Movie Preview: May 2019

As was expected, this past April was a huge month at the box office, becoming the second straight April to cross $1 billion at the domestic box office, which is also the first month of 2019 to do so. Although it should be noted that the reason for April's success was mostly all due to this little movie called "Avengers: Endgame" making a staggering $427 million during the final five days of the month. That accounted for 41 percent of the month's overall business, meaning if you take that movie away, April actually wasn't that strong. "Shazam!" performed below expectations at just $132 million. March holdovers "Dumbo" and "Captain Marvel" contributed an extra $61 million each, while a trio of horror movies, "Pet Sematary," "The Curse of La Llorona" and "Us," the latter also being a March film, added about $40-50 million a piece. And that was it. Not a whole lot of strong contributions from anything else. But now we flip the page to May, which is the official start of the summer movie season, even though it feels like that began in March. But nevertheless, it's a crowded month ahead, which is great for moviegoers, but slightly problematic for box office numbers. Too many movies means they could all cannibalize each other, so let's dive in and try to make sense of it all.

May 3rd - 5th-

Three new wide releases enter the market this weekend attempting to counter-program "Avengers: Endgame," and we'll get to all of them, but the biggest story this weekend will pertain to what "Endgame" does in its second weekend. After opening to an Earth-shattering $357 million this past weekend, there really isn't a precedent here as to what it'll do in its second weekend. The best one can do is check out the previous Avengers movies and make a guess as to which one it'll follow closest. The easiest comparison might be to "Avengers: Infinity War," which fell 55.5 percent in weekend two. A drop like that would five "Endgame" a second weekend of $159 million. The best case scenario is that it follows closer to "The Avengers" in 2012, which only fell 50.3 percent. A total like that would see "Endgame" take in about $178 million. Avenue three would have this opening closer to "Avengers: Age of Ultron," which fell a slightly steeper 59.4 percent. While "Endgame" was received quite well and reports are that repeat viewings are higher than "Infinity War," the unique urgency to see this as fast as possible in order to avoid spoilers could result in a steeper fall, which following "Age of Ultron" would equal a $145 million second weekend, which is still quite excellent.

With that large range of $145-178 million for "Endgame," a total on the low end of that spectrum would still mean it would beat out the second place finisher by at least $125 million and that's if Long Shot hits the higher end of pre-release expectations. You could probably throw a dart at the wall in guessing which of these three new movies will actually land in second place, but I'm going with "Long Shot" because of the star power of Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron. As the poster of the movie itself explains, the movie is about an unlikely, but not impossible relationship. Charlize Theron plays a woman who is the current Secretary of State and is running for the presidency while Seth Rogen is an average journalist. The other plot twist on this is that Charlize Theron was Seth Rogen's babysitter and thus his first crush. Age-wise, this could check out as Theron is six years older than Rogen in real life. If he was 10 and she was 16, that would work. As far as a Seth Rogen comedy goes, he's been a consistent draw over the years, but it's been since "Neighbors" in 2014 that he's had one that's really broke out, so he might have to settle for the $10-15 million range for opening weekend and hope for good word of mouth to carry this through May.

The second contender for the runner-up spot is some counter-programming on the complete opposite side of the spectrum from "Long Shot" and that's the animated film Uglydolls. This is the first animated film that STX has released and it does have the edge on the other two in terms of theater count, but with "Detective Pikachu," "Aladdin," "The Secret Life of Pets" and "Toy Story 4" all right around the corner, most parents might choose to save their money for those events while waiting for DVD or streaming for "Uglydolls." The story here is a classic underdog tale, or underdoll tale as the poster claims. This universe has a system where the perfect dolls are made for kids while the ones that are deformed get thrown down to Uglyville, where all the ugly dolls are perfectly content and happy. However, at least a few of them wonder off to the perfect world in an attempt to fit in there. One big draw is the large cast that includes Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, Janelle Monae, Blake Shelton, Pitbull, Bebe Rexha and Charli XCX. This obviously suggests singing is going to happen, which could very well entertain smaller children if the songs manage to be catchy enough. Best case scenario here seems to be the $15.8 million that "Wonder Park" opened to back in March.

The third wide release of the weekend is the Screen Gems thriller The Intruder. A few years back, Screen Gems, a branch of Sony, was actually pretty good at making some good money with these low budget thrillers. Movies like "No Good Deed" and "The Perfect Guy" did rather well as both of those opened in the mid $20 million range even with poor reviews. If you look at those two movies, "The Intruder" has a very similar plot. A new couple played by Michael Ealy (who starred in "The Perfect Guy") and Meagan Good move into a new home, but the previous owner, played by Dennis Quaid, is not ready to let his property go. When I was looking at this movie a couple weeks ago, instead of looking at those older Screen Gems movies, I chose to look at some more recent horror/thrillers like "The Possession of Hannah Grace," "Greta," "The Prodigy" and "Miss Bala," all of which opened in the $4-6 million. Thus I pegged the movie at that and predicted on my own that it would make $10-15 million total. Turns out as we head into the weekend, there's enough buzz here that it might make $10-15 million opening weekend instead, putting it more in line with last year's "Slender Man," which opened to $11.8 million, or "Proud Mary," which opened to $9.9 million.

