Enter June 2023. While I still don’t know if we’re at a point where we’ll hit pre-COVID box office numbers, if May was the primer for the summer, then June is where things will start firing on all cylinders in terms of big releases almost every single weekend. Will all of them land as expected? To be determined, of course. Oftentimes with too many releases, at least one or two movies will end up lost in the shuffle. But at least on paper this is looking like a very strong month, so let’s dive in and see what’s on the table for moviegoers!
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.
June 2 – 4
We’ll start the month off with a movie that’s not only one
of the most anticipated movies of the summer, but also of the entire year as a
whole. And that’s Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
This is, of course, the sequel to the 2018 movie “Spider-Man: Into the
Spider-Verse,” which introduced the world to Miles Morales, another young kid
who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and takes over the mantle of Spider-Man
after his world’s Peter Parker gets killed. It also introduced the world to
lots of other versions of Spider-People as issues with the multiverse sent a
lot of the Spider-People into Miles’ universe. After a very well received
origin to these characters and this universe, with a very unique animation
style, the world is now very ready to dive in and explore Miles’ next
adventures in the Spider-Verse, which promises more multiverse chaos and reviews that suggest fans of the first will be very pleased with the product
that the sequel has in store.
Sony Animation’s "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"
The box office story of “Into the Spider-Verse” is a very intriguing one. In an era flooded with comic book films, “Into the Spider-Verse” could be seen as a disappointment with an opening of just $35.4 million and a final total of $190.2 million domestically, if compared to other comic book films. However, in context of Sony Animation, that type of opening was par for the course, about in the range of the Hotel Transylvania movies. And the $190.2 million domestic total is actually their highest, besting the $169.7 million of “Hotel Transylvania 2.” So in that context, it did very well. But that said, “Across the Spider-Verse” is about to blow the roof off of their studio. Not only did “Into the Spider-Verse” hold well in theaters, as seen by those numbers, but it steamrolled to an Oscar win for best animated feature, beating Disney behemoths “Incredibles 2” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet." It’s also had a very long life post-theatrical release, spending the last five years gaining a very large following. And now that looks to translate to your traditional comic book opening, with projections pegging it for a debut north of $115 million. With audience reaction resembling critical reaction, both of which are in the 90 percent range on Rotten Tomatoes, this could be looking at a very healthy run throughout the summer.
“Across the Spider-Verse” isn’t the only wide release of this weekend. Looking to counterprogram some of the blockbuster affair is the Stephen King horror film The Boogeyman, which is directed by Rob Savage from a screenplay by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman, and is an adaptation of the 1973 short story of the same name by Stephen King. This is a movie distributed by 20th Century Studios, which of course means it’s technically a Disney property. Reportedly, Disney was initially planning to send it straight to Hulu, but opted for a theatrical release upon positive test screenings. As such, any sort of theatrical revenue will simply be a bonus, especially considering it’s moderately budgeted at $35 million. The premise involves a young family suffering from the recent death of the mother. The father, a therapist, then has a patient show up to the house that brings a terrifying entity that preys on the family’s grief and suffering. While obviously not a Stephen King adaptation on the level of the “IT” films, this is nevertheless tracking for an opening around $10-15 million, which would put it in the range of other recent Stephen King films, such as “Doctor Sleep,” “Pet Sematary,” and “The Dark Tower,” all of which finished between $30-60 million total domestically.
June 9 – 11
The second weekend of June is one that has only a single
wide release, that movie being in a tad bit of an awkward spot, sandwiched
between two highly anticipated comic book films. That movie is Transformers:
Rise of the Beasts. Quality aside, the Transformers movies used to
be huge box office draws. Adapted from the toys and the popular TV show, the
six more recent Transformers movies beginning in 2007 have totaled nearly $5
billion at the worldwide box office, the third and fourth movies both earning
over $1.1 billion worldwide. But now bringing quality back to the table,
eventually making movies that audiences don’t enjoy will come back to haunt
you. The fifth movie only made $602 million while the spin-off “Bumblebee” did only
$465 million. Still solid numbers, but far less than the $1.1 billion the
previous movies made. Franchise fatigue definitely kicked in. Five years after
the release of “Bumblebee,” do audiences care? Even though “Bumblebee” was more
well received, and essentially a reboot and the first not directed by Michael
Bay, there still is a lot of good will that needs to be built before audiences
return in numbers like they used to.
