Welcome to the summer movie season! Sure, it’s technically still spring on the calendar. Schools have another month left and official summer isn’t until June, but in Hollywood the first weekend of May is when summer movie season begins! Usually the tradition is to start summer off with a big Marvel movie. And at one point on the schedule, that was the plan. But “Avengers: Doomsday” moved from May to December and there wasn’t any other superhero movie that came to take its place, so instead the summer kickoff will be “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” followed by “Mortal Kombat II” the weekend after. Because, you know, it wouldn’t be the summer movie season without a bunch of random sequels.
Box office wise, my initial impression is that 2026 might follow the trajectory of 2024 where May itself was a bit softer before things really got going in June and July. Having an Avengers-sized hole on the release schedule will do that to you. The biggest events of this summer are scheduled for a bit later on. That said, April provided the box office with a good kick-start thanks to the dominance of “Mario Galaxy” and “Michael,” the latter of which did much better than even the most generous of predictions had it at. “Project Hail Mary” from March has also continued its impressive run. And there are some decent prognostications from this current crop of May films that are on the docket, so the potential is certainly there! Let’s dive in and take a closer look.
As always, release date information from this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. We do continue this ongoing saga of The Numbers’ site being under construction. They continue to promise on social media that all the features will be up again at some point, but right now it remains a bare-bones site, causing me to again double-check other sources. But they do have their release schedule up and active, so there’s at least that. Regarding said release schedule, the movies listed in this post are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
May 1 – 3
 |
| 20th Century Studios' "The Devil Wears Prada 2" |
As mentioned in the intro, the summer kick-off movie is not a new Marvel movie or some sort of big superhero event, as often has been the tradition, but is rather The Devil Wears Prada 2. Is this a movie that needed a sequel or even had fans begging for one? Perhaps not. But I suppose that is personal preference. Regardless, it’s a movie that now has one. Marketing for the film has been pretty aggressive and the tracking and enthusiasm was pretty strong going into the weekend. The initial movie starred Anne Hathaway as recent graduate Andy Sachs, who lands a coveted assistant job at a high-powered fashion magazine, despite not knowing much about the industry. The movie opened to a modest $27.5 million back in 2006, but held very well and finished with $124.7 million domestically and $326.1 million worldwide. Now we’re 20 years later and the crew is back, including Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt, and they’re ready for a new adventure. If I were doing a blind prognosis, I would’ve looked at that 2026 opening, considered 20 years of ticket price inflation, and noted that adjusts to about $50 million with 2026 ticket pricing. Considering that comedy legacy sequels are very hit and miss at the box office, a $30-50 million range would’ve seemed fair. But in this particular instance, the cultural zeitgeist has clearly been quite good to this one as it scored an opening weekend of $77 million. It was actually thought of as potentially getting $90-100 million going into the weekend, so it ended up on the low end of those expectations, but that final number is still nothing to scoff at.
There were four other movies that hit wide release this opening weekend of May, but most of them wound up much further down the list on the weekend charts. Opening with the highest theater count of the bunch was Angel Studios’ Animal Farm, which debuted in 2,600 theaters. “Animal Farm” dates all the way back to 1945 as a satirical allegorical dystopian novella from George Orwell. That’s a handful of fancy words there, but the story follows a bunch of mistreated anthropomorphic farm animals rebelling against the human owners, hoping to create a society where all animals can be free and equal. That idea gets hijacked, however, due to the dictatorship of the pigs, resulting in a dystopian state nearly identical to what it was before, thus the satirical allegory. It’s had a few various adaptations over the years, but this new animated version, which was directed by Andy Serkis and includes the voices of Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Kieran Culkin, Glenn Close, Steven Buscemi, Woody Harrelson, Jim Parsons, and others, has been met with… confusion. A movie that doesn’t quite seem to understand the point of the source material, according to reviews. Currently it stands at a 24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The general range I’ve always put for Angel Studios releases is $3-5 million. Despite the poor reviews, I thought that maybe curiosity to be part of the conversation could ironically cause it to hit the over on that, but instead it hit that window exactly with a $3.3 million opening.
