Although if you look at it from a financial prospective, it would almost look like summer has already begun at the box office as “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has completely dominated the box office, crushing all sorts of animated movie records on its way to already earning over $1 billion worldwide and over $500 million domestically in just the month of April, making for the highest grossing April on record outside the two Aprils that had “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” on the calendar, starting the summer season a week early. So these blockbusters on schedule for this summer will hopefully look to continue the momentum of “Mario” and add to the continued success and theatrical recovery of the box office.
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are subject to change.
May 5 – 7
As previously mentioned, it is tradition to
start the summer movie season off with the next big Marvel movie. This has been
the case with very few exceptions for as long as the Marvel Cinematic Universe
has existed, dating back, of course, to May 2008 with “Iron Man.” This year it’s
Guardians
of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that kicks the summer off. It’s been six years
since “Guardians 2” kicked off summer season of 2017 with $146.5 million.
However, with how the MCU is structured, the characters have remained relevant
in this six years between films, showing up in several places, specifically having
major roles in “Infinity War” and “Endgame.” In their first adventure together
following “Endgame,” the plot centers around Rocket Raccoon and his past
history with the villainous presence of The High Evolutionary, as played by
Chuckwudi Iwuji. The rest of the Guardians are trying to save Rocket and get
caught up in the web of The High Evolutionary’s current schemes.
Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"
While the characters in the film have the ability to continue to show up in future Marvel projects, including whatever “Avengers” film is on the docket, James Gunn will not be returning for a “Guardians 4” as he is off to lead the future of DC. The likelihood of Marvel attempting a fourth movie with a different director seems slim, so this is essentially written as the swan song or final ride for this sub-franchise in the MCU, which should help boost interest.
Financially speaking, prior to the current estimates from the weekend being released, I would’ve looked at the previous Marvel films to gauge where “Guardians 3” might open to. Outside looking at that $146.5 million opening of “Guardians 2,” the previous four films opened with the following: “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” with $187.4 million, “Thor: Love and Thunder” with $144.2 million, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” with $181.3 million, and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with $106.1 million. So despite grumblings from fans that have made Marvel seem more vulnerable than in the past, people have still showed up and thus I would’ve said that a $150 million opening would be in the cards. However, as I type this on Saturday, Thursday night preview and Friday opening day totals have been more in line with “Quantumania.” So maybe this is a tad bit lower than expected, but it still continues the trend of $100 million openings for the MCU, which if you add in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” is at five in a row, looking to be six with “Guardians 3.”
While most audiences will be heading out to see “Guardians 3,” there is one other option in regards to new releases. Sony’s Love Again has hit about 2,700 theaters, although it opened in fourth place on Friday, behind the fifth weekend of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the third weekend of “Evil Dead Rise.” With a debut at or below $3 million, “Love Again” is a rom-com about a woman who sends texts to the phone number of her fiancé who has passed away to help ease the pain and winds up forming a connection with the man who the number has been reassigned to. The movie stars Priyanka Chopra Jones and Sam Heughan in the lead roles, as well as Céline Dion as a fictional version of herself, as the man receiving the texts is a journalist who goes to Céline for advice after getting the assignment of writing a feature about her. Céline has written five new songs for the film while also having six of her current songs woven in as well. The movie is based on the 2016 German film “SMS für Dich,” which itself is based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Sofie Cramer.
May 12 – 14
The second weekend of May will mostly
dominated by the second weekend of “Guardians 3.” Before getting to the long
list of smaller releases, allow me to state real quick that it’ll be curious to
watch how much “Guardians 3” will fall. While Marvel is on a good stream of
high openings, they’re also on a streak of extra sharp falls in their second
weekends, most falling 60 percent or more. After opening to $106.1 million, “Quantumania”
earlier this year fell nearly 70 percent in its second weekend with just $31.9
million. It’s worth pointing out, though, that “Guardians 3” currently has an
audience score of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with an A on CinemaScore. That
means word of mouth should be pretty strong with how opening weekend audiences
have responded. Either way it’ll win the box office in its second weekend, but
will positive word of mouth help it hold better than the other recent Marvel
films?
Focus Features' "Book Club: The Next Chapter"
Opening in a very distant second place will be Book Club: The Next Chapter. This movie is a sequel to the 2018 movie “Book Club,” which starred Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen as a group of older friends whose lives changed after reading “50 Shades of Grey.” You may or may not have heard or seen that movie, but it was actually quite the sleeper hit back in summer of 2018, providing counter-programming to “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Deadpool 2” that month. It only opened to $13.6 million, but it held remarkably well, finishing with over five times it’s opening weekend at $68.6 million domestically and crossing $100 million worldwide. So now all the ladies are back and they’re off on a European vacation together as one of the ladies is now engaged. Whether or not the movie is able to repeat the feat of its predecessor is yet to be seen, but it is at least looking to open in about the same range. Similarly themed and cast, while sharing Jane Fonda as a cast member, “80 for Brady” also opened to $12.7 million earlier this year.
