Movie Preview: June 2018

May was a bit of a sparse month in terms of new wide releases, but that's because Hollywood choose to mostly clear the way given the three major blockbusters that were on the schedule. However, said three blockbusters, "Avengers: Infinity War," "Deadpool 2" and "Solo: A Star Wars Story" were strong enough together to sneak the month over the $1 billion mark for the second month in a row and third time this year already after February and April crossed $1 billion for the first time in those months' histories, helping the year to date box office to be over $5 billion for the first five months of the year, specifically through June 5, making it so 2018 is 5.6 percent ahead of 2017 at this point and 8.3 percent ahead of 2016. The official total for May 2018 was $1.037 billion, which fell short of 2013's record of $1.141 billion. With the record-breaking $257.7 million opening weekend of "Avengers: Infinity War" actually coming in April, that means May would've had the record had Marvel kept with the original release date. Moving onto June, the after effects of Hollywood mostly avoiding May means that everything has been crammed into June and July instead of being more equally spread out, which could mean either huge numbers or box office cannibalism, so let's dive in and explore!   

June 1st - 3rd-

You may have noticed that the first weekend of June is already in the books, meaning I'm a tad bit late in covering this full month. However, this first weekend of June was an extremely quiet one as Hollywood chose to mainly avoid the second weekend of "Solo: A Star Wars Movie." In principle, it's not a bad idea to put a little space between your movie and a Star Wars movie if you are a distributor trying to correctly schedule your movies. However, there probably was room for something as "Solo" tanked 65 percent to just $29.4 million in weekend two after an already disappointing opening weekend. That just means there's a little more breathing room for everything else later on this month. "Deadpool 2" actually came surprisingly close to retaking the lead over "Solo," coming in second place with $23.2 million. "Avengers: Infinity War" took fourth place with another $10.5 million in weekend six while sleeper hit "Book Club" rounded out the top five with $7.0 million its third weekend.

You may have noticed that I skipped third place in that previous paragraph, and that's because that spot went to the first of three newcomers this weekend, which was Adrift that floated ahead of the competition when it came to the previously mentioned new releases as it took in $11.6 million. Heading into the weekend, tracking reports suggested it could come close to the $18.7 million of "Me Before You," which opened on this same exact weekend in 2016. However, weekend results instead saw it get a nearly identical total to May 2017's "Everything, Everything," which opened to $11.7 million. That suggests "Adrift" most likely will end up super close to that movie's $34.1 million, depending on how it holds. That will also mean it ends up in the same ballpark as other fellow romantic dramas "Paper Towns" ($32.0 million) and "The Mountain Between Us" ($30.3 million). The best case scenario would be a total closer to "The Longest Ride" ($37.4 million) or "The Age of Adaline" ($42.6 million). "Adrift" stars Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin as a couple who get stranded out on the ocean together after their small boat heading from Tahiti to San Diego gets caught in a huge storm.

There were two other movies that opened in wide release this past weekend, although neither made much of a dent at the box office, yet based on expectations of both, it was a major surprise that Upgrade came in ahead, debuting in sixth place with $4.7 million. The reported budget for the movie was between $3-5 million, so this opening weekend was a win for the movie. "Upgrade" was boosted by strong reviews coming out of the South by Southwest Film Festival in March that helped with the movie's buzz, leading it to the second highest opening weekend for distributor BH Tilt, behind only the $4.9 million of 2016's "The Darkness." The movie is a sci-fi action thriller about a previously paralyzed man who gets a chip that controls his movements, helping him get revenge.

And finally, dead on arrival this weekend was Johnny Knoxville's Action Point, opening in ninth place with just $2.4 million. While not officially a part of the Jacka-- franchise (yes, I censor movies with curse words in their title), "Action Point" was a similar style of movie, involving crazy, daredevil stunts from a group of people led by Johnny Knoxville who may have all been drunk or high while doing said stunts, or certainly acting like it. This time "Action Point" involved stunts in a broken down water park. Thus with the Jacka-- connection and Knoxville starring, a $19 million budget seemed perfectly feasible as all four actual Jacka-- movies opened above $20 million, with "Jacka--: The Movie" earning the least overall with $64.2 million in 2002, which adjusts to just over $100 million when considering ticket price inflation. Thus "Action Point" potentially earning less than $5 million overall when all is said and done makes it one of the colossal failures of 2018 thus far.

June 8th - 10th-

After essentially taking last week off with three smaller releases, the summer blockbuster season continues this upcoming weekend with Ocean's 8, the fourth modern installment in the Ocean's franchise and fifth movie overall as the franchise initially began in 1960 with the original "Ocean's 11," which starred Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. The 2001 remake, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, was a huge success as it opened to $38.1 million and made $183.4 million overall, arguably helping it becoming the more well-known version.  Title-wise it separated itself by spelling out the number, thus becoming "Ocean's Eleven." It spawned two sequels in 2004 and 2007, "Ocean's Twelve" and "Ocean's Thirteen," that opened around the same, but didn't hold quite as well, yet still did decent with $125.5 million and $117.2 million overall. It would be an easy prediction to say "Ocean's 8" performs about as well as the latter two, which is what Warner Bros. is expecting. "Ocean's 8" is a spin-off of the previous three as Danny Ocean's sister Debby puts together a female crew to go pull off a heist. The female-centered cast includes Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter.