We’ve had a consistent stream of mid- to low-budget horror films this year – and really the last several years. The next movie in that line is Hokum, distributed by NEON into 1,850 theaters this weekend. This movie stars Adam Scott, of “Severance” fame, as a horror writer who visits an Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, unaware the property is said to be haunted by a witch. Despite opening in less theaters than “Animal Farm,” this wound up a bit higher on the charts, winning the battle for fifth place with a $6.4 million total. Helping the movie out was a balance of healthy reviews from critics and audiences that currently stand in the 80 percent realm for both. The consensus from many is that it blends a classic haunted house story with atmospheric folklore and perfectly-timed shocks, while delivering a satisfying journey of self-discovery for the main character. A comparison to movies such as “We Bury the Dead,” “Psycho Killer,” “Forbidden Fruits,” or “Faces of Death,” which were other horror movies this year that opened in a similar theater count, suggested a potential opening in the $2-3 million range, but the positive word of mouth boosted it higher. It didn’t have the theater count necessary to match March’s “undertone” ($9.3 million) or April’s “The Mummy” ($13.5 million), but this is also a movie that is likely to stick around in the conversation following its theatrical release as more horror fans catch up with it.
The third movie that was in the running for that final spot in the top five going into the weekend was the new shark movie Deep Water. Because if you watch the new Netflix film “Thrash,” which premiered on April 10 and has done very good numbers, and you’ve decided that you want more sharks, “Deep Water” is your film. Instead of a city experiencing massive flooding from a hurricane, resulting in shark-infested streets (“Thrash”), “Deep Water” follows a group of international passengers on route from Los Angeles to Shanghai that have to make an emergency landing in shark-infested waters. The movie is headlined by Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley, but it does have a diverse cast of passengers working together in the wreckage to survive the sharks. The movie is directed by Renny Harling, director of the recent reboot trilogy of “The Strangers.” That might pose a red flag to some hoping for a fun time, as those movies weren’t very well received. However, a sigh of relief can be had as early critics have given the movie a 75 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Awareness, though, wasn’t quite as high as “Hokum,” which caused it to actually hit that $2-3 million range discussed there when looking at those other films, as “Deep Water” was released in 1,675 theaters. $2.2 million was the final total. Not much in terms of box office, but if it finds it way to Netflix at some point, people do love their shark films over there.
The wild card entry of the weekend came in form of a title that might come close to taking up this whole paragraph on its, and that is the anime film That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Tears of the Azure Sea. You can probably guess based on that title what this anime series is a bit. The titular character is named Satoru Mikami, a salaryman who is murdered and then reincarnated in a sword and sorcery world is a slime, who then goes onto gather allies to build its own nation of monsters. There’s been three seasons of the show so far, with a fourth season currently underway in Japan. This spin-off movie “Tears of the Azure Sea” was released in Japan on February 27 and acts as a bridge between the third and fourth seasons. This is the second spin-off movie from this series. “Scarlet Bond” was released in November 2022 and took place in between the second and third season. In regards to a financial comparison, “Scarlet Bond” opened in 1,473 theaters to $1.5 million. “Tears of the Azure Sea” only premiered in 837 theaters, but yet still managed to hit right around $1 million this weekend. Anime is fairly unpredictable and doesn’t always follow typical logic.
May 8 – 10
 |
| Warner Bros.' "Mortal Kombat II" |
The next two weeks are when things could get a bit interesting in regards to the box office. The big release of this weekend is Mortal Kombat II, the sequel to the 2021 reboot. That movie had somewhat mixed reviews upon its release. A lot of the production value and over-the-top bloody action that was true to the game was praised. But it was a Mortal Kombat movie that didn’t really have a… Mortal Kombat. Not that plot and characters are what people are hoping for when they press play on a new Mortal Kombat movie, but the central tournament that is key to the whole game was promised for next after spending the movie setting the stage. Well, now next time is here… five years later. Perhaps this sequel will finally give what Mortal Kombat fans have been wanting. A big, bloody, over-the-top tournament to the death. Karl Urban as Johnny Cage is front and center after being teased at the end of the last movie. The movie will also include popular Mortal Kombat characters such as Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Kitana, Raiden, Jax Briggs, Sonya Blade, Kung Lao, Shao Kahn, and plenty others. Its opening weekend at the box office might be a bit of a mystery. Box Office Pro in their long range forecast has it projected in the $45-55 million range, which would be double that of the 2021 movie, which opened to $23.3 million. However, that’s not a great comparison because April 2021 was very much in COVID recovery phase. It was only the third movie to even hit $20 million after theaters shut down. Warner Bros. also released every movie that year day-and-date on HBO Max, so that opening was pretty impressive, all things considered. Now it’ll get a real test with the sequel opening nationwide under much more normal circumstances.
