Movie Preview: June 2026

One month into the summer movie season and we’re off to a hot start! Now we enter June, where the actual summer begins. The kids are out of school and the official summer solstice is right around the corner. And the prognosis looks very positive!

When I did my May Movie Preview, I theorized that May would start the summer off a bit soft before things got going in June and July. That being based on “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” “Mortal Kombat II,” and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” being the headline acts of May. Those movies performed about on par with expectations. No huge surprises or disappointments. What I did not anticipate were the historic runs of both “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” which have both crossed $100 million domestically going into the first weekend of June. “Obsession” was a massive word of mouth hit. It started with a solid $17.2 million opening, but then increased in each of its next two weekends, which is extremely rare for a movie that opens in wide release. That was followed up by “Backrooms” opening to $81.4 million, more than tripling the previous opening weekend record for an A24 release. It’s already their highest grossing film domestically going into its second weekend. That led May to finish with $1.063 billion domestically, the first time in the post-COVID era that May hit the billion dollar mark. And the first month of 2021 to do so as well.

Now the question is, can June keep the momentum going? Based on the likes of “Toy Story 5,” “Supergirl,” and “Disclosure Day” being on the schedule, I’d say the probability is quite high! Are there any other under-the-radar releases that could surprise? Could there be bigger blockbusters headed for disappointment? Let’s dive in and figure that out!

I always finish this intro by giving credit to the sources in my monthly posts. If you’ve been following recently, we’ve had some drama in that regard lately with my main two sources, the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The Numbers is up and running with their schedule, so I have that to work with, but they’re still a bare-bones site right now. They claim on social media that they’re still working on getting the rest of the site up, but it’s been three months now, so who knows. And Box Office Pro has fallen behind again on their Long Range Forecasts that I often rely on for projections. So I’m somewhat on my own to a degree, but that means more double-checking with other sites like Box Office Mojo and IMDb. I do my best with what I have. That means release dates are even more subject to change and more surprises are possible, so just keep that in mind as we go!

June 5 – 7

Paramount's "Scary Movie"

Heading into this weekend, the bar to clear in order to get No. 1 was to defeat the second weekend total of “Backrooms,” which, as mentioned in the intro, opened to a very surprising $81.4 million. This put it in line with “Five Nights at Freddy’s” ($80.0 million) and “The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($84.0 million). In my own prognosis to determine the bar, I would’ve naturally looked at those two movies’ second weekend drops (76 percent and 69 percent, respectively) and pegged “Backrooms” at $20-25 million, an easy mark for both our new movies to clear. However, given the unpredictable nature of both it and “Obsession” right now, I was mostly playing the game of wait and see. If it only dropped 50 percent and wound up around $40 million, I wouldn’t have been surprised. That would’ve made for a more competitive weekend, too. The final result was on the more predictable, frontloaded range, though, as it fell 68 percent to make $26.2 million.

That means the “competition” this weekend wound up not being much of a competition at all as Scary Movie soared past that mark with a franchise best $54.3 million opening. This is the sixth movie in the Scary Movie franchise. Much like the main target of its parody this time around (the Scream franchise), they have simply decided to name it “Scary Movie” instead of “Scary Movie 6,” which “Scream,” “Halloween,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” all did with their recent “rebootquels.” Each Scary Movie has targeted a different set of horror movies to parody. “Scream” was the primary target of the original and returns as the primary target of this new movie, specifically the reboot films – the fifth and sixth movies. But they’ve managed to sprinkle in a decent handful of other recent horror movies, too. There’s a lot of returns in this movie, rather than just Ghostface. The Wayans family are back guiding the ship as writers and producers after initially leaving following the second movie. The movie also returns to being rated R after the third through fifth movie were PG-13. And, biggest of all, the franchise itself returns after the last entry was back in 2013. This all explains why the hype behind the movie led it to the franchise record opening, which was previously held by “Scary Movie 3” in 2003 with $48.1 million. That would all change drastically when you adjust for 20 years of ticket price inflation, but given the $30 million production budget, studio execs likely aren’t looking too closely at that. The only thing that didn’t return was a positive response as “Scary Movie” currently sits at a measly 24 percent from critics. This isn’t the lowest score in the franchise – the second and fifth movies are much lower. But it’s also far from the best, so the long waited return was met with mixed reaction at best.

The other major release of the weekend presented a story that was in stark contrast to “Scary Movie,” this being the recent live action adaptation of Masters of the Universe. From the animated show to various books, comics, video games, and toys, He-Man was a major staple of many people’s childhood who grew up in the 80s and 90s. The original animated series began in 1983 and spawned quite the large, successful franchise. This is not even the first time a live action movie has been made as, in 1987, Dolph Lundgren took on a title of He-Man. But in the year 2026, is there the same level of excitement for this franchise as there once was? That’s been my question this entire year leading up to this movie as it seems like a movie that is 20 years too late. That fear presented itself as justifiable as the movie narrowly edged out “Backrooms” for second place, making just $29.4 million. Narrowly edging out “Backrooms” and falling just short of $30 million is definitely not the result Amazon MGM was hoping for, given the $170 million production budget that’s been reported. The contrast to “Scary Movie” here is that “Scary Movie” was widely anticipated, delivered a franchise best opening, and easily cleared a low budget in just one weekend, yet was not received well. “Masters of the Universe” was not anticipated, is poised as a major financial disaster for the studio considering the opening and the budget, yet those who saw it, general speaking, were fairly pleased. Director Travis Knight, CEO of Laika Studios and director of the Transformers spin-off “Bumblebee,” clearly has a love for this genre of 80s franchise and knows how to make a movie that can please the target audience. While it’s not likely to ever be considered a financial success, that might lead to decent word of mouth that gives the movie a longer post-theatrical life than one might otherwise expect.