Paramount's "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts"
To that point, early tracking from Box Office Pro has the movie opening in the $37-46 million range, finishing with $75-103 million domestically. Of course domestic numbers are slightly less relevant with a franchise that has been historically huge worldwide, but still, movies 2 through 4 opened between $97-108 million, before movie 5 fell to $44.6 million and movie 6 (“Bumblebee”) opened to just $21.7 movie. Even if movie 7 increases and sees numbers closer to movie 5, finishing with less than what movies 2-4 opened to might not be what Paramount was hoping for. In the movie’s defense, though, it’s also not a Michael Bay directed film. Even though the review embargo has not dropped as of me typing this post, Twitter buzz seems positive. If it ends up being a liked movie, that would obviously help. But it still faces the challenge of releasing directly in between “Across the Spider-Verse” and “The Flash.”
June 16 – 18
After strong reviews out of “Across the Spider-Verse”
indicate that comic book fans will be very pleased with that movie’s final
product, just two weeks later another big comic book movie gets released that
early buzz suggests comic book fans will be very pleased with. That, of course,
is The
Flash. This is a movie from DC that has been a long time in the
works with a very troubled production that saw a carousel of directors attached
and many delays. The director they finally landed on is Andy Muschietti, which,
speaking of Stephen King earlier in this post, is the director of both “IT”
films. Despite what seemed like a disaster in the works, the movie could wind
up sticking the landing. James Gunn kicked off the positive buzz when, after
taking over for DC a few months back, in talking about the upcoming DC slate
mentioned that he had seen “The Flash” and considered it one of the best DC
movies ever made. Building off that, Warner Bros. screened the full movie to
attendees of CinemaCon this April, which certainly had Twitter buzzing as many
wound up agreeing with James Gunn’s claims of it being a great film. How that
translates to regular audiences and critics is yet to be seen, but it at least
shows the potential of it being a well-liked film that will also, according to
James Gunn, be an important turn in the DC Universe as it will reset the DC
timeline with its Flashpoint premise.
Warner Bros.' "The Flash"
In regards to timing, while it could’ve initially come out several years ago if things had gone right, it winds up getting released after the conclusion of The CW’s TV series “The Flash,” which began in 2014 and ran for nine seasons and 184 episodes, before concluding on May 24 of last month. With fan reaction being quite negative towards the series’ finale, that could stand to benefit this new movie. The movie also introduces Sasha Calle as this universe’s Supergirl, which also comes after CW’s “Supergirl” series concluded its six seasons at the end of 2021. While Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist are still popular with fans, this will nevertheless stand as more of a passing of the torch, per se, rather than running at the same time. Not to be ignored, though, is Ezra Miller’s off-camera legal issues, which may turn many off of this film, regardless of quality. That puts Warner Bros. in an awkward positive that they’re so far choosing to ignore, perhaps counteracting with putting Michael Keaton’s Batman front and center in the marketing. And any film with Batman front and center usually does well, especially with the return of Michael Keaton. All this combines for a multitude of variables and moving parts that could send this in a variety of directions. But another $100 million opener is very much in the cards.
