Moving into May, the goal will obviously be to get back to where March was and continue to build in a positive way. And with it being the first of the four summer months, there are a handful of high profile releases that lend the month potential. Although of note, that I’ll get to in more depth in the first weekend section, is that there is a major absence. The highest profile release was moved off and nothing managed to replace. It does give some of the other releases a bit more breathing room, but this May is certainly not expected to be as big as June and July are poised to be. With those expectations in place, there are several highly anticipated releases, so let’s dive in and take a look!
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently schedule for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
May 3 - 5
It is tradition to kick of the summer movie season with the latest big Marvel Cinematic Universe release. And if not MCU specific, then at least something Marvel or comic book related. And when I talked about a high profile release that is missing, this is exactly what I’m referring to. The initial plan was to release “Deadpool and Wolverine” in this spot. Given the buzz behind that movie with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine teaming up with Deadpool, and the fact that the first two movies opened to $132.4 million and $125.5 million respectively, this was going to be a massive kick-off to the summer movie season. But then the strikes happened. And deadlines just weren’t going to be made without actors and writers for a large portion of last year. That pushed “Deadpool and Wolverine” to July and everything else from the MCU out of 2024 altogether. They’ll be back with four movies in 2025 (February, May, July, November), so MCU fans will have to be a tad bit patient.
Universal's "The Fall Guy"
In the meantime, the movie actually opening the summer off is The Fall Guy, the latest action movie from director David Leitch, this one starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, with Gosling playing a stuntman for a movie and Blunt playing the director of his latest movie. When trouble arises, a job as a fictional stuntman necessitates him being thrown into a real life action role when the star of the movie goes missing. David Leitch, after being the co-director of the first John Wick movie, has gone onto solo direct several action movies. He has done a couple of other franchise films, that being “Hobbs & Shaw” and the aforementioned “Deadpool 2,” but the best comparison here comes with his non-franchise efforts. As such, “Atomic Blonde” opened to $18.3 million in 2017, while “Bullet Train” opened to $30 million in 2022. Positive reviews for “The Fall Guy” as well as Ryan Gosling coming fresh off his role as Ken in “Barbie,” as well as the lack of competition, has provided a lot of buzz for this movie that may not have existed if “Deadpool and Wolverine” had made its initial release date. So there is breakout potential here. But Thursday and Friday numbers do suggest its opening will remain in the “Bullet Train” range, with potential to have decent staying power.
The other new wide release this weekend is the horror movie Tarot. It’s been a pretty rough year for horror movies in terms of the box office. Even last month with good reviews, “The First Omen” only opened to $8.3 million and “Abigail” only opened to $10.3 million, leaving “Night Swim” in January as the highest opening for a horror release in 2024 with $11.8 million. With little buzz and awful early reviews, “Tarot” isn’t likely to be the movie to break that that. Based on the 1992 novel “Horrorscope,” which was also the initial title of the movie, a group of friends rent out a mansion for one of their friend’s birthday and to pass the time decide to have one of their friends read their horoscopes with some tarot cards they found in the basement. Reviews for this movie were embargoed right up until the moment the movie was released. While that is not always a terrible sign, it appears to be the case this time as through 21 reviews, it’s at a whopping 5 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as of me writing this. An opening of $5-8 million was the expectation going into the weekend. It could fall even below that if/when the bad word of mouth starts to spread. Although the PG-13 rating could give it some sort of boost among the teenage crowd who probably don’t care what critics say.
As of me publishing this, it is currently May 4th. Also known as Star Wars Day. To celebrate this, Disney is throwing Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace back into theaters, honoring its 25th anniversary. Yep, you read that right. It’s been 25 years since “The Phantom Menace” was first released. That make you feel old? It’s interesting to note that Disney has not yet released a new movie this year. At least not under their main Disney banner. They might’ve released a movie or two under their Searchlight or 20th Century Studios banners. The first quarter of they year for them has been focused on a handful of different re-releases. Those don’t often jump out, so I haven’t noted all of them. But Star Wars on Star Wars Day in 2,700 theaters could make a slight impact. “The Phantom Menace” is not exactly everyone’s favorite Star Wars movie these days, but it should do enough to crack the top five. It might only need about $5 million to do so.
May 10 - 12
While “The Fall Guy” gets the honor of being the movie that officially opens the summer movie season, the first big franchise film of the month goes to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the now fourth movie in the recent reboot Planet of the Apes series. While “Rise,” “Dawn,” and “War” can be seen as a prequel trilogy to set up the events of the Apes taking over the planet, “Kingdom” looks to be the start of the new chapter in this saga. Generations appear to have passed since “War” and although we are still in a reboot timeline, it appears we have arrived to a parallel joint to where the very first 1968 movie began, with the Apes dominating and the humans being more animal-like. Given the very positive reaction to the recent trilogy, this new movie also has quite a bit of hype leading up to it, paired with a very successful advertising campaign. Slight hesitation might be given based on there being no Matt Reeves or Andy Serkis involved. New director Wes Ball doesn’t have quite as much notoriety. But if reviews come out great and word of mouth ends up strong, might this have breakout potential on the level of March’s “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong,” both of which opened in the $80 million?