Opening alongside "Ocean's 8" are two smaller films, though the one getting the most buzz of the two is Hereditary. This is a horror movie from distributor A24, a studio that has developed a fairly loyal fan base after a long string of well received independent films. A24 got the distribution rights to "Hereditary" following its release at the Sundance Film Festival this year, where it received very strong reviews. Thus the comparison to "The Witch" might be a good one as "The Witch" was also an indie horror film from Sundance released by A24. "The Witch" opened to $8.8 million and made $25.1 million overall when it got its theatrical release. In general, indie horror always seems to have a bit of a mixed reaction as "The Witch," "It Comes at Night" and "The Babadook" all are examples of indie horror films that have had strong praise from critics and festival goers, but low praise from general audiences as they don't quite hit the cliche horror tropes that general horror fans come to expect from their mainstream horror flicks. Thus is why "Hereditary" probably won't break out with mainstream crowds like "A Quiet Place" did earlier this year, but the indie horror fans should gravitate towards it as the movie unravels the mysterious secrets of a certain family's ancestry.

The other small release this weekend is Hotel Artemis, which is an action thriller starring Jodie Foster as a nurse who runs a secret hospital for criminals in a dystopian future. Starring alongside Jodie Foster in this movie is Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Day and Dave Bautista, giving this indie action thriller quite the large cast. The obvious challenge that this movie faces, though, is the high amount of competition. While "Hereditary" has a bit of an advantage there in being the only horror movie to be released since "A Quiet Place," as an action film "Hotel Artemis" will not only be dealing with the major blockbuster in the market, both the holdovers from May and the upcoming ones in June, but it also has fellow indie action thriller "Upgrade" from the previous week, which has grabbed people's attention already. So there's a lot of action films to choose from, thus "Hotel Artemis" might be the type of movie that people slowly discover over time on various streaming platforms in the future rather than being a movie that everyone rushes to see in theaters. For comparison, new distributor Global Roads' previous two movies, "Midnight Sun" and "Show Dogs," opened to $4 million and $6 million respectively. 

June 15th - 17th-

Sequels haven't always been the avenue Pixar has explored as they've typically had better luck with original films, but the one sequel that pretty much everyone has been begging them to do for the last 14 years is finally here and that is, of course, Incredibles 2. One may wonder how this movie would've done had it come out around 11 years earlier as "The Incredibles" came out in 2004, before the modern surge of superhero films that exploded following the huge success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Releasing "Incredibles 2" in 2018 means that Pixar had to be extra creative to figure out how still feel fresh in a day where there's an over-saturation of superhero films. In approaching this, Pixar decided to pick up right where they left off with the original as opposed to there being a time gap similar to what there was in real life. We'll find out soon enough if they successfully accomplished the task by giving a sequel that everyone's been looking for, but what isn't in question is that this movie will be a monster at the box office. Think "Finding Dory" here, which had a similar time gap between it and its beloved predecessor, and opened to a record-breaking $135.1 million for an animated movie, on its way to being Pixar's highest grossing movie with $486.3 million, numbers that "Incredibles 2" has a realistic chance at topping or at least coming close to.

Providing an adult alternative for the small portion of people who for some reason aren't interested in the latest Pixar movie will be the comedy Tag. It's actually been a decent year for comedies in 2018. While nothing has necessarily broke the bank, unless you count "Deadpool 2," there's been quite a few mid-range comedies that have kept comedy fans rather busy and mostly satisfied with the likes of "Game Night," "Blockers," "Super Troopers 2" and "Life of the Party" all opening in the $15-20 million range. "Tag" looks to fit right into that group as it's a movie based on the true story of a group of friends who have been playing the same game of tag for nearly 30 years. This game started in the 80's with a group of high school friends from Washington state and moved onto their college years and beyond. The rules have evolved to the point where every February, for the entire month, the game starts and the friends travel across the country to tag one of their competitors. Whoever is "it" at the end of the month remains "it" until the next February roles around. Their story got the attention of a Wall Street Journal reporter in January 2013 and has now become a Hollywood film starring Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Burress, Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner as the group of friends.