Projected to open with a much more modest box office total is the family flick The Sheep Detectives. In this movie, Hugh Jackman plays a shepherd who is mysteriously found dead. His rather large flock of sheep that he read to every night put it upon themselves to go solve this mystery. This is based on the 2005 novel “Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie” by Leonie Swann. This is a movie that has the potential to be a solid bridge for family audiences as business from “Mario Galaxy” is slowing down and the next major family release isn’t until “Toy Story 5” on June 19. It comes from director Kyle Balda, who is one of the directors of “Minions” and it’s sequel, so he’s certainly part of the crew that has figured out how to make family audiences smile. Perhaps an even better hook here is that the movie itself has an early 94 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics. And if the grumpy, old critics are being charmed by this silly sheep movie, then certainly its main target audience will be delighted if they choose to check it out. The current projections from Box Office Pro have it opening in the $10-15 million range. If word of mouth gets out early, I could see that pushing higher. If nothing else, this does seem like a movie that could have decent staying power, even if it doesn’t begin super high.
The third option of the weekend is to hang out with Billie Eilish in her new concert film, Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft – The Tour Live in 3D. Billie’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour was her seventh headlining concert tour, this one in support of her third studio album “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” The album was released on May 17, 2024 and the tour itself ran from September 29, 2024 to November 23, 2025. The tour had a total reported revenue of $226 million and a total attendance of 1.51 million over the course of 88 shows. This accompanying concert tour was filmed over the course of her four shows in Manchester from July 19-23. It was directed by Billie herself and co-directed by… wait for it… James Cameron. I suppose that makes the “Billie in 3D” part of this make sense. 3D filmmaking is his thing. And yes, when I say James Cameron, I do indeed mean the Avatar director. He’s spent the majority of the last 30 years working solely on various Avatar films, so this certainly seems like a random side excursion. But hey, we all need a break from our main thing at some point, right? Given the revenue of the tour itself, as well as the album being promoted, the box office of this concert film is likely irrelevant and just an extra bonus for her fans. But ever since Taylor Swift made $267 million globally with her Eras Tour concert film, it doesn’t hurt for other artists to give this a try.
May 15 – 17
 |
| Focus Features' "Obsession" |
The third weekend of May has five new wide releases, so plenty of new options for people to see. However, in regards to big summer blockbuster affair, we’re taking a weekend off from that, which means “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and “Mortal Kombat II” get to fight it out for the top spot at the box office. In regards to our new films, there appears to be a trio of smaller films that should get the most attention, with a couple of wild cards added to the mix. In breaking down the trio first, I’ll start with the horror film Obession. Written and directed by Curry Barker, this is a horror film that explores the idea of being careful what you wish for. A music store employee named Bear comes across a mysterious “One Wish Willow,” which promises to grant him any wish he wants. He uses to wish that his childhood friend and crush Nikki will love him more than anyone else in the world. Given how this is a horror film, you can imagine how this premise could go horribly wrong as Bear quickly learns this was a bad idea and tries to get out of it, but learns that’s not really an option. This is a horror film that premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival and has made its rounds to plenty other film festivals, including South by Southwest in March and has built up quite the buzz from that. Currently it stands at a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s also had a fairly effective marketing campaign with its trailers that has gotten a fair amount of attention. Current projection from Box Office Pro has it opening in the $7-10 million range.
Next up is the latest action film from director Guy Ritchie, In the Grey. This movie follows a covert team of elite operatives living in the shadows. When a ruthless despot steals a billion-dollar fortune, this team gets sent on a mission to steal it back. What seems like an impossible heist leads to a deadly game of strategy, deception, and survival, all of which feel like trademarks of a Guy Ritchie action heist film like this. Ritchie has been very busy as of late, working on TV shows such as “MobLand,” “The Gentlemen,” and “Young Sherlock,” releasing the movie “Fountain of Youth” to Apple TV+, and having three theatrically released films in 2023-2024, “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,” “The Covenant,” and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” The opening weekends for those three films totaled $3.1 million, $6.4 million, and $8.9 million, respectively, so that’s likely the appropriate range for a new Guy Ritchie film. Cast-wise, he does have some returning favorites, which includes Jake Gyllenhaal (“The Covenant”), Henry Cavill (“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”) and Eiza González (“Fountain of Youth” and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”).