Outside “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” there are four other smaller films scheduled for a wide release that are looking to fight for some sort of positioning in the top 10 in whatever various levels of wide release they’re actually being put in. I’m not sure exactly how they’re going to stack together, but the first one I’m bringing up is Knights of the Zodiac, titled in Japan as “Saint Seiya: The Beginning,” as this is a live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga series “Saint Seiya,” which was released between 1986 and 1990 and had 28 volumes. Released right along with that was a 114-episode anime TV series released in Japan from 1986 to 1989, with a handful of other smaller movies and shows since then. And while anime has grown in popularity recently, live-action adaptations of anime have mostly not been received well and this one appears to be no different. It got released in a handful of countries, Japan included, back in April and so far has a 4.7 score out of 10 on IMDb, which is not a good early sign.
Next up is the directorial debut of actor Charlie Day with Fool’s Paradise. Charlie Day is currently having success as a part of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as the voice of Luigi, but he’s been around the block for a while, perhaps most known for playing the character Charlie Kelly in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” His first step into the directorial chair has been in the works since 2018 and stars himself in the lead role as a mute man just released from a mental health facility who gets found by a publicist due to him looking just like a method actor who won’t leave his trailer. With the help of a powerful producer, this publicist helps this mute man become quite the big celebrity, which leads him on quite the journey. Starring with Day is a huge party of actors that includes Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, Jason Bateman, Common, the late Ray Liotta, and John Malkovich.
The last two I was a bit unsure of due to the distributor, so I’m not sure how big of a release they are, but I can at least verify that the Ben Affleck sci-fi crime thriller Hypnotic at least exists. It was released at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March and is directed by Robert Rodriguez, with Affleck as the lead star. Based on the trailer, it looks like potentially quite the trip, initially seeming straightforward as a crime thriller with Affleck playing a police detective whose life has fallen apart following the abduction of his 7-year-old daughter. But then a mysterious man shows up and things start to get weirder and trippier. In an interview with Collider back in 2021, Rodriguez said that he started writing the movie way back in 2002 and said it’s like a Hitchcock thriller on steroids. The hang-up I speak of is that it’s distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, a distribution company I’ve never heard of. On their website, they claim to have been around since 2012, but looking through their filmography it appears that they’ve mostly released smaller European films. This is their first U.S. theatrical released, so exactly what they’re planning and how many theaters is something I guess we’ll find out.
Last and possibly least on the weekend is the smaller animated film Rally Road Racers. This is more of a smaller, independently made animated film rather than something coming from a big studio and is released by Viva Kids and helped produced by a few other production companies that are hard to get information on. The trailer, which was only released a few weeks ago, has just 10,000 views and looks like not a very high quality film. But nevertheless they did convince both J.K. Simmons and John Cleese to voice roles. And if it happens to be playing around you and your kids want to get their Fast and Furious kick in, without actually seeing the next movie we’ll be talking about this is a story about a slow moving mammal who wages a bet to be part of a big four-day race to save his grandmother’s house. It’s kind of a “Tortoise and the Hare” meets “Fast and Furious” sort of thing, but for really young kids.
May 19 – 21
After a weekend of a bunch of smaller films
that is basically Hollywood giving Marvel some space, Hollywood is back in the
third weekend with their next big blockbuster, Fast X. And yeah,
this is the only film currently scheduled for a wide release, so Vin Diesel and
company will have theaters all to themselves. To the uninitiated it might seem
a bit mind-blowing as to how a simple street racing movie has created a
franchise that has now endured over 20 years and 11 movies – 10 in the main
saga and one spin-off. But yeah, this franchise has been on quite the journey,
adding just about every Hollywood actor along the way and even making it to
space in the most recent one. But, believe it or not, they might be finally
coming to end? At least that’s the tagline here. “The end of the road begins.”
The plan for a while has been to make the 10th and 11th film a two-part finale,
with the 11th film planned for a 2025 release. Although it seems a bit doubtful
that they’ll let this franchise completely go. It seems likely that they’ll at
least keep it going with various spin-offs, but we’ll see.