Bubbling just under all the major headlines this weekend was The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act, which snuck into the top five at No. 5 with an opening of $12.4 million. It did open on Thursday, though, so through four days it made a total of $20.2 million. Like “Backrooms,” this movie has its origins in the YouTube realm as “The Amazing Digital Circus” is an 8-episode web series that first premiered in October 2023 on the Glitch Productions YouTube channel. Each episode is about 25-30 minutes long, with the first episode having 439 million views. Seven of the eight episodes have at least 100 million views, with the lowest being Episode 7 at 85 million views, which is still currently more than the 84 million views that Kane Parsons’ initial “Backrooms” YouTube short has. All episodes are also currently available on Netflix. The general idea behind this series follows a cast of six humans who are trapped in the titular circus, a cartoonish virtual reality simulation. This current movie, “The Last Act,” combines Episode 8 with the hour-long series finale, which will later release on Netflix and YouTube on June 19. Despite having a far larger YouTube view total than “Backrooms,” this remained a more niche appeal theatrically. Although that might be because it was a limited event from Fathom Events as opposed to a major A24 release, so less of a marketing push. It’s also available for free in just over a week, so that’s another reason.

In other theatrical news from across the weekend, “Obsession” had its first decline, weekend over weekend. Although it dropped a mere 7 percent to make another $25.4 million, for a domestic total of $151.9 million. And no signs of slowing down. John Carney’s Power Ballad also expanded into wide release after opening in limited release the weekend prior. It stars Paul Rudd as Rick, a past-his-prime wedding singer, meeting fading boy-band star Danny, played by Nick Jonas, and bonding over music. But when Danny turns Rick’s song idea into his next big hit, without giving Rick recognition, Rick sets out to reclaim this recognition he claims he deserves. John Carney has also directed other musically themed movies such as “Once,” “Begin Again,” “Sing Street,” and “Flora and Son,” so this hits right in his lane as another feel-good musical drama that fans of Carney have seemed to enjoy. It didn’t make a huge impact at the box office with just $1.29 million, but it is in 1,265 theaters, so it should at least be available as a counter-programming option.

June 12 – 14

Universal's "Disclosure Day"

Very few filmmakers these days can sell a movie based on their name alone. One of them is Christopher Nolan, who has “The Odyssey” coming in July. Another is Steven Spielberg who has Disclosure Day coming out this weekend. While Spielberg’s very early credits come with various short films he made as a teen, his career really began in the 1970s and specifically launched into the stratosphere with “Jaws” in 1975, which is one of those cinema-changing moments as him and George Lucas, who had “Star Wars” two years later, essentially invented the summer blockbuster. And now Spielberg’s career has spanned six different decades as one of the most influential filmmakers ever. And although some might say his recent work hasn’t been as influential as his past work, he’s still managed to attract audiences with the likes of “Ready Player One” and “West Side Story,” while appeasing the awards crowds with the likes of “Lincoln,” “Bridge of Spies,” “The Post,” and “The Fabelmans.” Now he’s going back to his roots with “Disclosure Day,” which feels like a classic 80s throwback. Spielberg directing a movie about an alien invasion. Starring in this movie are Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo, among others. This is aiming to be his highest directorial movie since “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in 2008. As disliked as that movie is, it opened massive with $100.1 million and finished with $317.1 million domestically. His highest opening since then is “Ready Player One” with $41.7 million. “Disclosure Day” is expected to open in the realm of $40-50 million. If reviews are strong, which seems like the early indication, this could seemingly push even higher.

Two smaller films will open alongside “Disclosure Day” this upcoming weekend. The first hails from the other side of the planet, that being the Hong Kong action thriller The Furious. This has no relation to anything fast and furious, or Vin Diesel related. Instead this is directed by Kenji Tanigaki, a Japanese action choreographer, stunt performer, and director who is best known for his work in Hong Kong cinema, while expanding to Japanese cinema and Hollywood. “The Furious” is about an ordinary tradesman whose daughter is kidnapped, resulting in him fighting a criminal empire on his way to rescue her. The movie premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival and was the runner up for the People’s Choice Award in the Midnight Madness category. The trailer uses pull quotes such as “One of the best action films of the decade,” and “The best brawler since The Raid films.” While you can take anything from one or two random reviews to make your movie seem like everyone loves it, this one seems like it has the overall praise to back statements like that up. With 32 reviews counted as of me typing this, all 32 are positive, resulting in an early 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. And when you click on that number to see the average score from those reviews, it’s an 8.8 out of 10. If you’re looking for a solid action film, it appears that this one delivers.

