We’re halfway through summer of 2022 and the box office has been absolutely on fire. Sure, the landscape of the whole world will be changed forever and some things will never go back to being the quite the same again, but numbers and attendance so far have been on par with pre-COVID levels of summer fury. Already we’ve had two movies in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Top Gun: Maverick” top $400 million domestically, with “Jurassic World: Dominion” inching its way towards that mark. Having three $400 million films would be impressive for any summer movie season, pandemic or not. Can we add more to that list? Again, summer is only halfway done and this July suggests that we’re not slowing down quite yet. How many massive event films can be stuffed into one summer? A lot, apparently. Let’s dive in and look at the options that July has in store.
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 subject to change.
July 1 – 4
![]() |
Universal's "Minions: The Rise of Gru" |
The honest question going into the weekend was the state of the economy. As mentioned, the theatrical business is doing great. But most of the movies doing well have been mostly targeted at adult males, who have been the quickest audience to rush back to theaters. Is it possible that the family audiences are the ones that are less likely to rush back because parents are paying tickets for the entire family instead of a ticket just for themselves? And could that be one of the reasons why “Lightyear” failed in June despite everything around it succeeding? While that is certainly still a potential factor, coming out of the weekend the answer seems to be that “Lightyear” problems are specific to that movie alone and not the entire target audience. “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” as of me typing this, has an estimated weekend 3-day opening of $108 million and a 4-day opening of nearly $130 million, making it the fourth $100 million opener of the summer. Potential questions of franchise fatigue or the fact that it’s been five years since the last entry in the franchise and seven years since the previous “Minions” movie also seemed to have not been as big of an issue as potentially thought.
Sneaking into a moderately wide release this weekend was Bleeker Street’s Mr. Malcolm’s List. Its theater count was 1,384 theaters and the weekend estimates have it down in seventh place with $851,853. The math on that is $616 per theater, which is not particularly good. Despite not getting a whole lot of attention, the story behind this is fascinating. In 2009, author Suzanne Allain self-published her novel, “Mr. Malcom’s List,” and adapted it into a screenplay. It was discovered by filmmaker Emma Holly James in 2015 and a short film was made first. Following the success of the short film, the green light was officially given for this feature-length film and the novel was published in 2020 by Berkley Press. The book and movie itself is a PG-rated period piece about a young woman in 1800s England helping a friend get revenge on a suitor who rejected her. Given the soft opening for the movie, it’s conceivable that this hits streaming or VOD of some sort before too terribly long.
July 8 – 10
![]() |
Marvel’s "Thor: Love and Thunder" |
Financially speaking, after the first two Thor movies opened to $65.7 million and $85.7 million, “Ragnarok” was given a huge boost to a $122.7 million opening following the insane hype from the trailers that led to very positive word of mouth, a surprise that many didn’t see coming. It finished with $315 million domestically and $850 million worldwide, all numbers that “Love and Thunder” should be able to comfortable hit. MCU fatigue and a slew of huge movies already this summer could theoretically hinder the movie a bit. But the idea that people are getting tired of the MCU has yet to reflect in the actual box office totals. “Love and Thunder” isn’t expected to hit the numbers of the previous two MCU films, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” both of which had event level hype behind them, but it’ll probably hit somewhere between the opening of “Ragnarok” and the $187.4 million opening of “Multiverse of Madness.” Box Office Pro has it projected between $140-160 million currently, which would put it slightly ahead of March’s “The Batman,” which opened with $134 million.
July 15 – 17
![]() |
Sony Pictures' "Where the Crawdads Sing" |
The next movie of the weekend is another animated film, although this one being a smaller animated film called Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. This is a cat and dog movie universe with a premise surrounding beagle named Hank who is being trained to be a samurai by a cat mentor named Jimbo so that he can beat the evil giant cat, Ika Chu, who is trying to destroy their village. If it feels like a low budget version of something like “Kung Fu Panda,” that might be accurate, although the initial idea was for it to be loosely based on Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” from 1974. It was even called “Blazing Samurai” at one point. This is an animated movie that has actually been stuck in Production Hell for quite some time, potentially as early as 2010. It’s passed through several hands and has had quite the evolution. Its initial release date was April 2017 by Open Roads and its long journey has landed it with Paramount Animation, stuck between two major animated movies on the July schedule where it will probably get mostly ignored. An opening around $10 million is the expectation.
The third movie of the weekend is Focus Features’ Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. Although scheduled as a wide release, this might be closer to a moderate release like “Mr. Malcom’s List.” Also like that movie, this is a historical drama following a British woman. The setting is a century later in the 1950s, so perhaps not a period piece for this one, but it does have a comedic undertone as a widowed cleaning lady embarks on a journey to Paris after becoming obsessed with a Dior dress. This is based on a novel from 1958 called “Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris” that had three subsequent sequels with Mrs. Harris going to New York, Parliament, and Moscow. In the U.K., it was published as “Flowers for Mrs. Harris.”
July 22 – 24
![]() |
Universal's "Nope" |
July 29 – 31
![]() |
Warner Bros.' "DC League of Super Pets" |
While there are a lot of pros here, there are also plenty of potential cons. While this summer has been very consistent in delivering big hits, even in pre-COVID times it was very common for some movies to fail because there are too many of them. While there will be four weeks in between “Minions” and “Super Pets,” it’s possible that “Minions” is simply the movie choice for family audiences this summer. Even though these characters are based off of comics, this is the beginning of a new attempted franchise. Especially in the realm of animation, animated sequels often play much better than original animated films. And we also have the fact that Warner Animation Group, which this is from, doesn’t have as successful of a history as the likes of Pixar, Disney, and Illumination. Not counting their COVID releases, their previous six animated movies have averaged an opening of $36.8 million. This should beat the average, but a $40-60 million opening might be a better expectation rather than matching “Minions” or “The Secret Life of Pets” in opening above $100 million.
Officially finishing off this post is another Focus Features release called Vengeance. Like Focus’s other release from this month, “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” this is likely a moderate release. That’s generally their strategy. Judging based off of the trailer, this is appears to be a blend of genres as a comedic western of sorts set in modern Texas where a podcaster and a journalist goes to Texas to investigate a murder of a girl that he once hooked up with. This is written and directed by B.J. Novak, who played Ryan Howard in “The Office,” in his feature-length directorial debut. He’s directed a handful of TV episodes, including five episodes of “The Office,” but this will be his first movie. Novak also stars as the lead role and is joined by the likes of Ashton Kutcher, Dove Cameron, Boyd Holbrook, and Issa Rae. As an alternative option to some of the bigger blockbuster affair, this could gain some traction if word of mouth ends up being solid, but it’s not likely to have a huge opening.
No comments:
Post a Comment