Opening alongside “The Flash” is not simply just a movie with hopes of providing counterprogramming, but rather aims to be an event of its own and that is Pixar’s Elemental. Pixar, of course, has a very strong track record with providing quality films to family audiences and with advertising in “Elemental” that has some being reminded of “Inside Out,” there’s definitely strong potential, especially if reviews wind up positive. Combine “Inside Out” with “Avatar,” the popular animated series, not the blue people movies, and you’ve got “Elemental”? There are fire, water, earth, and air people, or anthropomorphic element people that all live in their separate communities, when it appears that, in a Romeo and Juliet sort of way, a man from the water city begins a relationship with a girl from the fire city in a Pixar film that might wind up being a romantic comedy? The real issue, in terms of box office, might come more with Mother Disney rather than Pixar themselves. After COVID hit, Disney sent the next three Pixar films straight to Disney+, even when at least two of those could’ve been theatrical releases. And now instead of being almost a guaranteed box office draw, some might be conditioned that they will be able to wait for Disney+ for the new Pixar films, even if the reviews come out positive.
There is a third movie scheduled for wide release this weekend and that is the horror comedy The Blackening. While horror comedy is certainly accurate, perhaps an even better label is horror parody. With the tagline, “We can’t all die first,” this is a movie about a group of black friends who go to a cabin in the woods and get hunted by a mysterious villain who captures one of their friends and forces the others to play a violent game in order to get her back. This is, of course, poking fun at a lot of different horror tropes while examining racism in America. The movie actually premiered last year at the Toronto International film Festival and early word doesn’t seem too terribly positive. However, comedy is certainly subjective and there’s potentially a world that can exist where this movie connects well with its target audience and becomes a sleeper hit. Director Tim Story has plenty of experience there with movies like “Ride Along” and “Think Like a Man” that did quite well despite less than stellar reviews.
June 23 – 25
After three weeks in June full of potential summer
blockbusters, the fourth weekend of June might be a cooling off week before we
get to another blockbuster in the final weekend, but there’s still a couple of
wide releases to talk about, the first being the Jennifer Lawrence led comedy No
Hard Feelings. After a blistering hot start to her career that saw
four Oscar nominations between 2010 and 2015, including a win for “Silver
Linings Playbook,” as well as a major blockbuster lead role as Katniss in “The
Hunger Games,” Jennifer Lawrence has seemingly taken it easy recently. Which,
all power to her. And perhaps now she’s having a bit of fun with this more edgy
comedy that sees her star as a woman who takes a job listing from two parents
looking for someone to help bring their introverted, socially awkward
19-year-old son out of his shell before he heads off to college, which
seemingly leads to quite the chaotic adventure with Lawrence, now in her early
30s, and this older teenage boy. This comes from director Gene Stupnitsky,
director of “Good Boys,” which was another edgy comedy that became a sleeper
late summer 2019, opening to $21.4 million and finishing with $83.1 million
domestically, numbers that early tracking suggests “No Hard Feelings” could
potentially hit.
Sony Pictures' "No Hard Feelings"
From the director Nick Cassavetes, director of “The Notebook” and “The Other Woman” comes the other wide release of the weekend, God is a Bullet, a dark and gritty crime thriller that looks to be the exact opposite type of movie as those other two. In fact, this is Cassavetes’ first directed film since “The Other Woman,” which was released in 2014. The movie is based on the novel of the same name from Boston Teran, and according the trailer, is inspired by true events, which could mean a whole host of things. Anyways, the film follows a detective played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who finds his ex-wife murdered and his daughter kidnapped by an insidious cult and decides to take matters in his own hands to save his daughter, and is helped by the cult’s only female escapee. Co-starring in the film is Jamie Foxx, January Jones, and Maika Monroe. The distribution rights to the film were acquired in April of this year by Wayward Entertainment and will be their first theatrically released film. A digital rollout will also reportedly begin in early July, so all of that means this is probably not expected to be a huge release.
No other new wide releases, but a couple of quick notable expansions to mention. The movie Past Lives was released in Sundance this year to strong reviews and has since been picked up by A24, who released it in limited release on June 2 and has remained quite buzzy in said limited release. The movie currently holds a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s the debut film for director Celine Song and tells the story of two childhood friends who were torn apart when and reunited 20 years later for a week.