The third movie in this weekend’s trio of smaller films sees Amazon MGM releasing Is God Is, which might be a slightly more niche appeal compared to the other two. This sees playwright Aleshea Harris adapting her own play into a feature film. Other plays she’s done include “What to Send Up When it Goes Down” and “On Sugarland.” In regards to “Is God Is,” it was an Off-Broadway production that opened in February 2018 at Soho Rep in New York City. The play was well received and won 3 Obie Awards (Off-Broadway Theater Awards). The story here revolves around two sisters who are charged by their mother (referred to as “SHE” or “God”) to find and kill their father (referred to as the “Man” or the “Monster”), revealing to them that he was the one that lit the fire that burned all of them, leaving them severely scarred. So the two sisters are off on a tale of revenge. Vivica A. Fox plays the mother, Kara Young and Mallori Johnson play the two sisters, while Sterling K. Brown plays the father and Janelle Monáe plays his new wife. While Aleshea Harris has plenty of experience as a playwright, this will be her first venture into film as writer, director, and producer of the movie. The expected opening from Box Office Pro is in the $3-5 million range.
The first of the two wild card films of the weekend is the teen road trip comedy Driver’s Ed. This comedy follows a high school senior who steals the car of his driver’s ed teacher in order to track down his college freshman girlfriend. Joining him on this adventure are three of his other teenage friends. Some have noted the comparison to the 2000 comedy “Road Trip,” which similarly saw a young male protagonist enlisting three of his friends to go on a long road trip to track down his girlfriend. “Road Trip” for Gen Z, essentially, but much more tame… despite the same MPAA rating. Kumail Nanjiani plays the driver’s ed teacher and Molly Shannon plays the principal, so it does have some name recognition, even though the main group of kids are largely lesser known. The biggest potential draw is that it is directed by Bobby Farrelly, one of the Farrelly Brothers duo who directed hit comedies such as “Dumb and Dumber,” “There’s Something About Mary,” and “Shallow Hal.” The last movie they directed together was the sequel “Dumber and Dumber To” in 2014. Since then, Peter Farrelly wrote and directed the best picture winning drama “Green Book.” To much lesser success, he also directed “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” and “Ricky Stanicky,” while Bobby has directed “Champions” and “Dear Santa.” Distributor Vertical Entertainment had the best success this year with Luc Besson’s “Dracula,” which opened to $4.4 million, although they also opened “Desert Warrior” in April in 1,010 theaters to just $487,848. “Driver’s Ed” premiered at Toronto International Film Festival last year to mixed reviews at best and doesn’t seem to have much traction with its marketing as the official trailer has less than 10,000 views, so I personally wouldn’t bet too high on this one.
The other wild card film of the weekend is another anime, this being Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circle. The Gundam franchise dates all the way back to 1979 with the TV series “Mobile Suit Gundam,” which premiered on April 7, 1979. The franchise was very much a staple for young kids who grew up in the 80s and 90s, and enjoyed watching Saturday morning cartoons. The original series ran for 43 episodes and has since spawned a franchise with a staggering number of various films and TV shows, with a current count of well over 50. If my count is right from Wikipedia, the total number of episodes from all the TV shows is 947 and counting, with 36 different movies on top of that. If that list isn’t fully accurate or my count was off, the short and easy answer is that there’s been… a lot. “Mobile Gundam Suit: Hathaway” was the first of its own planned trilogy that was released in Japan in 2021 and made 2.23 billion yen, which is the U.S. dollars equivalent of about $15 million. “The Sorcery of Nymph Circle” is the second film in the planned trilogy. The first movie didn’t receive a theatrical release in the United States, from what I can tell, so there’s not that to directly compare to, but as part of a different Gundam series, “Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-” did. That opened to $882,471 from 784 theaters. But as I said earlier in this post, anime can be hard to predict.