The other movie is one that I promise is 100 percent a real film that is being released in theaters this weekend. It’s an action comedy called Stop! That! Train! The movie is directed by Adam Shankman, director of the 2007 movie “Hairspray,” and stars RuPaul Charles from “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” along with several other drag performers, who are on a luxurious train called the Glamazonian Express that goes through a massive storm that causes it to become a runaway train. RuPaul actually plays the President of the United States and the main stars are a team of stewardesses who need to figure out how to… stop that train. But hey, the world is full of people who are begging for more original, creative ideas. In a summer movie season that is always full of sequels and franchise films, why not have a quirky, self-aware action comedy whose goal is to help the audience simply have a ton of fun? Regardless of how this turns out, you certainly can’t accuse it of lacking originality. In fact, all three of these films this weekend, despite familiar premises on paper (alien invasion, father tracking down daughter, action comedy on a train), would fall into the category of original films. If you’re among that crowd that’s been begging for that, this weekend provides!

June 19 – 21

Pixar's "Toy Story 5"

The third weekend of June will have four new wide releases. Leading the pack will be the movie that will not only dominate this weekend, but is a strong contender for one of the top movies of the summer and that’s Toy Story 5. Yep, Woody, Buzz, and the gang are back for another adventure and this time the enemy appears to be technology. Mirroring the original adventure where Buzz replaced Woody as Andy’s favorite toy, Bonnie now gets a new frog-like tablet named Lilypad. This is not just any tablet, though. It appears to be a smart tablet with all sorts of fancy features that threatens all the toys’ playtime. Why play with old-fashioned toys when you can play with the fancy new device? And yes, Woody left to go be with Bo Peep at the end of the last movie, but the trailers reveal he returns to help them solve this new conundrum. In regards to this movie’s financial potential, it’s certainly worth noting that many still hold to their idea that the original Toy Story trilogy is perfect and no more sequels are necessary. So there is potential for franchise fatigue. The counter to that is that people made that argument prior to “Toy Story 4,” yet showed up for that sequel anyway. In fact, “Toy Story 4” is the highest opener of the franchise with $120.9 million, beating the mark “Toy Story 3” set in 2010 with $110.3 million. When you adjust those numbers for ticket price inflation, “Toy Story 4” bumps up to $158 million, while “Toy Story 3” still holds the attendance record, adjusting to $167 million. If the audience shows up in similar attendance numbers, could that mean an opening in the realm of $150-175 million for “Toy Story 5”? The Pixar record for highest opening remains “Incredibles 2” in 2018 with $182.7 million, but “Inside Out 2” in 2024 wasn’t too far behind with $154.2 million. So audiences love their Pixar sequels. Even if “Toy Story 5” lands in the unadjusted range of the third and fourth movies ($110-120 million), that’s still a huge win for Disney and Pixar. Regardless, triple digits of some sort feels like a safe call at this point.

Below “Toy Story 5” is a trio of indie films from a trio of indie distributors who have done a great job of lighting a fire in the indie realm as of late, that being A24 (“Backrooms”), Focus Features (“Obsession”), and NEON (“Hokum,” “Exit 8,” “I Love Boosters”). Let’s start with A24 as they have The Death of Robin Hood releasing this weekend. As the title might suggest, this is a bit of a twist on the Robin Hood story, following a more aged Robin Hood who finds himself gravely injured in a battle he thought would be his last. However, he instead finds himself in the hands of a mysterious woman and is offered a chance at salvation. A24 is known for their more unconventional films that they find and distribute and this version of Robin Hood seems to follow suit as it appears to be less about the action and adventure that a Robin Hood movie would normally provide and more about a Robin Hood who is reflecting on his past life of crime and murder. While casual fans might not care too much about yet another Robin Hood movie, despite any unique twists, cinephiles might have their interests piqued based on the fact that this is directed by Michael Sarnoski, director of the 2021 film “Pig,” starring Nicolas Cage, which was very highly regarded. The movie stars Hugh Jackman as Robin Hood and Bill Skarsgard as Little John, with Jodie Comer and Noah Jupe also in supporting roles, so it does have decent star power in the cast. A24 certainly doesn’t *need* this movie to be a massive success considering that “Backrooms” may have funded their next five years as a studio with how much it has made, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind this one riding the coattails of that one a bit.

Next we move onto NEON. They may not have had a massive hit on the level of the other two studios previously mentioned, but they’ve been extremely consistent as of late, especially in the horror realm. And they have another one in that genre with Leviticus that they picked up out of Sundance this year. While certainly horror, this also has a touch of romance, perhaps properly placed in the month of June, as it follows two teenage boys falling for each other. However, they must also deal with a violent entity that takes the form of the person they desire most – each other. After premiering at Sundance, it also took a pit stop at the South by Southwest Film Festival, along with several others, before being available to general audiences this weekend. The reaction has so far been very strong with a 95 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, with reviews giving it credit for good scares, tension, and a good amount of symbolism that perhaps elevates it above your traditional scare-fest. While the horror genre certainly can’t be underestimated right now, a potential comparison to NEON themselves from last month might be “Hokum,” which scored a $6.4 million opening and has so far made $16.9 million in its domestic run. This would probably be the more traditional route with the other breakout hits being more outliers in regards to prognosis. But in a year that’s been really good for horror fans, this adds another entry to that list.