20th Century Studios' "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"
For the sake of comparison, “Rise” opened to $54.8 million in 2011, “Dawn” opened to $72.3 million in 2014, and “War” opened to $56.3 million in 2017. So it is possible that there was a peak for the franchise with “Dawn.” It’s also been seven years since “War,” with a pandemic in between then. So if “Kingdom” ends up more in the $40-50 million range, a combination of those factors could be the reason. But again, the reaction to this might tell the story. And if it’s good, there’s two weeks before the next big competition. “War” opened right in between “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Dunkirk” in 2017, so giving movies more breathing room before the next big thing is beneficial.
Some non-religious folks might relate to the title of our next movie, which is Not Another Church Movie. On record, I am fine with religious movies myself, just making a commentary here. And perhaps my opening commentary is the point with this movie’s target audience because this is a spoof comedy. It also looks to be a spoof of Tyler Perry comedies as the poster has “Tyler Perry” crossed out and “Church” put on top of it. As such, our main character is named Taylor Pharry, played by Kevin Daniels and he is commanded by god (Jamie Foxx) to write a movie inspired by his dysfunctional family, but the Devil (Mickey Rourke) has his own plans in that regard. Spoof comedies are very hit and miss at the box office, usually leaning more on miss, but for a certain niche audience, this is an available option.
May 17 - 19
The third weekend of the month takes a break from the big male-targeted franchise blockbuster film before returning to that over Memorial Day weekend, but family audiences finally get a movie targeted to them with John Krasinski’s IF, which coincidentally enough is the second movie this year about imaginary friends, following March’s low-budget horror film “Imaginary.” In this case, the imaginary friends aren’t trying to kill anyone, but nevertheless the movie follows a girl named Bea who starts seeing everyone’s imaginary friends that they left behind when they grew up. Most know Krasinski from his long and successful run as Jim on “The Office,” but recently he’s taken up a directing career, having directed the first two “A Quiet Place” movies. And while he gave up the reigns for “A Quiet Place: Day One,” which comes out later this summer, to someone else, he’s turned his directing focus to this family comedy and he’s brought in about half of Hollywood with him. Ryan Reynolds plays the lead adult in the movie, with a long list of others joining in, mostly as voices to the various imaginary friends. Given that the latest major family-targeted movie was back in March, this is poised to do quite well, especially if the reviews end up being positive. 
Paramount's "IF"
As mentioned earlier, it’s not been a great year for horror films at the box office. But given the low production cost to make them, there’s always a bunch of them, anyways. The latest one on the docket is the return of “The Strangers” franchise with The Strangers: Chapter 1. The franchise began in 2008 with “The Strangers,” which was about a couple who went to a secluded summer home for some time away, only to be invaded by three psychopathic strangers wearing masks. This was followed up in 2018 with “Strangers: Prey at Night,” which had the same basic premise. And now “The Strangers: Chapter 1” is the first in a proposed prequel trilogy, all of which are supposed to come out this year. “Chapter 2” and “Chapter 3” don’t yet have solid dates, but all three were filmed consecutively, so it’s assumed that they will come out. “The Strangers” in 2008 opened to $20.9 million. A decade later in 2018, “Prey at Night” opened to half of that, with $10.4 million. And now six years later it remains to be seen how much of a fan base this franchise his, so expectations here probably aren’t super high. I wouldn’t expect “Chapter 1” to be the horror movie to break this year’s horror losing streak.
The final movie of the weekend brings us back to the musical biopic with the movie Back to Black, which is about pop singer Amy Winehouse, who had a pretty successful music career in the 2000s, with “Rehab” in 2006 being her highest charting hit. Unfortunately her challenges with alcoholism and substance abuse led to her way too early death at the age of 27 in 2011, when she died of alcohol poisoning. An exploration of her life and career via documentary has been done three times now, most notably with the 2015 movie “Amy,” but also in 2018 with “Amy Winehouse: Back to Black” and in 2021 with “Reclaiming Amy. And now we go from documentary to biopic with “Back to Black.” While not all of these musical biopics have performed well, enough of them have done very well to justify Hollywood continuing to find the next musician to explore, so this makes sense in many ways. This movie has had early screenings and the prognosis is not so hot with it currently being at 38 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after 63 reviews. Buzz doesn’t seem to be super high like it was with “Bob Marley: One Love” earlier this year, but this genre has surprised before, so you never know.
May 24 - 27
Memorial Day weekend should have the box office flying high and that should be led the return to the Mad Max universe with Furiosa. This is a franchise that began back in 1979 with Mel Gibson playing the lead of Max and George Miller directing. That first “Mad Max” had two decently successful sequels with “The Road Warrior” in 1981 and “Beyond Thunderdome” in 1985, but really launched into the stratosphere nine years ago with “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2015, one of the best reviewed action films ever. Despite it being a summer blockbuster with a very simple plot, it was so highly praised that it even crossed over into awards territory, earning 10 Oscar nominations, winning six of them. A follow-up from George Miller, who has directed all of these movies, has been highly anticipated. And we finally have it in form of a prequel following the character of Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron in “Fury Road” and Anya Taylor-Joy in this movie. Chris Hemsworth also joins the cast here, playing Dr. Dementus. “Fury Road” was a surprise hit initially, but it did open to $45.4 million before legging it out to $153.6 million domestically and $369.9 million worldwide. So those numbers are the benchmark for what “Furiosa” should be able to do. Buzz has been high, but the actual response to the movie will, of course, be key.