May 22 – 25
 |
| Disney's "The Mandalorian & Grogu" |
With May 31 landing on a Sunday this year, that means that Memorial Day this year is the earliest it can possibly be – May 25. That means Memorial Day Weekend is the second to last weekend in May instead of the final one. And to celebrate the holiday, we have a Star Wars film hitting theaters, The Mandalorian & Grogu. This marks the first theatrically released Star Wars film since “The Rise of Skywalker” back in 2019. No, Lucasfilm hasn’t taken a break. They’ve just focused on all their TV stuff while they figure out what to do in the movie realm. “The Mandalorian,” of course, began as a Disney+ series, and ran for three seasons. After the constant tumultuous debate surrounding the sequel trilogy, “The Mandalorian” initially was the Star Wars show that brought everyone together. However, after two very successful seasons, they reversed the ending of Season 2 in a separate series, “The Book of Boba Fett,” which led to a bit of confusion for casual fans for Season 3. Hardcore fans weren’t exactly pleased with the third season, either, which brought all Star Wars fans back to their natural state – anger and hatred towards this franchise that they claim to love. It’s nearly impossible to please a Star Wars fan these days. The story here is Season 4 was initially planned. Jon Favreau says all the scripts for the season have been written. But with delayed production amidst the 2023 labor disputes, Lucasfilm as a whole decided to pivot away from a fourth season and focus on a movie with the characters instead. Favreau has said that the fourth season was centered around Grand Admiral Thrawn, which would then lead into the second season of “Ahsoka.” With the pivot to the movie instead, things had to be re-written, essentially making this movie its own thing without necessarily having the requirement of being caught up on the series. Instead, we have an adventure with Din Djarin and Grogu who are enlisted by the New Republic to rescue Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba the Hutt, who initially showed up in “The Clone Wars” series.
In regards to the box office for “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” that seems to be up in the air a bit, as enthusiasm for the movie isn’t where it often is for a new Star Wars movie. Given that this is basically a spin-off to the series, it’s possible that some will choose not to pay for a movie ticket when they’re used to watching “The Mandalorian” at home with their Disney+ subscription. But yet, this is still Star Wars. Despite the constant anger and rage, Star Wars fans often show up for a new Star Wars anyway. Box Office Pro’s early projections still have this opening in the $90-100 million range for the 3-day weekend. There has been some buzz that this could wind up as the lowest opening weekend for a Star Wars movie in the Disney era. That mark currently is “Solo,” which opened on Labor Day Weekend in 2018, earning $84.4 million over the 3-day weekend and $103 million over the 4-day weekend. Even though that was far below the main saga films, those were still some pretty good numbers for an overall summer blockbuster. “Solo” was only seen as a massive failure because it had a budget of over $300 million. The reported budget for “The Mandalorian & Grogu” is just $165 million, so it doesn’t need to be a huge billion dollar film to be profitable for Disney and Lucasfilm. If it hits way low at $50-60 million, then there might be some cause for concern, but if it winds up near “Solo,” then it should be just fine.
While Star Wars is certainly the main event of the weekend, it’s not the only release. There’s three other smaller films being released as either an alternative or if another movie adventure is desired. The first of those is the horror film Passenger, which continues the trend I’ve talked about in regards to the constant stream of low-budget horror films being released. In May alone, we’ll have already had “Hokum,” “Obsession” and now “Passenger” to keep horror fans happy. This movie is about a young couple who witness a horrific accident a few weeks into their van life adventure that left the driver dead. And now because of that, they have an unwanted passenger joining them in the form of a demonic stalker that’s impossible to outrun and follows them wherever they go. “Last year over 130 million people took road trips,” the trailer claims. “15,400 of them were never seen again.” Actual fact or heavily manipulated for dramatic effect? Probably the latter. But it makes for an effective hook for a road trip horror film. This is directed by André Øvredal, who has directed other horror films such as “Troll Hunter,” “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” and “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” His last film, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” in 2023, opened to $6.5 million. A similar opening would put this in the same range as “Hokum” and “Obsession.”
Boots Riley is back with this next film of the weekend, the crime comedy I Love Boosters. Boots Riley is the writer and director of the rather bizarre, mind-bending film “Sorry to Bother You” from 2018, which did indeed include a plot where people were being turned into half human, half horse creatures they called Equisapiens. Is this movie going to be as strange as that one? To be determined, I suppose. But the movie is about a group of professional shoplifters, led by Keke Palmer, who take aim at a fashion maven played by Demi Moore. The goal is to steal her stuff, then turn around a re-sell it at a discount price. The trailer seems to promise another upbeat, wild, fun ride. And given the last film, there’s likely plenty of surprises in store. In addition to Keke Palmer and Demi Moore, the movie also includes Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, and Don Cheadle. The movie premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in March, and has a current 94 percent critics score with 34 reviews counted. Boots Riley has also been doing his best job to push and promote the film, which should help boost awareness. “Sorry to Bother You” in its first weekend of wide release earned $4.2 million and held well to eventually finish with $17.5 million domestically. That would be a good goal for this movie, although it has been eight years since then.