Lastly, we dive into Focus Features, who are certainly over the moon about the fact that their $15 million purchase of “Obsession” last year from the Toronto International Film Festival has resulted in over $200 million worldwide already in just a month of release. Now on every future trailer they have the opportunity to add, “From the studio that brought you ‘Obsession’…” On that note, their next release is the coming of age drama Girls Like Girls, which has had a fascinating path to theaters. It began as a song by pop singer Hayley Kiyoko, who is a strong advocate of the LGBTQ+ community, as a member of the community herself. She released the song back in 2015, while also co-directing the music video. She wasn’t done there, though. She turned that music video into her first novel, released on May 30, 2023. And now that novel has become a movie, written and directed by… yes. Herself. Co-written by Stefanie Scott and Chloe Okuno. Between this and “Leviticus,” Pride Month will be doing quite well this weekend at the cinemas. No horror here, though. Just a coming of age drama about a 17-year-old teenage girl trying to navigate intimacy after the passing of her mother. She develops a connection with another girl, who is also unfamiliar with dating girls. Just like A24 earlier in this section, Focus Features doesn’t *need* this to be huge financially. They’re doing very well at the moment. With “Obsession” as the outlier, this one seems to be a more traditional release from them as they’re very experienced with releasing low budget indie films in a moderate amount of theaters. Occasionally one will break out, but there’s often no pressure for them to.

June 26 – 28

Warner Bros.' "Supergirl"

Finishing off the month will be the next entry in James Gunn’s new DC Universe as the studio will follow-up last year’s massive hit “Superman” with Clark Kent’s cousin Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl. James Gunn has previously announced that this version of the story is an adaptation of the comic series “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” which, as Gunn said, explores a more “hardcore” version of Kara than has been previously seen on screen. If David Corenswet’s interpretation of Superman follows the more traditional route of what you’d see in a Super Person, Kara in this movie is more of the rebel cousin. Not only does this separate this 2026 “Supergirl” from last year’s “Superman” so they’re not just making the same movie twice, this also allows the character to be different from Melissa Benoist’s Supergirl, who enjoyed a six-season run on The CW from 2015-2021 as a part of the Arrowverse. Milly Alcock of “House of the Dragon” fame stars as Kara in this new movie and gives the character her own unique flair that fulfills James Gunn’s vision. And while Gunn is still the main captain steering the ship in this universe, directing duties for this chapter have been given to Craig Gillespie, who is most notable for “I, Tonya” and “Lars and the Real Girl,” but has also helped in the Disney realm with the likes of “Finest Hours,” “Million Dollar Arm,” and “Cruella.” A big superhero movie will be new for him, but he’s a well-respected director who has provided quite the variety of films. The movie’s financials are a bit of a question mark as this new DC is still very much in the early, experimental phase. It’s probably not fair to expect “Supergirl” to match the $125 million opening or its $354 million domestic total as Supergirl is not as popular of a character as Superman. And this will be her very first proper feature film. But there should be enough goodwill to carry over here for a respectable run. The main goal for DC at the moment is likely to rebuild trust with audiences rather than instantly churn out billion dollar hits.

Never believe Hollywood when they say something is the last chapter. However, another saying that pairs with that is Father Time is undefeated. At some point in life, performing a series of extremely stupid and dangerous stunts and pranks has to cease unless you want to actually wake up dead. That might be why the Jackass crew claims to be calling it quits with their sixth theatrically released film Jackass: Best and Last. This crew began in the year 2000 with a TV series that ran for three short seasons on MTV. That’s spawned into a franchise that’s still going over 25 years later because people enjoy watching others do dumb things and get hurt, which is the whole shtick here. As I mentioned, they go out and film themselves doing purposeful pain-inducing stunts and pranks. The fun on the audience side of things is that they get to watch the crew continue to not learn. Because, hey, they made a career out of it. Why stop? The first movie, “Jackass: The Movie,” was released in 2002. All five movies so far have been remarkably consistent, opening to at least $20 million every time, with “Jackass 3D” in 2010 taking the cake with a $50.4 million. Although 25 years of films changes things when you adjust for ticket price inflation. “Jackass 3D” still is on top, but that bumps up to $76.7 million, with the first two and “Bad Grandpa” opening in the $45-55 million range. The recent one from 2022 would adjust to the lowest, but still at $26.4 million. That shows us the potential of this franchise in regards to attendance. Will the promise of a final film boost attendance to the $45-55 million range? Or will this fall more in line with the 2022 film? If the latter, an opening in the range of $25 million is a safe bet that’s still pretty solid!

We finish this month’s preview off by diving into another anime, with Bleach: Thousand-Year Bloody War – The Calamity. “Bleach” is an anime series that began in 2004, with the basic premise following a high school student who can see spirits and becomes a Soul Reaper, after assuming the duties of a previous Soul Reaper. The initial series ran for a total of 366 episodes over the course of 16 seasons, ending in 2011. “Bleach: Thousand-Year Bloody War” is a sequel series that began in 2022 and will be airing its fourth and final season this upcoming July. This movie, “The Calamity,” is a compilation of the first three episodes of this final season. Given the length of this whole series, this is not a movie that’s going to attract any new viewers, but rather stands as a special reward for long-time fans who are eager to get a head start on this new season, while doing so in theaters. In regards to box office predictions, anime remains fairly unpredictable and definitely continues to grow in popularity here in the United States. The peak of the genre’s potential so far comes last fall when the most recent Demon Slayer movie opened to $70.6 million, followed by Chainsaw Man delivering a movie the next month that opened to $18.0 million. You never know when one of these is going to pop off, but likely the most realistic comparison here is to two of these movies that opened last month, both with incredibly long titles. “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Tears of the Azure Sea” opened to $947,325 from 837 theaters, while “Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circle” similarly opened to $820,038 from 894 theaters. This new Bleach movie feels like it will have a similar niche appeal as these two rather than a breakout hit like Demon Slayer or Chainsaw Man.

