Movie Preview: May 2022

Summer officially begins on Tuesday, June 21 if you go by the summer solstice. If you go by when school gets out, you might say it begins in June. Or perhaps around Memorial Day. But in Hollywoodland, summer begins on the first weekend of May. And tradition has it that we start the summer off with a big Marvel movie. Why is it the way that it is? That’s a good question. It just simply is what it is. And this year is the first year that we’ve had a full, proper summer movie season since 2019 as 2020 summer movie season was canceled by COVID and last summer was only half a summer with studios still a bit hesitant with their major blockbuster releases. But the performances of movies such as “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “The Batman” have squelched any such concerns about movies still being able to perform at the box office, so we have full green lights ahead. And, as tradition mandates, we are indeed starting with a giant Marvel, so let’s dive right into this first month of Summer 2022. 

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

May 6 – 8

Marvel's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"

It will not be the least bit of breaking news if I inform you that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is coming out this weekend. What will be breaking news throughout the weekend is the updates on how high this movie’s box office will soar. For the sake of context, “Doctor Strange” opened in 2016 to $85 million and finished with $232 million total domestically. Not bad for a solo Marvel adventure, especially in the case of an origin story of a lesser known character. While reaction was positive, it may not have had the near universal praise that something like “Iron Man” or “Guardians of the Galaxy” received. Normally one might look to something like “Ant-Man and the Wasp” as a potential comparison to see how the Doctor Strange sequel would perform. And normally six years between movies is not the best sign of a positive performance. So how exactly then have we arrived to the point where “Multiverse of Madness” is poised for a potential $200 million opening weekend, getting close to surpassing the entire run of the first film in just three days?

The answer is that this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And unlike normal franchises, everything in the now 14-year run of the MCU is like one giant TV show. So this is not merely a sequel to a six-year-old movie. This is the event that Marvel has been building up to for the entire Phase IV… the multiverse. Which has been either teased or instigated in “WandaVision,” “Loki,” “What If?” and most recently “Spider-Man: Now Way Home.” And even though Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange hasn’t had his own movie since 2016, he’s been a major player in just about every Marvel event since, which includes “Infinity War,” “Endgame” and “No Way Home,” three of the highest grossing movies ever, Marvel or not. And this will officially be the seventh Marvel property, movie or series, that Cumberbatch has officially received credit.

So yeah, not just a “Doctor Strange” sequel here. And while the concept of the Multiverse is far from being a new one, excitement is currently through the roof for Marvel to officially jump into full-on Multiverse mode, especially after “No Way Home” made nearly $2 billion worldwide… without even having a release in China. Also attached onto that excitement is the fact that this is one of those MCU films that demands people to see it as soon as possible to avoid the many potential spoilers that will be hard to keep away. Initial tracking a few months back had it at around a $150 million opening, which would be a win in and of itself. But that tracking has only continued to increase in the weeks and months leading up to the release. Box Office Pro’s official weekend forecast now has it at a $210 million opening, which would break the May record set a decade ago by “The Avengers” of 207.4 million. Notably, “Infinity War” and “Endgame” opened at the end of April, which is why “The Avengers” still has the May record. Another mark to look out for outside seeing if it can break the $232 million domestic total of the first “Doctor Strange” in one weekend is the $260 million opening of “No Way Home.” I don’t imagine it will get that high, but it will be interesting to see how close it gets.   

May 13 – 15

Universal’s "Firestarter"

The story again in weekend two of May will be the second weekend of “Multiverse of Madness.” Marvel movies are always good at attracting a major portion of its audience in the first weekend, anyways. But the urgency to see this one as soon as possible to avoid spoilers puts it in the realm of “Endgame” and “No Way Home,” which means a sharp second weekend drop. “Endgame” fell 59 percent and “No Way Home” fell 67 percent. That means “Multiverse of Madness” is probably looking at a $70-80 million second weekend, depending on how high it ends up getting. Which could mean it could come close to or even match the $85 million opening weekend of the first film in its second weekend, which would be impressive.  

There are two movies scheduled to open up in the shadow of Doctor Strange, although neither provides any real competition. Major studios are smartly getting out of the way. But the movie that hopes to catch the most stragglers will be the horror film Firestarter. The marketing on this one has been fairly aggressive in the past few weeks and the official trailer on YouTube has even accumulated 18 million views, which means some people are at least curious. Also helping it is that it’s an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name from 1980, which was adapted into a movie in 1984 with Drew Barrymore, David Keith, and George C. Scott. So there’s definitely brand name recognition here. The story is about a girl who gains the power to set things on fire with her mind. The lead role played by Barrymore in 1984 will be played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong in this movie and will have Zac Effort as her co-star. While this is certainly not on the level of “IT” in terms of Stephen King adaptations, 2019’s “Pet Sematary” might be a realistic goal. That opened to $24.5 million. Maybe that’s slightly optimistic, but it’s still within reach if everything falls the movie’s way.