May 10th - 12th-

The second weekend of May is where things get quite interesting. Again looking at the trajectories of the three previous Avengers movies, the range for "Endgame" in its third weekend is $72-96 million, which is the exact range that Detective Pikachu is looking at. Out of all the movies to be opening this summer, "Detective Pikachu" has been one of the more buzzier titles, this stemming from an excellent marketing campaign that got very positive reactions to the trailers. Combine that with the multi-generational appeal that Pokémon provides as it's both popular with the current younger crowd as well as the crowd that grew up with it when the games and shows were first released in the 90's. The appeal has never died down since, thus the Pokémon fan base is quite large. Giving said fan base a live-action film that many have been dreaming of while making said movie look quite appealing might make this one of the biggest hits of the entire summer. The specific angle here is the "Detective Pikachu" game, which was released for the 3DS in Japan in 2016 and worldwide in 2018. It follows Pikachu as a detective, which in the movie version has him voiced by Ryan Reynolds. If the stars align, this could even see an opening weekend north of $100 million.

Coming in far below both "Endgame" and "Detective Pikachu" this weekend will be the Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway led comedy The Hustle. This is a remake of the 1988 film "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," which in turn was a remake of the 1964 film "Bedtime Stories." The two main stars of "Bedtime Story" are Marlon Brando and David Niven, while "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" has Steve Martin and Michael Caine step into those roles. Both of those movies have two men competing to con a rich woman out of a large sum of money, $25,000 and $50,000 respectively. "The Hustle" sees the gender roles reversed as it's Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway as the two attempting to con the "dirty rotten men" out of their money. Again, the high level of competition will be a running theme this month, as well as throughout the whole summer. On that note, "The Hustle" will be competing with last weekend's "Long Shot" for the comedy spotlight. With "The Hustle" being a lighter PG-13 while "Long Shot" being a heavier R, it's possible that the target audiences might not overall quite as much, but it's still a concern. Earlier this year, Rebel Wilson opened "Isn't It Romantic" to $14.2 million while she opened "How to Be Single" in 2016 to $17.9 million. That could be the range here.

Not to be forgotten about this weekend is yet another comedy, this one being Poms. Now on paper it seems like a bad idea to have two comedies opening on the same weekend, but "Poms" should be perfectly fine as it targets a complete different crowded, the senior crowd. Led by Diane Keaton, Jackie Weaver, Pam Grier, Celia Weston and Rhea Perlman, this group of older women form a cheerleading squad at their retirement community, proving that you're never too old to live a little. The direct comparison here is to last year's surprise summer hit "Book Club," which also starred Dianne Keaton and shares producer Alex Saks. "Book Club" only opened to $13.6 million, but it held remarkably well, winding up with a total of $68.5 million. The reason there is that the senior crowd aren't necessarily ones to run out and see movies on opening weekend. If word gets out that "Poms" is another comedy worth seeing, that word of mouth could help carry this movie throughout the summer. Thus an opening around $10 million might be expected, but this could hold on really well. Yes, it is quite the crowded summer, but there's not a lot targeted to this specific audience, thus this could be a win for STX, whose goal is to release a lot of mid-range movies for audiences. 

May 17th - 19th-

Whichever movie between "Endgame" and "Detective Pikachu" wins the previous weekend will probably be looking at another weekend at No. 1 this weekend. If it's "Endgame," the range this weekend is $41-63 million, which  that's a tad bit high for John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, which will be looking at a strong third place finish. "John Wick" is a movie that came out of nowhere in October 2014 to be a surprise. It didn't have a ton of pre-release buzz, thus only opened to $14.4 million, but strong word of mouth propelled it to $43 million total. Adult males especially gravitated towards its stylistic action as new directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch showcased their expertise with action as they were previously known for their work as stunt coordinators, most notably for "The Matrix" trilogy. "John Wick: Chapter 2" expanded the "John Wick" lore, which was initially a simple action film about John Wick getting revenge on the people who killed his dog. "Chapter 2" fed off good will from the first combined with great reviews of its own and doubled the first movie's financial total, opening to $30.4 million and making $92 million overall. Now "Parabellum" looks to hit things home with an opening weekend expected in the mid to high $30 million range.