Movie Preview: May 2026

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.

Movie Preview: April 2026

Welcome to spring, everyone! We have a galaxy sized movie to talk about at the April box office that’s already had a head start prior to the month’s first weekend, but will there be anything else worth seeing that will capture people’s attention in what’s normally a quiet month?

Even though summer doesn’t technically arrive until June, the tradition in the movie world is that the summer movie season begins when May arrives, which more often than not makes April the calm before the storm. It can be risky to schedule something major in April when it is likely going to get swept away or buried when the big summer blockbusters hit. This May might be a little different than what has been normal, given that “Avengers: Doomsday” was slated to open on May 1, but got delayed to December. After that change, nothing really came to take its spot. I could be wrong, but “The Devil Wears Prada 2” doesn’t seem like something that will do Avengers numbers at the box office, but more about that next month. For this month that does mean these releases will have a little more runway than what’s normal, which might be especially helpful for the King of Pop at the end of the month.

As teased in the beginning of this post, though, Mario is already off running. Is there anything that can stop it or will Mario pull the clean sweep on the month? That movie’s incoming domination is doing a great job of picking up where March left off. At a domestic total of $625.3 million, this past March didn’t come anywhere near pre-pandemic levels, the record of which is still held by March 2017 with $1.171 billion earned. This March also failed to match the $749.4 million of 2024 where “Dune: Part Two” ruled supreme, but it was up 57.2 percent from March 2025. That might be more of an indictment on how bad that March was, but the likes of “Project Hail Mary” and Pixar’s “Hoppers” did provide some much needed life to the box office as both earned over $140 million domestically in March alone. Mario is now set to feed off that and continue the 2026 momentum upwards. So let’s now dive deep into Mario and what it’s challengers will be as we move forward through April.

Last month in my round-up of mentioned sources, I noted that my main source for release date information, the-numbers.com, was down when I was typing up my post. As it turns out, they were busy rebuilding their whole site, a project for them that is not yet complete. But they do have their release schedule up, so I’ll be back to using that for the release date information for this post, while also using the likes of Box Office Pro, Box Office Mojo, and IMDb for other research purposes. With that noted, my main focus is on the movies scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

April 3 – 5

Universal's "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie"

As referenced a few times in the intro, the movie of the month for April is The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it had a head start on the weekend already by opening on Wednesday, April 1. This is a follow-up to the 2023 smash hit “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which broke out in a phenomenal way for Universal and Nintendo by earning a total of $1.359 billion worldwide, with $574.9 million of that coming domestically. And it wasn’t just a huge theatrical hit, but it’s also had a very long and successful life on streaming via both Netflix and Peacock. A smash hit like that pretty much guarantees the sequel to be a success, regardless of quality. And it’s not even worth looking at what the critics score has been because this is the exact type of movie that is very critic-proof. Feeding off the success of the first movie, this franchise has jumped straight into adapting the “Super Mario Galaxy” games, perhaps a more Gen Z friendly approach, with a central premise of Bowser Jr. kidnapping Princess Rosalina, forcing Mario, Luigi, and Peach to embark on a mission to go save her. Lest anyone be disappointed that they skipped about 30 years worth of games, the movie made sure to provide nods or references to just about every one of those games in its chaotic, high-energy plot, while also providing Easter Eggs to many other Super Smash Bros. characters that aren’t even necessarily Mario related.

In regards to the movie’s box office, this will be an easy one to track. The 2023 movie had the literal exact same release strategy, opening on a Wednesday prior to the first weekend of April. And through two days of official results, that movie made $58.3 million on that first Wednesday and Thursday. Comparatively, “Mario Galaxy” has made a nearly identical $59.1 million on Wednesday and Thursday. While it’s possible that “Mario Galaxy” winds up a bit more frontloaded, the comparison nonetheless is that “Mario Bros.” made $146.4 over its traditional 3-day weekend, for a 5-day opening total of $204.6 million. The likely outcome based on numbers so far is that “Mario Galaxy” comes very close to matching that, but at the very least, this is guaranteed to be the first $100 million opening weekend of 2026.

While this weekend’s other major release will not come remotely close to challenging “Mario Galaxy,” A24’s The Drama will be hitting 3,087 theaters this weekend and will thus aim for a spot somewhere in the top five with “Project Hail Mary” and “Hoppers” – March’s holdover releases. The biggest draw for this movie is its two lead stars, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, who play a happily engaged couple about to get married. While on the surface this more or less has the appearance of a romantic comedy, and while that may not necessarily be inaccurate, the plot revolves around an unexpected twist that happens during the week of the wedding. A confession that sends the wedding off the rails. As one critic put it, the movie becomes less about the wedding and less about the confession, and more about what type of secrets we can reveal to those closest to us. The movie has had generally favorable reactions, currently holding a 79 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, although there has been plenty of mixed reaction – centered mainly around the movie’s said surprise twist. Word of mouth will be curious to watch because of this, especially if certain moviegoers aren’t fully aware of what they’re getting themselves into, which is often typical of an A24 release. The expected box office is in the $10-15 million range, which would slot it into third place.