The other expansion scheduled for this week is Asteroid City, the latest from acclaimed director Wes Anderson, which is currently scheduled for a limited release on June 16 before its scheduled before its wide expansion. Wes Anderson definitely has a unique style that has helped him grow a devoted group of niche followers with movies like “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” and “The Royal Tenenbaums,” as well as the animated movies “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Isle of Dogs.” This movie is set in 1955 around a Junior Stargazing event in a desert city, with romance, coming-of-age drama, and perhaps world-changing events disrupting the convention. And whatever else Wes Anderson decided to throw in there, which could be quite a bit. As is typical for his films, the movie is an acting party with a long list of stars, many of whom are probably cameos. But the top-billed names include Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, and Tilda Swinton.
June 30 – July 2
The final weekend of June only has one day in June and two
days in July. And actually, with July 4th the following Tuesday, this could end
up as more of a 5-day opening weekend sort of thing. But anyways, after two
superhero films with a Transformers movie sandwiched in between, we finish the
month with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Despite the
extremely poor reputation of the fourth film in the franchise, 2008’s “Kingdom
of the Crystal Skull,” fans have nevertheless been highly anticipating this
fifth and what could be the final film in the franchise, or at least the final
film for Harrison Ford as the titular star of Indiana Jones. This adventure,
split between two timelines in 1944 and 1969, centers around a mysterious dial
known as the Antikythera that they’re trying to keep away from the Nazis, while
Indy has a whole host of personal matters that are making life difficult for
him on top of all that. While there are some returning characters, like John
Rhys-Davies as Sallah, there’s also a whole host of new actors joining, such as
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelson, Boyd Holbrook, and Antonio Banderas. The
obvious missing party is director Steven Spielberg, his first time not
directing an Indiana Jones film. Taking the torch from Spielberg is James
Mangold, director of “Logan.”
Walt Disney's "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"
Given the high anticipation of the return of a beloved franchise, this is a movie that has the potential to play out like last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” using 80s nostalgia to boost a 2020s sequel, if reaction is positive. Unfortunately, though, Disney made the bold choice to release the movie at Cannes Film Festival and it was not received very well as it’s currently hovering around the 50 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead of boosting the momentum of the film leading up to the release, that type of mixed reaction might be the type of thing that stalls the movie instead, especially since many fans probably still feel a bit betrayed with “Crystal Skull.” If word on the street is that “Dial of Destiny” is not much better, that might cause people to stay home. That said, despite all the hate the “Crystal Skull” received, it still managed a $100.1 million opening weekend and a domestic total of $317.1 million. Adjust those numbers for ticket price inflation and the-numbers.com says that’s a 2023 equivalent of a $145.7 million opening and a $461.3 million domestic total. Not bad for a movie everyone seems to hate. Might the goodwill of the original trilogy still cause fans to show up for “Dial of Destiny,” even if they’re aware this could be another disappointment?
The other movie opening this weekend, and the final movie of
the month discussed in this post, is the latest from DreamWorks Animation, Ruby
Gillman, Teenage Kraken. One could potentially say that this is a
fairly well timed movie, considering the recent release of Disney’s “The Little
Mermaid,” as this is a movie that takes that mermaid premise and flips it on
its heels. The mermaids are still the creatures people in this movie’s universe
loves, with the kraken seen as the evil counterparts. However, this universe’s “truth”
is the exact opposite as the mermaids are actually evil and the kraken are
good. Ruby Gillman is a teenage girl who really wants to just live a normal
teenage life, but discovers she is actually a kraken, and part of a royal line
of kraken destined to help protect the seas from the evil mermaids, one of whom
is the new popular girl in the school. So Ruby has some choices to make to embrace
who she is and help protect the ones she loves. DreamWorks has been trying to
push this one pretty hard, but the ultimate big obstacle here is the presence
of “Across the Spider-Verse” and “Elemental” all fighting for the family
audiences this month with “Ruby Gillman.” And the former two might be the ones
more poised to steal the attention, which means “Ruby Gillman” will likely need
positive reviews and good word of mouth to be recognized in a competitive
summer market.
