reason to be excited as Danny Boyle, director of the first movie, has returned to write and direct this new one. The movie also returns Alex Garland as a writer. Not only did Garland write the original, but he’s gained plenty of popularity since by directing movies like “Ex Machina,” “Annihilation” and last year’s “Civil War.” So on paper this seems poised for success. And to be the highest opening in the franchise is actually a very low bar. The original only opened to $10.1 million, while the sequel opened a bit lower to $9.8 million. Adjust for ticket price inflation and those adjust to $18.9 million and $16.1 million. So a $16-18 million range seems like a reasonable hurdle to clear, providing adult counter-programming for the two big family films at the top of the box office.

Two family films at the top of the box office will be supplemented by two adult films opening below them. Those are the aforementioned horror film “28 Years Later” and the final movie of this weekend, Bride Hard. For those looking for alternate entertainment, but who don’t like horror, “Bride Hard” is an action comedy where Rebel Wilson plays a secret agent attended her best friend’s wedding. When the wedding gets overtaken by a mercenary group, Rebel Wilson reveals her secret identity to her friends and fights like mad to stop the mercenary group and save her friend’s wedding. In times of old, comedies like this had the potential to become huge summer hits. My initial thought went to movies like “Spy!” from 2015 or “Heat” from 2013, two Melissa McCarthy comedies that opened to $29.1 million and $39.1 million, respectively, both holding well to gross over $100 million domestically. In our current post-COVID age, though, comedy is a genre that does much better on streaming as opposed to theatrically. And thus as a best case scenario, you’ll instead get movies like Jennifer Lawrence’s “No Hard Feelings,” which opened to $15 million in the summer of 2023 and finished with $50.5 million. Or in a worse case scenario, you’ll get movies like “Joy Ride” from that same summer that opened to $5.8 million, despite great reviews. Or a slightly different style of action comedy, “Novocaine” from this year that opened to $8.8 million. “Bride Hard” does have name recognition with its stars and if it gets good reviews, that’ll obviously help. But it still seems like a movie that hits in the $8-12 million range.

June 27 – 29

Universal's "M3GAN 2.0"

The final weekend of June has quite the unique showdown before July comes around and sees the likes of “Jurassic World: Rebirth” and “Superman” dominate the market. I’m honestly not sure which of these two new movies from this weekend will come out on top, but my gut instinct says to mention M3GAN 2.0 first. The first movie became quite the sensation in January 2023, being a horror movie about an A.I. doll that was programmed to be a child’s best friend and protector, while helping out the parents quite a bit. And because A.I. in Hollywood movies never turns out well, M3GAN’s programming became quite faulty as she became a little too protective and resorting to quite the extreme violence in the process. What was initially thought of as a potential throwaway January horror film, not only got great reaction out of audiences and critics, but opened to $30.4 million and finished just shy of $100 million domestically with $95.2 million. Now Universal is confident enough with this in regards to franchise potential that they made the decision to release the sequel as a big summer horror film. M3GAN is now upgraded and better than ever, ready to cause more chaos? Horror sequels have always had a shaky reputation at the box office, but yet it’s perhaps the most commonly franchised genre because they often come with a much lower budget. Point in case, “M3GAN” made, as mentioned, $95.2 million domestically, as well as $181.8 million worldwide. The budget was just $12 million. So with that in mind, “M3GAN 2.0” doesn’t necessarily need to do super well to be a success, but given how popular the movie was, and how viral her dancing went on Tik Tok, a sequel has the potential to blow, especially considering the PG-13 rating leaves it very open for the teen market. This could easily improve upon the first movie’s $30.4 million opening.

If “M3GAN 2.0” underperforms, or does well, but not as well as the first, then the other movie that could very easily win out this weekend is F1: The Movie. Despite being released two weekends after Father’s Day, this does nevertheless give off vibes as the most “Dad Movie” of the summer. The premise is about a former Formula One driver who is forced into retirement after a major accident who is asked to come out of retirement to help mentor a new rookie driver. The movie has Brad Pitt in the lead role and is directed by Joseph Kosinski, director of “Top Gun: Maverick.” I suppose in an absolute dream scenario, Kosinski would love to have another hit on the level of “Top Gun: Maverick,” but the real easy and likely much more realistic comparison would be to fellow racing movie, “Ford v. Ferrari,” which opened to $31.5 million in November 2019. That movie went onto make $117.6 million domestically and $224.4 million worldwide, so it held really well. It also got a handful of Oscar nominations that year. Could a summer release with all the IMAX screens lead to a much higher opening in the $50-60 million range? Seems like a possibility. It does make it interesting though as both major releases this weekend, “M3GAN 2.0” and “F1,” both have easy comparisons that opened at almost the exact same level. Will they both hit that range? Will one be a breakout hit, while the other one disappoints? That will obviously be determined by audience reaction and overall reviews. And regardless of what happens, they each will have just five days in theaters before “Jurassic World: Rebirth” roars onto the screens on Wednesday, July 2.

While the aforementioned duel should be interesting to follow, there is a third movie getting released and that’s the A24 drama Sorry, Baby, which had its debut earlier this year at Sundance, getting very positive remarks as it currently has a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes after 50 reviews. The movie is the feature-length directorial debut of Eva Victor, who wrote and directed this movie, but also stars in the movie as the lead role of a woman named Agnes who went through a traumatic event and has to figure out how to move forward. The movie has been described as being unfiltered and frank in both its tragedy and comedy, balancing the line of being darkly humorous as well as extremely poignant. A summer film with breakout potential for all audiences? Perhaps not. But smaller films out of festivals are scattered across the release calendar as options for those who desire something unique or original. Giant blockbuster films aren’t the only ones released during the summer months.