The final wide release of the weekend sends us back to our country’s origins with the movie A Great Awakening, which centers around the friendship between Benjamin Franklin and Reverend George Whitefield. A man of reason and a man of faith coming together to form an unlikely friendship that helped shape this country prior to the American Revolution. Of note, this is Easter weekend that we’re heading into. Neither February nor March, leading up to Easter, provided any major faith-based release for Christian audiences, so this seems like it has the potential to fill that gap. It’s not a super wide release, so breakout potential is limited, but it is still being released in 1,289 theaters, which is enough to make some sort of mark if it connects with its target audience. Anywhere from $3-5 million would likely be enough to slip into fifth place at the box office. Last weekend’s third place movie made $4.9 million, so beyond the heavy hitters the rest of the market is quiet enough for it to fit in.

April 10 – 12

Universal's "You, Me & Tuscany"

Before we dive into new releases each weekend, let’s play a quick game of where “Mario Galaxy” could end up. Again, the easy comparison is to look directly at the 2023 predecessor. In which case, “Mario Bros.” dropped just 37 percent in Weekend 2 to make $92.3 million. However, in case “Mario Galaxy” ends up being more frontloaded, which would be normal for a sequel, I’ll also look at last April’s “A Minecraft Movie.” That celebrated an opening weekend of $162.8 million, but then had a slightly steeper drop in Weekend 2, falling 52 percent. If “Mario Galaxy” falls a similar 52 percent, which is still a great hold for a movie opening above $100 million, that would lead to a second weekend of $70.3 million.

Either way, there’s three new releases this weekend, and none of them are likely to hit $70 million in their entire run, let alone in one weekend, so it’s a battle for positioning in the top 10 rather than a race for No. 1. The leader of that trio will be what looks like a more traditional romantic comedy and that is You, Me & Tuscany. Starring Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page, the movie is about a young lady named Anna (Bailey) who makes a brash decision to fly to Tuscany to visit an abandoned villa of a rich man she just met. When she gets discovered by his family, she pretends to be his fiancée so she doesn’t get in trouble. That’s the context where she meets the man’s cousin Michael (Page) and starts to actually fall in love with him. Because there wouldn’t be a rom-com without a fun bit of twisted lies and deceptions, right? “Sometimes the wrong place is right where you need to be,” the trailer declares. $8-12 million is the range where Box Office Pro has this one, although the high end might be similar to last month’s romance film “Reminders of Him,” which opened to $17.9 million. That one was based on a novel, this one is not. But this one does have a more recognizable lead couple, so that could perhaps make up the difference.

The other two movies are a pair of horror films that are just happy to be here. The first that I’ll bring up is Faces of Death, which is sort of a remake of the original 1978 horror film “Faces of Death.” That movie presented itself as an actual documentary centering around a pathologist who presents the viewer with footage showing different gruesome ways of dying. Most of the footage was faked for the film, but some included pre-existing footage of real deaths. It was initially received with negative reviews, but gained a cult following afterwards and spawned several sequels. This 2026 movie stars Barbie Ferreira as a woman who moderates a YouTube-like platform, responsible for filtering out offensive or violent content. In the process of this, she discovers a group that appears to be re-enacting the murders from the original “Faces of Death” movie. This is a co-production from IFC Entertainment and Shudder, who have formed a strong partnership as of late. IFC takes care of the theatrical release prior to it eventually showing up on the Shudder streaming service. There’s already been four such instances of this in 2026 and so far the biggest theatrical earner this year was “Forbidden Fruits” from March, which opened to $1.2 million from 1,525 theaters. The other three had an opening weekend range of $140,000 to $700,000. These are low budget horror films, so a decent theatrical run is nice, but not required. “Faces of Death” will premiere at Beyond Fest on April 5 prior to its wide theatrical release this weekend.

The other horror film coming out this weekend is the Canadian horror film Hunting Matthew Nichols. The movie was written, directed, and stars Markian Tarasiuk as… himself. The movie is shot at least partially mockumentary or found footage style and is about a girl named Tara Nichols whose brother Matthew went missing 23 years prior. Tarasiuk plays a documentary filmmaker who sets out to help her finally solve the case. Tarasiuk says that he was inspired by Netflix true crime documentaries and made this film as a satire to some degree around the world involving forest creatures. He also mentioned he was inspired by “The Blair Witch Project” and “The Ring.” The movie was shot over several weeks in December on Vancouver Island to capture a gray, rainy, sense of dread. This was actually initially released back in October 2024 at the Newport Beach Film Festival. It has bounced around to a few other festivals since then before finally getting a wide release this weekend. Reaction from festivals appears mixed to negative, although it only has three official reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and those are all positive. Not glowing reviews, but not rotten splatters, either. Matthew Monagle of Certified Forgotten writes, “There are worse things to be than a film that wears its admiration for ‘The Blair Witch Project’ on its sleeve” in his 3/5 review posted a few days ago.