The final film of the weekend appears to be on the smaller end of the bunch, but it is actually another horror film, that being Corporate Retreat. This is a movie about a group of corporate executives that attend a highly recommended corporate retreat that, unfortunately for them, turns into a violent and bloody trap. The trailer does have a good number of views, over 6 million, even though almost every comment is in regard to Tiktok influencer Kirby Johnson being in the movie. The red flag for me personally in regards to box office potential is that it is listed as being distributed by Western Film Services, which is a studio that doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page for me to see what else they’ve done, if anything. That combined with a mostly lesser known cast and a director in Aaron Fisher whose only previous feature-length film made just $8,140 from one theater (“Inside the Rain”) and this seems like a film that will be more of a blip on the radar for most people, unless the premise itself captures the attention of some horror fans.
May 29 – 31
 |
| A24's "Backrooms" |
The post Memorial Day Weekend is poised to be another cool-down weekend before June kicks things into high gear and doesn’t let up until the summer ends. That means catch-up week for some, with whatever gas is left in the tank for the May blockbusters we’ve listed. For the new releases? Sure! Why, not? How about another May horror film! We’ll finish this off with A24 delivering the movie Backrooms, which could easily wind up as the biggest horror release of the month. The general premise is that a therapist’s patient disappears into a dimension beyond reality, causing her to venture into the unknown to save him. The movie is led by recently Oscar nominated actress Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”) as the therapist, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as the patient she’s hunting down. That premise and cast on its own, with the A24 prestige, might be enough to attract general horror fans to again show up to the theaters. However, this movie is written and directed by Kane Parsons, and is based on his own YouTube web series also called “Backrooms,” which began as a short film released on his channel (Kane Pixels) in 2022 that currently, as I’m typing this, has 77 million views. That evolved into the web series that is now 23 episodes. We learned earlier this year not to underestimate YouTubers making movies as Markiplier wrote, directed, starred in, and did everything for his adaptation of “Iron Lung,” which then debuted to $18.2 million. I’m also reminded of the 2016 film “Lights Out,” which saw David F. Sandberg adapting his own short film into a feature-length film, which opened to $21.7 million. I don’t have official tracking estimates from Box Office Pro just yet, but I imagine the tracking should be pretty good. The trailer views on its own is current at 27 million.
Playing counter to this mysterious, found footage horror film is the family comedy The Breadwinner. This stars stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze in his first feature acting role. He’s likely most well known for his Saturday Night Live sketches where he appears as George Washington and mocks the American English language and measurement systems, but he’s also had a series of Netflix stand-up specials that have boosted his stand-up comedy career. He also recently hosted the Emmys last year. This first feature film of his sees him playing a dad who has to learn how to be a stay-at-home dad after his wife lands a huge deal on Shark Tank, sending her on a prolonged business trip. Turns out Nate learns how awesome his wife is as she was perfect at managing all the chaos at home with their three kids, which he learns that he’s very not good at, leading to a lot of slapstick comedy as he tries to figure this out. I mentioned family comedy at the beginning when describing this. While perhaps not necessarily directed at a young audience specifically, the movie is PG, so it’s appropriate for all ages. It was supposed to initially come out in March, but was postponed to a summer release date here. While Nate has certainly made his way in the stand-up comedy realm, this will certainly be a test to see if he can draw a crowd to the theater. Comedies are very hit and miss at the box office these days, so it’s easier said than done.
Rounding out the month will be the war drama Pressure. This stars Andrew Scott as Captain James Stagg and Brendan Fraser as Dwight D. Eisenhower and chronicles the 72 hours before D-Day. In real life history, Eisenhower had tentatively scheduled June 5 as the date of the D-Day invasion. However, on June 3, a severe storm was forecast to be approaching Europe, which led Stagg to meet with Eisenhower to discuss. Stagg convinced Eisenhower to proceed with the attack on June 6, predicting that the storm would pass by then. The next available dates with the proper tidal conditions would’ve been two weeks later from June 18-20, but postponing would’ve increased the chance that the invasion plans would be detected. Historical spoiler alert… D-Day did in fact happen on June 6. As it turned out, a major storm battered the Normandy coast from June 19-22, which would have made the beach landings impossible. This movie adaptation of these events is directed by Anthony Maras, who directed “Hotel Mumbai,” a movie that opened to $3.2 million in March 2019. In regards to recent war films, the best comparison I can come up with is last year’s “Nuremberg,” which opened to $3.9 million and made $14.5 million domestically. It’s currently available to be watched on Netflix. World War II junkies can check that one out or head out to theaters to see “Pressure,” which will have the anniversary of D-Day take place during its second weekend.