The next two movies this weekend will both be looking at an opening in the low teens. Either one could wind up ahead as they jockey for a spot in the top five. First we'll touch on A Dog's Journey. If you've seen the trailers for this movie and you feel like you've just seen a movie like this advertised, it's because "A Dog's Way Home" just came out in January. Both movies, along with the 2016 film "A Dog's Purpose," originate from books written by W. Bruce Cameron. While "A Dog's Way Home" is more of a spin-off that deals with similar ideas, yet is not directly connected to "A Dog's Purpose," this month's "A Dog's Journey" is a direct sequel to "A Dog's Purpose" and thus will bring back both Josh Gad and Dennis Quaid to reprise their roles, with Gad as the voice of the dog Bailey and Quaid playing said dog's owner Ethan. This time around, instead of Bailey reincarnating repeatedly until he finds his way back to Ethan, he reincarnates to go take care of Ethan's granddaughter CJ. Thus the cycle continues. Why Hollywood felt like we needed three of these movies is a conversation for another day, but "A Dog's Purpose" opened to $18.2 million while "A Dog's Way Home" opened to $11.2 million. It seems logical to assume "A Dog's Journey" ends up closer to the latter.

The other movie of the weekend adds another romance drama to mix with The Sun is Also a Star. Like most of these, this is also based on a best-selling novel, which means there's potential to bring in a pre-established audience here. For the movie's cast, the casting directors reached into the TV world to bring in Yara Shahidi from "Black-ish" and Charles Melton from "Riverdale" as our main couple Natasha and Daniel. The premise of this movie sees Natasha not believing in love, but Daniel tells her that if she gives him a day, he believes that he can change her mind. She gives him and hour and he accepts the challenge. Things eventually get more complicated as Natasha's family is facing deportation. Romance dramas like this can open all over the place, from either barely registering or to becoming a surprise hit. The kicker here is that this is Warner Bros. distributing, thus it might be getting a bigger push than some of the others from smaller studios. Last year Warner Bros. was responsible for the mega-hit "Crazy Rich Asians." This won't hit that level, but Warner Bros. have also found success with "Everything, Everything" ($11.7 million opening) and "Me Before You" ($18.7 million opening). An opening in line with one of those two seems likely.

May 24th - 27th-

Regardless of what happens with the duel between "Endgame" and "Detective Pikachu," a new box office winner will be crowned this weekend. If Disney manages to play their cards right, they could be passing the baton off to themselves as Aladdin is set to dominate over Memorial Day weekend. "Aladdin" follows a long string of live-action Disney remakes and is the second of four major remakes in 2019 alone as it follows "Dumbo" and precedes "The Lion King" and "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil." The original animated "Aladdin" was released in 1992 and was the highest grossing film that year, making $217 million, which adjusts to $472 million with 2019 ticket prices. It was a part of the Disney renaissance that began with "The Little Mermaid" in 1989 and is still considered one of Disney's most beloved classics. That means this has all the potential in the world if it's received well, but that's the problem here. Unlike some of these other Disney remakes, it's not been all rainbows and butterflies here. In fact, things got extremely toxic back in February when they first revealed Blue Will Smith as Genie. Reaction to the ensuing trailers and TV spots have been a bit more positive, but the success of this movie is going to rely solely on the reviews, making it bit hard to predict at this point. 

It's going to be a busy Memorial Day weekend. In addition to everything else in the market already, three more films are going to be added and will fight for a spot in the top 10, potentially led by the horror film Brightburn. The premise here is what has caught people's attention as this is essentially like evil Superman. This alien kid with superpowers fall from the sky and gets taken in by a couple who raise him as their own. But then when he figures out his powers, instead of using them for good to save the world, he goes super crazy and evil. The advertising has also heavily pushed James Gunn, director of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" films, as being attached to this project. Sometimes marketing like that can be deceiving. James Gunn is not the director here. That would be David Yarovesky, whose only other previous feature directorial effort is a 2014 movie called "The Hive" that no one has heard of. James Gunn is the producer, though, and his brother and cousin, Brian Gunn and Max Gunn, wrote the screenplay. So this is a Gunn family effort, which could boost awareness. If this has enough buzz and excitement leading up to the release, an opening in line with last month's "Pet Sematary" ($24.5 million) and "The Curse of La Llorona" ($26.3 million) could be in play.

May already has a plethora of comedies for people to pick from, with "Long Shot," "The Hustle" and "Poms" vying for audiences hoping for a good laugh. Another one is added to the mix with Booksmart, the directorial debut of actress Olivia Wilde. This is a coming-of-age comedy as two high school girls who have previously spent most of their time studying decide that they need to put down their books and go live a little. Now there are some recognizable names in this, like Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis and Billie Lourde, but our two main girls leading the way are Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein, who are fairly unknown at this point. Thus the lack of star power in the lead roles could hurt this movie initially. It might not be the type of movie that people rush out and see, but often comedies are hard to predict at the box office. There's usually one or two that become huge during the summer season. The reason why this one could be a potential breakout film is that it debuted at South by Southwest in March and took home a perfect 100 percent score from Rotten Tomatoes after 37 reviews. A well-reviewed comedy is the obvious key to success and if word of mouth gets out that this is worth seeing, this could see long legs throughout the summer.