April 17 – 19

Warner Bros.' "The Mummy"

Continuing the “Mario Galaxy” game here, the pathway of it following the original movie’s trajectory would result in a Weekend 3 total of $59.9 million. That’s the number “Mario Bros.” made in its third weekend in 2023, after falling a mild 35 percent. The contrast of a steeper fall again involves a look at “A Minecraft Movie,” which fell 48 percent in its third weekend. That path would leave “Mario Galaxy” at $36.5 million.

If the result is the steeper route, that’s not a completely unrealistic mark for this weekend’s major new release, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. This comes via Warner Bros., who had an excellent horror year last year. On this exact weekend last year, they released “Sinners,” which opened to $48 million. Then in August they launched “Weapons” to $43.5 million. I highly doubt Lee Cronin’s new re-imagining of The Mummy franchise will hit in that stratosphere, but in terms of a horror movie from Warner Bros., I’m simply stating what’s in the realm of possibilities. A more apt comparison would be to what this movie actually is, the latest in a series of modern takes on classic monster franchises, like 2020’s “The Invisible Man” and last year’s “Wolf Man.” Lee Cronin’s vision here involves the young daughter of a journalist being found after going missing for eight years, but the reunion is not exactly pleasant as the trailer hints that she was found in a 3,000 year old mummy tomb and has transformed into quite the creepy horror villain that reminds one of Lee Cronin’s most recent film, “Evil Dead Rise.” That movie also opened in the third weekend of April, in 2023, to $24.5 million. Looking at our other mentioned monster movies, the high comparison would be “The Invisible Man,” which opened to $28.2 million. However, “Wolf Man” provides the low end of the spectrum as that opened to just $10.9 million. Box Office Pro is currently projecting this in the range of $12-20 million, so they are right in between that potential range.

Three additional mid to small budgeted movies will be added the market this weekend. Of those three, the first I’ll bring up is Normal, the latest action movie starring Bob Odenkirk. In this movie, Odenkirk plays a sheriff who takes a job as a substitute sheriff in a small, unassuming town called Normal, Minnesota. The goal is to escape and relax a bit from the personal and professional turmoil. What could go wrong in this little town? As one might expect going into the movie, there’s a bit of situational irony here as this town called “Normal” winds up being anything but normal as a botched bank robbery exposes a dangerous secret beneath the town’s calm exterior that Odenkirk now gets dragged into the middle of as the new sheriff. The easy comparison here is to Odenkirk’s recent movie “Nobody” that also deals with subverted expectations of a suburban dad being a secret assassin. “Nobody” opened to $6.8 million in March 2021, while its sequel, “Nobody 2,” opened to $9.2 million last summer. That also seems like a fair range for this outing.

I have a bit of conflicting information for this next one in regards to release strategy, but at some point this month the psychological thriller Mother Mary will be available for audiences to watch. For clarification, the release date is April 17. The question is, is it limited or wide on the 17th? One source says it’s wide, the other says it’s limited on the 17th and expands wide on the 24th. And if the latter is accurate, then how wide will the expansion be? Regardless of that, the movie surrounds the very scarred relationship between a pop star named Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) and her former best friend and costume designer (Michaela Coel). On the eve of her big comeback, Mary comes to her former friend in need of a dress. Based on the trailer, things look like they get very dark and twisted after that. The movie is directed by David Lowery, who, in between his Disney movies (“Pete’s Dragon,” “Peter Pan & Wendy”), is very good at going dark and twisted with his ideas (“A Ghost Story,” “The Green Knight”). These usually land in a very polarized way with audiences, which is also par for the course for distributor A24. This is not a ghost story or a love story, they say in the trailer. This is a prayer, a song, a dress, a communion, a betrayal, a sacrifice, a rebirth. Whatever all that means, they also note that there’s new music written by Jack Antonoff, Charli XCX, and FKA Twigs. It seems like audiences that choose to take a chance on this one are in for quite the wild ride, for better or for worse.

The final movie that I’ll bring up for this weekend is a smaller movie out of the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and that is Wasteman. This movie is a British prison drama starring David Jonsson and Tom Blythe. It follows a man named Taylor (Jonsson) who has kept himself out of trouble in prison and thus hopes to get himself eligible for early parole, when he forms a bond with a fellow prisoner named Dee (Blythe). When a vicious attack takes place, it forces Taylor to have to choose between protecting Dee and keeping his own parole chances alive. The movie had its release in its home country of the U.K. back in February, after the aforementioned festival premiere in September, so American audiences are getting it late. But the reaction thus far has been very strong. There’s been 23 reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes and all of them are positive. The buzzy festival releases don’t always translate to mainstream interest, especially when dumped in the middle of April, but this is one for cinephiles to take note of and add to their watch list, because those who have up to this point have been rewarded.

April 24 – 26

Lionsgate's "Michael"

The final weekend in April will be the bookend to the “Mario Galaxy” comparison. As outlined in previous sections, it seems likely to three-peat at No. 1, with no realistic challengers. But can it pull a full sweep of April? Using the same comparisons, if it holds as well as its predecessor, “Mario Bros.” fell another mild 32 percent in its fourth weekend, earning $40.8 million. In regards to the potential steeper decline, “A Minecraft Movie” fell 44 percent in its fourth weekend. That route would lead “Mario Galaxy” to a $20.5 million total.