Warner Bros.' "Furiosa"
Theoretically speaking, “Furiosa” could have some competition at the top spot if all went well for this weekend’s other new major release, The Garfield Movie. At the very least this could provide some solid counter-programming to the male focused “Furiosa,” giving family audiences another option to go see. Although if “IF” from the previous weekend is well reviewed, that could provide direct competition for “Garfield” that could put a dent in its potential. Nevertheless, Garfield as a character has been around for a long time, first showing up 45 years ago in 1978. How much relevance he still has among today’s kids is a different story, but he’s at least consistently shown up over the years. And now he gets the Chris Pratt treatment in an attempt to draw kids out, which worked well for Mario last year. Perhaps not the best comparison, though, as Mario is a much more massive IP than Garfield and the movie doesn’t come from a major animation studio like Illumination. The movie is distributed by Sony, with animation done by DNEG Animation, which was founded in 2014 and recently worked on the Netflix film Nimona. The movie is directed by Mark Dindal, who directed “The Emperor’s New Groove” and “Chicken Run.” Exact comparisons financially might be tricky, but the last time Garfield was adapted to a movie was the live-action ones with Bill Murray, the first of which opened in 2004 to $21.7 million. According to the-numbers.com, that would be equal to $37.7 million today when adjusted for ticket price inflation, which seems like a fair target for this new one.
While “Furiosa” and “Garfield” are likely to dominate headlines over Memorial Day weekend, there is a third movie scheduled for wide release and that is the latest Angel Studios film Sight. This tells the story of Dr. Ming Wang, a Chinese immigrant who moves to America, attends Harvard and MIT, and becomes a world-renowned eye surgeon who helps develop innovative technology in the world of eye surgery. Angels Studios is most well known for their TV series “The Chosen,” based on the life of Christ, as well as last summer’s massive breakout hit “Sound of Freedom.” But they’ve also released a handful of other smaller films, the most recent being “Cabrini” back in March of this year, which opened to $7.2 million. In December they also opened “The Shift” to $4.3 million, so that is probably the realistic range that we’re looking at for “Sight.”
May 31 - June 2
The final weekend of May has only one day in may and two days in June. In this cases with these movie previews, I go by which month we started in as opposed to when we finished. It works out that we end the month with this weekend rather than beginning next month’s preview here as this is a cool down weekend without any new major releases. Whichever movie ends on top over Memorial Day Weekend will likely be spending a second weekend at time this weekend.
NEON's "Robot Dreams"
That said, there are a few smaller releases that could hit some form of wide release. Listed on the schedule at the moment here is the movie Ezra, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. The movie is about a father, played by Bobby Cannavale, who goes on a road trip with his autistic son Ezra, played by William A. Fitzgerald. The movie also co-stars Robert De Niro, Rose Byrne, Vera Farmiga, and Rainn Wilson. Bleeker Street is handling distribution and they tend to focus on smaller or medium releases, which is what I’m guessing this will be, although I don’t know for sure.
Also on the schedule from Crunchyroll is the anime movie Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle. As I mentioned frequently in these previews, anime has a building audience here domestically and there;s a lot of examples of these movies breaking out and surprising at the box office. Although outside the likes of “Demon Slayer” or “Dragon Ball,” it’s a lot more hit and miss. “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle” is a movie spin-off of the anime series “Haikyu!!,” which currently has four seasons and has ran from 2014 - 2020. Perhaps the easiest comparison in terms of box office April’s “Spy x Family Code: White,” which opened to $4.8 million. If “Ezra” is indeed a smaller release in just a couple hundred theaters, a release like that could be enough for “Haikyu!!” to be the highest grossing new release.
The final movie I’ll mentioned is the curios case of Robot Dreams. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this movie was nominated for best animated feature at the Oscars this year, which celebrated the movies released in 2023. We are not currently in 2023, but maybe this will be case where the Academy takes a second look at their eligibility rules. NEON is in charge here and they clearly gave it an Oscar qualifying run at some point at the end of 2023 to make it eligible. And then somehow screeners got out to enough people to get it in the lineup. But instead of actually releasing the movie in regular theaters in January or February, or at some point close to the Oscars, NEON has decided to wait all the way until May to put it out to regular audiences. And even then, this is scheduled as a limited release as opposed to a wide release. Anyways, the movie has had excellent reviews from those who somehow managed to see it. In a general sense, it’s about the misadventures of a dog and a robot in New York City in the 1980s and is an animated movie that comes without any dialogue. It seems like a movie worth seeing, if it is ever actually available to see. But maybe it should be up for next year’s Oscars that honor movies from 2024 rather than sneaking into the 2023 lineup. But anyways, that’s your Oscar rant/debate of the day. And the conclusion of this post.
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