Sneaking in on Wednesday, June 13, is the crime thriller Superfly. This is a remake of the 1972 film "Super Fly," which is described as a blaxploitation film, a subgenre of exploitation film that emerged in the early 1970's focusing on black characters and communities being the main characters and subjects of the film, helping people at the time rethink race relations at the time. "Super Fly" specifically was the story of a drug dealer named Youngblood Priest, showing his daily routine as he wants to score one more super deal and then retire. This remake stars Trevor Jackson as Youngblood Priest as well as Jason Mitchell, Jennifer Morrison, Lex Scott Davis and Michael Kenneth Williams and is set in modern-day Atlanta, which is booming with culture, style and music, but also has a dark side, especially when it comes to the lives of black people involved in certain businesses. Just like in the original, Priest is attempted to pull off one last major drug deal before retiring, which of course is much easier said than done. This is a movie that might have a hard time connecting with a general audience in the middle of a busy summer, but it will certainly hit its targeted niche crowd.

June 22nd - 24th- 

The fourth weekend of June sees only one movie released as studios probably smartly have decided to let Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom play on its own without any competition or counter-programming. Given that "Jurassic World" revived the franchise in a huge way in 2014 as it broke the opening weekend record set by "The Avengers" in 2012, becoming just the second movie to open with over $200 million with it's total of $208.8 million, a total that has since been topped three times. This phenomenon showcased the power of nostalgia as it had been over 20 years since the original "Jurassic Park" hit theaters and 14 years since "Jurassic Park III" in 2001. "Jurassic Park" went on make $652 million in the United States and $1.67 billion worldwide, despite mediocre reviews that saw it settle at a 71 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course a movie that big doesn't come along without a sequel shortly thereafter, which is why we have "Fallen Kingdom" coming out this month, which sees the return of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, but switches directors as J.A. Bayona, director of smaller films such as "The Impossible" and "A Monster Calls," gets his first shot at a major blockbuster as he takes over for Colin Trevorrow, who had a similar experience with "Jurassic World."

The tricky thing here is predicting exactly how "Fallen Kingdom" is going to perform. With "Jurassic World" being an event film, it's not expected that "Fallen Kingdom" gets close to that $652 million total or even the $208 million opening weekend. Looking at the original "Jurassic Park" compared to its sequel, "The Lost World," the latter fell 35 percent from the original. If "Fallen Kingdom" experiences the same exact fall as "The Lost World" did, that would mean it earns $418 million domestically. If we apply the same opening weekend to final total multiplier as "Jurassic World," that would mean an opening weekend around $133 million. The caveat to that is "Jurassic Park" is a well-beloved film while "Jurassic World" isn't. So the fall off might be a bit steeper, especially considering early reviews for "Fallen Kingdom" aren't encouraging as it is currently in the high 60 percent range on Rotten Tomatoes. Thus it seems like a realistic possibility that "Fallen Kingdom" could experience a similar fate as last month's "Solo," which vastly under-performed compared to previous Star Wars films after mediocre reviews. "Solo" will end up with around $200-220 million total, which could potentially be where "Fallen Kingdom" ends up if audiences decide that they're not that interested.

June 29th - July 1st --

The final week of June, which slips into July a bit, sees a sequel to a movie that some probably never envisioned would happen. That sequel is Sicario: Day of the Soldado. The first "Sicario" was a well-received film about the drug cartel, written by Taylor Sheridan ("Hell or High Water," "Wind River") and directed by Denis Villeneuve ("Prisoners," "Arrival," "Blade Runner 2049"), starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro in the lead roles. The reason why it might be a bit perplexing that it got a sequel greenlit is not due to the quality, but rather it was more of an indie/art house film that had a slow roll-out in fall of 2015, eventually getting to $46.9 million total on a $30 million budget. That's not the type of movie that typically gets a sequel. With "Day of the Soldado," the drug cartel saga continues with Brolin and Del Toro, but none of the rest of the original cast. Sheridan is back on as writer, but Villeneuve is not back as director. Replacing him is Stefano Sollima, who has a lot of experience with crime shows on TV, but is fairly new when it comes to feature films. Lastly, the other big change is moving to a summer release date, starting out in wide release. All this makes it a bit of a wildcard in predicting how it will perform, thus it will most likely hinge on the reviews.

The final movie of the month also might be the most unique film of the month and that is Uncle Drew. Occasionally you'll see current athletes show up in films, but it's usually in smaller roles or cameos as they typically choose to stick to playing their sport. Rarely do you see a current athlete take the lead role in a major comedy film, but that's exactly what Kyrie Irving, now a member of the Boston Celtics, has done as he's dressed up as title character of Uncle Drew, a former basketball legend who is now an old man and is coming back to form his own street ball team after being invited to join a street ball tournament. Also dressing up as old men to join Kyrie in this film are former NBA players Shaquille O'Neal, Reggie Miller, Chris Webber and Nate Robinson. Actual actors, such as Tiffany Haddish and Nick Kroll are also a part of the cast. The other thing that makes "Uncle Drew" extremely unique is that it's a movie based on a series of commercials that starred Kyrie Irving as Uncle Drew. It's not often that an ad campaign gets a film adaptation, if it ever has happened. If this unique idea for a sports comedy connects with its target audience, this could join the decently long list of mid-range comedy successes in 2018. It's certainly unique enough to grab people's attention.