Regardless of which route “Mario Galaxy” takes, this weekend does provide a very strong challenger that I also briefly referred to in the intro, and that’s the musical biopic Michael. These musical biopics have arrived in a very fast and furious way over the last several years. As long as audiences are happy with them and continue to show up, Hollywood is going to continue to say, “OK, who’s next?” The answer for that question in April 2026 is the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. A logical choice on the surface as Michael Jackson was one of the most popular singers ever. And they’ve tapped his own nephew, Jaafar Jackson, to play Michael, which adds a certain level of authenticity. The tricky thing with this particular movie is that there’s a massive elephant in the room. Michael Jackson in his later years was a very controversial figure. There’s two different parties of people when it comes to that conversation: the people who want nothing to do with Michael because they’re certain he’s guilty and the people who continue to claim it’s all a very cruel witch hunt. Is the movie going to address any of that? Probably not. Is that an issue? Depends on which party you’re a part of. Michael’s own daughter Paris recently posted on Instagram that the movie is a sugar-coated fantasy land full of inaccuracies and lies. She claims the filmmakers ignored the notes she submitted. “The film panders to a very specific section of my Dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy and they’re going to be happy with it,” she added.

Some might be upset at me for bringing this all up in introducing the movie. For what it’s worth, I’m not taking a stance in this post, but the journalist in me feels like this is a necessary thing to mention. I’ll let you make of it what you will. What does this all mean in regards to the box office? Well, like Paris said, regardless of facts or fiction, the audience that the movie panders to will be very happy. That means money and tickets purchased. It’s also worth noting that not all of these musical biopics have succeeded. Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston were all subjects of musical biopics that flopped. But the popularity of Michael seems like it will put it more in line with “Elvis” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” that were huge hits. “Elvis” opened to $31.2 million and went onto make $151.4 million domestically, while “Bohemian Rhapsody” opened to a massive $51.1 million and also held very well, finishing with $216.3 million. An opening in that $30-50 million range should be enough to topple “Mario Galaxy,” but it could be close. Box Office Pro actually predicts $60-75 million for “Michael,” which I think is a bit high, but they’re the experts, so I feel it’s important to point out.

Moving on from “Michael,” there’s three smaller films to bring up from this weekend. The first is the action comedy Over Your Dead Body. This is a movie about a couple who go on a vacation to try to reconnect, only to figure out they both have plans to kill each other, which puts a mild damper on things. It’s actually an English-language remake of the 2021 Norwegian film “The Trip.” In that movie, the couple’s murderous plans go awry when three fugitives take them captive. I’m not sure exactly what direction this remake decides to take things, but the trailer does suggest that there’s more going on beyond just the two of them. The remake stars Jason Segal and Samara Weaving as our main couple, but also includes Timothy Olyphant and Juliette Lewis in supporting roles. This is another movie distributed by IFC Entertainment, which I talked about briefly in Weekend 2 when going over “Faces of Death.” IFC and Shudder have a strong partnership where IFC takes care of the theatrical, while Shudder then later gets it on their streaming service. While there’s been four of those already this year, with “Faces of Death” being the fifth, “Over Your Dead Body” is not a horror and doesn’t appear to have Shudder involved, so it looks like it’s just IFC on their own. Shudder or not, though, the highest opening IFC release of 2026 is “Forbidden Fruits” at $1.2 million. “Over Your Dead Body” does have the higher trailer count than “Faces of Death,” and the popularity of Samara Weaving, who just barely opened “Ready or Not 2” in March, but it’s not a horror film and doesn’t have the franchise connection, so it’s a toss-up as to which IFC movie in April will perform the best.

Next up is the crime thriller heist film Fuze, which is about a WWII bomb that gets discovered on a busy construction site in the center of London. Based on the trailer, this appears to be “the ultimate distraction” to set up the perfect heist. The movie parallels the Weekend 3 movie I talked about, “Wasteland,” in that it is also a British film that had its premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The reviews aren’t a perfect 23 for 23 like that movie, but it still stands at an 80 percent Rotten Tomatoes score out of 35 reviews counted, so definitely not bad, even if not quite as hyped. The movie is directed by David Mackenzie, who is best known for directing the 2016 film “Hell or High Water,” and stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Sam Worthington. Like “Wasteland,” this is not likely to be a big box office player here in the States and will have already had its U.K. release prior to its U.S. release, but it still provides a late April action thriller for anyone who wants to give that a roll.

 The final wide release of this weekend, and thus final movie discussed in this preview, takes us back to seventh century Arabia with the movie Desert Warrior. The movie is led by Anthony Mackie, but also includes Aiysha Hart, Sharlto Copley, and Ben Kingsley. The story sees an Arabian Princess team up with a bandit to confront a ruthless emperor who wanted her to be his concubine. The movie is being distributed by Vertical Entertainment, whose two wide releases from 2026 include “We Bury the Dead” and Luc Besson’s “Dracula,” which opened to $2.5 million and $4.4 million respectively, which thus felt like fair comparisons if this does indeed hit a full wide release. That was going to be it for this movie, but then I stumbled into the fact that this was the most expensive film to be produced in Saudia Arabia, as it shot there from late 2021 into early 2022. Said budget of the film is reported to be $150 million, which blew my mind when I read that, given that a $2-4 million domestic opening seemed to be the realistic scenario. I’m not sure what the full story of this movie’s production is, but it seems like quite the intense one and I have no idea how they plan to make that money back.