Not everything was a massive success. “Lightyear” and “DC League of Super Pets” failed to take flight, but “Elvis,” “The Black Phone” and “Nope” were among a decent crop of moderate successes to help stabilize things. Do we have at least one more success story waiting in the wings for August? Well, it’s a possibility. But the forecast seems to lean on the side of it being a quieter, cool down month, which is often par for the course when it comes to August. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at which movies will be vying for your time before fall season hits.
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 theatrical release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
August 5 – 7
The biggest attempt at a late
summer hit comes right in the first weekend with David Leitch’s Bullet
Train. This is a movie that is officially based on the 2010
Japanese novel “MariaBeetle,” translated in English to “Bullet Train,” although
it’s possible most seeing this won’t be aware they’re watching an adaptation.
The movie will probably play out like an original action film starring Brad
Pitt as an assassin fighting enemies while riding a Japanese bullet train. The
movie has been fairly buzzy in the weeks and months since the trailer has been
released and definitely has the potential of being a crowd-pleasing late summer
action flick. Director David Leitch was one half of the directing duo of the
original John Wick, who has gone on to direct the likes of “Atomic Blonde,” “Hobbs
& Shaw,” and “Deadpool 2,” while his partner in crime, Chad Stahelski, has continued
to direct the remaining John Wick movies.
Sony Pictures' "Bullet Train"
Financially this is tracking to open around $30 million, which is about where I would’ve expected. That’s actually right about in line with last August’s “Free Guy,” which opened to $28.4 million, on its way to a very leggy $121.6 million. An easy comparison that I would’ve pointed to is Leitch’s last non-franchise film, “Atomic Blonde,” which opened to $18.3 million, finishing with $51.6 million domestically in summer 2017. Later that same summer, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” opened to a similar $21.4 million, but was a bit more leggier, finishing with $75.5 million. If “Bullet Train” does hit the expected $30 million this week and has a similar multiplier as “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” it has a chance to sneak past the $100 million mark, especially with almost no competition from the rest of the month. A mixed reaction from critics is a bit concerning (54% on Rotten Tomatoes), but the audiences seem to be a lot more forgiving (81 percent), which was also the exact case with “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.”
There is a movie competing in wide release with “Bullet Train” this weekend, although the early weekend numbers suggest it isn’t a very competitive competition. That movie is Easter Sunday. The movie is a comedy starring comedian Jo Koy and is described as a movie that’s based around a family gathering to celebrate Easter Sunday, based on Jo Koy’s life experiences and stand-up comedy. Jo Koy is a Filipino American, so in theory that might be able to attract a bit more of an international audience, especially with the movie’s Filipino supporting cast, but early tracking on the weekend suggest awareness just isn’t that high and it might struggle to land a spot in the top 10 with an opening of $5 million or less.
August 12 – 14
The second weekend of August
is about where things start to slow down. Although in terms of quantity, there’s
a trio of movies throwing themselves in the market, hoping for a spot in the
top 10. Whether or not any of them have breakout potential is a different
story, but they’ll at least be options. The first of these is Mack
& Rita, which is a body swap drama of sorts. Except instead of
swapping bodies with someone else, a 30-year-old writer named Mack goes on a
trip to Palm Springs and magically wakes up as her 70-year-old self. In the
niche film community, this movie has a bit of a stacked cast. Outside four time
Oscar nominee (and winner for “Annie Hall”) Diane Keaton, the movie also stars
Taylour Paige from “Zola” and Simon Rex from “Red Rocket,” two highly praised
movies from last year. Elizabeth Lail from Netflix’s “You” also plays as the
younger version of Mack. So the movie has enough going for it on paper. The
battle will be getting noticed by general audiences. Reviews will also be
critical here.
Gravitas Ventures' "Mack & Rita"
Movie No. 2 of the weekend will go from the comedy side to the thriller side with Lionsgate’s Fall. Perhaps a bit of a basic and generic title, it’s fairly descriptive, too, as it’s about two friends who climb up the top of a 2,000 foot radio tower, but get stuck up there when the ladder down falls and leaves them stranded. The rather plot-detailed trailer depicts one of the friends having gone through heavy trauma when her partner fell to his death when they were on a climb. This climb up the radio tower has her friend finally convincing her to go climbing again. And of course this is what the result is. The challenge here is that both the director and the cast are fairly lesser known, comparatively, so it’s the premise itself that will be the draw. And again, awareness be the key there. The trailer does reference it being from the studio that did “47 Meters Down.” While connected by studio alone, that movie opened to $11 million in August 2017 and was leggy enough to warrant a sequel, which opened to $8 million. Matching either of those numbers might satisfy Lionsgate here, but that might not be a guarantee.
On the expansion from, perhaps the buzziest film of this weekend is the A24 horror Bodies Bodies Bodies. This is currently experiencing a limited run in theaters, opening on August 5. It also played at the South by Southwest Film Festival back in March, so it has buzz from there. A24 has it as a planned expansion on this weekend, although exactly how wide is a question. It might be more of a moderate wide release in 1,000 or so theaters. Or it could be like “Men,” A24’s latest horror from this May, which opened in 2,212 theaters, making $3.2 million. Either way, A24 is the brand here and they are a studio that has a history of releasing more unconventional indie horror films that hit well with critics and movie buffs, but confuse general horror audiences. With a 91 percent critics score, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” seems well poised to follow in that trend. The movie is actually more of a horror comedy, meant as a satire or a social commentary, surrounding a group of people in their 20s at a party at a remote family mansion that goes horribly wrong. Critics describe it as a smart and uncommonly well-written whodunit. What audiences say is to be determined, but at the very least this should attract those who are fans of the more unconventional, A24-style horror film.