The second movie of the weekend will most likely have a more quieter release and that is the family-friendly film by Roadside Attractions called Family Camp. This is the first movie for The Skit Guys, a duo consisting of Tommy Woodard and Eddie James, who, according to their website, teach God’s Word using comedy and drama, providing Christian videos, church skits, plays, drama scripts, and other Christian church media. Their YouTube channel has 229,000 subscribers and their top video, published 10 years ago, has 2 million views, so they have at least some built in Christian audience who is aware of them. The movie is about a family who decides to go on vacation to a church camp called Camp Katokwah where they’re forced to camp together with a very opposite family and compete for the camp trophy. Compared to the 18 million of the “Firestarter” trailer, the “Family Camp” trailer has only 1.1 million views, so awareness isn’t super high in comparison. And it’ll probably be more of a moderate release targeted towards specific markets more willing to consume Christian movies. So it’s not looking at a huge debut, but will be an option for some markets.  

May 20 – 22

Focus Features' "Downton Abbey: A New Era"

The third weekend will provide Doctor Strange with its first bit of competition of the month and that is Downton Abbey: A New Era. This is also a franchise that probably doesn’t need a whole lot of introduction, but nevertheless it’s a British historical drama series set in the early 20th century that began airing in the U.K. in September 2010 and ran for six seasons, or six series rather, while airing in the U.S. on PBS. The TV series finished in December 2015, but the franchise got revived via movie in 2019. That movie, simply titled “Downton Abbey,” was a surprise success, opening to $31 million domestically, finishing with $97 million. It doubled that overseas, finishing with around $195 million total worldwide, proving that there is still an audience for this franchise, which “A New Era” hopes to build off of. If Doctor Strange were to open on the slightly lower end of expectations, it might be around $30-40 million in weekend three, which could at least make this a close race if “A New Era” matched the opening of the first movie. “A New Era” already opened in several international countries, including its home country of the U.K., with mostly positive reactions, so that’s a good sign.

May 27 – 30  

Paramount's "Top Gun: Maverick"

The final weekend of May has the month’s other major release and that is Top Gun: Maverick finally seeing the light of day. This is another movie delayed quite a bit by the pandemic as it was ready for release in June 2020 before COVID hit. Paramount bounced it around the calendar quite a bit before finally settling on this date two years later. The movie is the sequel to the very popular 1986 film “Top Gun,” which was the No. 1 movie that year at the domestic box office with $180.5 million. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, that would equate to about $446 million with 2022 ticket prices. How popular the movie has held up 36 years later remains to be seen, although Tom Cruise himself is at the top of his game with the immensely popular “Mission: Impossible” franchise that he’s led, which has seemingly gotten even more popular as its gone on, with Cruise famously doing all his own stunts in those movie, which have gotten more daring as they’ve gone on. So regardless of how popular “Top Gun” is with the current generation, Tom Cruise’s massive popularity combined with the nostalgia from the generation who grew up in the 80s should lead this to decent success at the least.

In terms of the movie’s box office potential, I was going to take the easy comparison and look at the “Mission: Impossible” franchise. In which case, “Rogue Nation” opened to $55.5 million in 2015 and “Fallout” opened to $61.2 million in 2018. So an opening around that $50 million would’ve made sense to me, but Box Office Pro’s long range forecast was extremely more optimistic than that, pegging it around $95-125 million for the 3-day weekend alone. So this could very well be our second $100 million debut of the month. Paramount has also been extremely confident with its release, debuting the movie at CinemaCon last month and then to critics in San Diego earlier this week, which has resulted in very high praise, many declaring it as a must see in theaters movie event. It’s also playing at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18 before its theatrical release on Memorial Day weekend. This confidently aggressive rollout could work out very well for Paramount if hype continues to be strong.

While the major fanfare regarding Memorial Day weekend will mainly be surrounding “Top Gun: Maverick,” The Bob’s Burgers Movie will be attempting to attract some sort of audience. Like “Maverick,” this was also initially scheduled for a summer 2020 release date before being bounced around and settling here. But unlike “Maverick,” the anticipation hasn’t really built over the course of the delays, if there was much anticipation to begin with. “Bob’s Burgers” is a decently popular animated adult sitcom, but I don’t know if it’s reached the notoriety of something like “The Simpsons” or “Family Guy.” Fan of the “Bob’s Burgers” TV show will likely show up, but I’m not sure if it will hit beyond that particular target audience. Box Office Pro has projected it at an opening of around $7-12 million for the 3-day weekend.