Universal's "Fast X"
The main conflict involves the addition of Jason Momoa joining the fun as the villain of the film, playing the character of Dante Reyes, the son of drug lord Hernan Reyes from “Fast Five.” Dante is seeking revenge against Dom and crew for the death of his father Hernan. And by the looks of it, Jason Momoa seems like he’s relishing his opportunity to be the villain in this movie.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle of the movie is the budget, which is reported to be a massive $340 million, making this one of the most expensive movies ever made. Not helping is the diminishing returns of the franchise. “F9” opened to $70 million, making $173 million domestically, which is closer to the spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw” than “The Fate of the Furious,” which opened to $98 million and made $225 million domestically. But the domestic numbers are almost irrelevant as this is a worldwide franchise. The seventh and eighth films were both $1 billion films, while “Hobbs & Shaw” and “F9” both made over $700 million. Given the budget, Universal is probably hoping “Fast X” goes back to being a $1 billion film, in which case they can probably blame the pandemic for “F9” not doing quite as well. But either way, it’s probably fine. They just got a tad bit carried away with the money thing.
May 26 – 29
The fourth and final weekend of May is the
four-day Memorial Day weekend. And although this is another busy weekend with
five films, there’s really only one main event and that’s Disney’s The
Little Mermaid. Yep, laugh and roll your eyes all you want, but
Disney seems to be basing their decisions with these constant live-action
remakes on their bank account and box office receipts rather than social media
reaction. And despite the whining and constant complaining, people keep showing
up to see these movies, so Disney keeps to be putting them out. And although
not all of them have been massive hits, and several recent ones have gone
straight to Disney+, the three that have scored huge are the three Disney
Renaissance films, “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” So it
makes perfect sense for “The Little Mermaid” to be up next, again from a
financial vantage point. And although they’ve maybe put less effort into a few
of the Disney+ movies, it seems like they’ve realized that “The Little Mermaid”
is their big money maker, so they went all out in at least attempting to make
this a big, popular summer blockbuster.
Disney's "The Little Mermaid"
No need to describe what “The Little Mermaid” is, especially since Disney doesn’t really stray from the idea of doing mostly carbon-copy remakes, but this is directed by Rob Marshall, director of the best picture winning musical “Chicago,” as well as two other big Disney musicals in “Into the Woods” and “Mary Poppins Returns.” Lin-Manuel Miranda is back with Disney getting his paycheck for making music for them. Singer and actress Halle Bailey, perhaps most known for being one half of the musical duo Chloe x Halle, is Ariel. Highlights from the rest of the cast include Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Jonah Hauer King as Prince Eric, and Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, and Awkwafina voicing some of the animal friends. Perhaps the best financial comparison is “Aladdin” also opening on Memorial Day weekend in 2019. It opened to $91.5 million over the 3-day and $116.8 million over the 4-day. It went onto make $355.6 million domestically and $1.046 billion worldwide.
As far as the other four releases from this weekend, Kandahar is another Gerard Butler action film. This time Butler plays an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in Afghanistan and has to fight his way out with his Afghan translator when his identity is leaked. The easy box office comparison here is “Plane” from this year, another Gerard Butler action film that opened to $10.3 million.
About My Father is a comedy that stars Sebastian Maniscalco as himself in a movie loosely based on his actual life, where he tells his his immigrant father Salvo, played by Robert De Niro, that he plans on proposing to his girlfriend. After which, Salvo insists on joining them for a weekend with her parents. The movie is directed by Laura Terruso from a screenplay written by Maniscalco and Austen Earl.
Also starring in a movie based on his own life experiences is Bert Kreischer playing himself in The Machine. The premise is Kreischer and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago while drunk on a college semester abroad in Russia. The story revolves around how he inadvertently helped the Russian mafia rob a train while on this college trip, which earned him the nickname “The Machine.” Kreischer is a stand-up comedian and podcaster and this movie is based on a 2016 comedy routine that he told about this story. Starring along with Kreischer is Mark Hamill playing his father.
And finally, A24 will be releasing the Sundance film You Hurt My Feelings. This is written and directed by Nicole Holofcener and is comedy-drama starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an author named Beth who overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest novel when he told her that he thought it was great. A couple of pull quote the trailer uses from Sundance reviews is that the movie is “a hilarious look at the little white lies we tell our loved ones” (Consequence Film) and “a story about how love means always having to say you’re sorry” (Slate).
So yeah, as mentioned, “The Little Mermaid” is
the biggest attraction of the weekend, but these other four films will at least
provide options to those who maybe are less enthused about seeing another
carbon copy remake of a Disney animated film.
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