And finally, the last movie hitting theaters is one of the most well-known and successful movies of all-time, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Fun fact, “E.T.” has accumulated a domestic total of $435.1 million, $359 million of that coming in its initial run, which ran from June 1982 to June 1983. Yes, it last a whole year in theaters, opening to just $11.9 million. While that was still solid for 1982 dollars, its story was how long it lasted at the time. In that initial run, it was No. 1 at the box office for 16 non-consecutive weeks and was in the top 5 for its first 27 weeks. It was released again in 1985 and 2002, which added to its $435.1 million total. Because of that, adjusted for ticket price inflation, it is the fourth-highest grossing movie of all-time, according to Box Office Mojo’s tracking, behind only “Gone with the Wind,” “Star Wars” and “The Sound of Music.” Unadjusted it’s still the 25th highest grossing movie at the domestic box office. At some point in 1983, it became the highest grossing movie of all time, surpassing “Star Wars.” It held that record for 14 years… when “Star Wars” took it back after they released the Special Edition in 1997. “Star Wars” held that record for another year or so until “Titanic” passed it. Anyways, the 2022 release of “E.T.” will be in IMAX theaters, something that might become a bit of a trend as “Jaws” gets an IMAX release around Labor Day.
August 19 – 21
After a somewhat busy second
weekend of August, at least in terms of the number of releases, the third
weekend adds two new titles. And if nothing hits, it shouldn’t be too terribly
hard for one of these two to actually hit No. 1. Unless “Bullet Train” does
just well enough to cruise at the top for the whole month, which is a realistic
possibility.
Universal's "Beast"
Anyways, of the two new titles, Beast seems most likely to perform the best. This is a lion-centric horror movie where a father played Idris Elba takes his family on a vacation to a game reserve, where they start getting hunted by a very angry, man-eating lion. Based on the trailers, I’m not sure if this is a demonically-possessed lion or if it’s even an extra-large male lion, but either way it’s not a very happy creature and Idris Elba and his family are in a lot of trouble. Outside the obvious comparison to the 10,000 killer shark movies out there, the 2019 film “Crawl” comes to mind. That was a movie about a man and his daughter getting hunted by alligators in their house during a hurricane. That opened to $12 million in July 2019. As referenced above, “47 Meters Down” opened to $11 million in August 2017. That’s about the predicted range for “Beast.” Based on the fact that the trailer has 30 million views and Universal seems to be pushing it pretty hard, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one over-perform, but $10-15 million seems to be at least where it’ll hit.
If there’s a competitor for the top spot, I definitely wouldn’t count out Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. Anime like this has actually had a growing audience of late and there’s been several instances where an anime film from a popular anime franchise comes almost out of nowhere to vastly over-perform at the domestic box office, not to mention many doing incredibly well overseas. And “Dragon Ball” is an anime franchise that’s been extremely popular dating way back to the 80s. The original manga was published in 1984 and has spawned several different anime series over the years, from “Dragon Ball” from 1986 to 1989, to “Dragon Ball Z” from 1989 to 1996, to “Dragon Ball GT” from 1996 to 1997, to “Dragon Ball Super” from 2015 to 2018. And maybe more that I’m missing. Anyways, after “Dragon Ball Super” ended, a sequel movie came out, “Dragon Ball Super: Broly,” which opened to $9.8 million domestically in January 2019 from just 1,247 theaters. It would make sense for “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” to match that and possibly exceed, which puts it right in the range of where “Beast” is expected to open. And like “Beast,” I wouldn’t be surprised if this over-performs.
August 26 – 28
The final weekend of August
almost always seems to be a black hole. That and Labor Day weekend have
historically been very bad that Hollywood usually avoids. That trend was broken
by “Shang-Chi” last year, which proved that this time of year can be lucrative,
if some studio at Hollywood decides to take a rise. This Labor Day will be
interesting as it sees the re-release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,”
specifically the extended “More Fun Stuff” version, but we’ll get to that next
month.
Sony Pictures' "The Invitation"
This final weekend of August does not have any sort of superhero movie getting released, but rather one final late-August horror film, this one titled The Invitation. If you watch the trailer for this movie, it’ll seem like you’ve watched the whole movie. In which case you’ll learn that it’s about a girl who gets invited by some mysterious family she didn’t know of to a fancy wedding in England. And, because this is a horror film, this goes from Jane Austin feel to some sort of supernatural presence or cult of sorts where this whole mysterious new family is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs - and potentially all vampires - and our main girl has to fight them all off. This does give off a vibe of a “Ready or Not” from August 2019, which was a late August surprise in terms of audience reception. If “The Invitation” ends up with similar reception, it wouldn’t be too hard to match the $8 million of “Ready or Not” or even exceed that. On the flip side, if it’s a poor received horror, it might end up dead on arrival. That said, at this point it’ll probably only take $10 million to win the weekend, so that’s a pretty low bar that could be met.
That’s it for this weekend.
Only one new wide release. Of note, the newest George Miller movie, “Three
Thousand Years of Longing,” a movie about a woman who falls in love with a Genie
she finds, starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, does get released in August.
The very final day – August 31, which is a Wednesday. But its official opening
weekend will be a part of Labor Day weekend, so I’ll cover it more there, in
next month’s preview.