The final movie of  Memorial Day weekend actually sees us getting a double dose of Disney with Fox's release of Ad Astra. With Disney now owning Fox, that means we're going to be seeing a lot of Disney this summer. In addition to "Endgame," "Aladdin" and "Ad Astra," Disney will also be responsible for the distribution of "Dark Phoenix," "Toy Story 4," "Stuber," "The Lion King," "New Mutants" (theoretically) and "Artemis Fowl." So yeah, lot's of Disney. And no "Spider-Man: Far from Home" on that list because, remember, that's still Sony. Anyways, "Ad Astra" is a sci-fi film that doesn't seem to be getting much of any buzz at the moment, but it does star Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and Ruth Negga and is about an astronaut played by Brad Pitt who travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father. There's also apparently more mysteries involved in the plot to unravel that could threaten Earth's survival. And the director here is James Gray, who directed the well-received movies "The Immigrant" and "The Lost City of Z." So on paper this should work. It's just that with the lack of buzz and the heavy competition, this could end up like fellow 2019 sci-fi film "Replicas," which could only muster a $2.4 million opening. 

May 31st - June 2nd-

If, in theory, "Aladdin" were able get a second weekend on top this weekend, assuming "Endgame" beats out "Detective Pikachu," Disney would again have the opportunity to pass the baton off to themselves with the June 7 release of "Dark Phoenix." But that's not going to happen because the final day of May sees the release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. "Dark Phoenix" will probably get beat out by "The Secret Life of Pets 2," anyways, but that's a story for next month. Onto Godzilla, this could be a force to be reckoned with. The 2014 "Godzilla" opened to a massive $93.2 million. Granted, it was extremely frontloaded as it finished with $200.7 million and had mixed reaction from audiences. But 2017's "Kong: Skull Island" also did well, opening to $61 million, making $168 million overall. Not only are the two set to face off next March with "Godzilla vs. Kong," but "King of the Monsters" also has three of Godzilla's most popular foes, Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidora. Even though the market is crowded, the marketing campaign here has been aggressive and excitement has been building as the release of the movie gets closer. It would make sense that this at least matches the $61 million opening of "Kong: Skull Island." It could even hit a bit higher if reviews are positive.

Godzilla does have some interesting competition this weekend in the form of Rocketman. If Godzilla suffers under the pressure of so much competition, which is a definite possibility, "Rocketman" could sneak in a win at the box office as it looks to feed off the success of fellow musical biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody." Despite mixed critical reaction, "Bohemian Rhapsody" opened huge to $51 million and held very well throughout the season, finishing with $217 million domestically. It also earned five Oscar nominations, including best picture, and won four of those, which was everything but best picture. And if Rami Malek can win best actor for lip-syncing Freddie Mercury, we have to believe that Taron Egerton is in play next year for actually singing Elton John, which he proved he could do in the movie "Sing." Because, yeah, that's what this is. An Elton John biopic with Taron Egerton in the lead role. Granted, this is probably getting released in the wrong half of the year to get real Oscar buzz, but Oscars or not, musical movies have been on a roll lately, and with little competition this summer in that specific realm, this feels like one of the more guaranteed hits. It should be able to at least hit the $34.9 million opening of last summer's "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again."

The final movie of the month is also not one to ignore and that is the thriller Ma. This is led by Octavia Spencer, who is usually one of the more likable actresses in the business, known for her roles is movies such as "Hidden Figures," "The Help," "The Shape of Water" and "Fruitvale Station." However, "Ma" has her going in a completely different direction, from nice and friendly to crazy and psychotic. Initially, though, all seems well as she befriends a bunch of high school kids who think they've scored the jackpot as she lets them party and do whatever in her home. Thus she gets the nickname Ma. But as it turns out, Ma is not very nice and all of these kids are in a lot of trouble. Jason Blum is on as producer here and he has a excellent track record with his Blumhouse production company in producing a lot of successful horrors and thrillers, with the "Insidious," "Paranormal Activity" and "The Purge" franchises, as well as a whole lot of other individual movies like "Get Out," "Split" and the recent reboot/sequel of "Halloween."  The actual director here is Tate Taylor, who is most well known for fellow Octavia Spencer movie "The Help." If "Ma" is received well, an opening close to the thriller "Don't Breathe" ($26.4 million), which has a similar premise, seems realistic.