Movie Preview: August 2024

 

After a rocky start to the summer in May where some people made it seem like the world was ending and cinema was dead, a strong June was followed by a very strong July that proved yet again, with a series of hits, that people will in fact still go to the movies if it’s a movie they are excited for. And they were very excited for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which shattered records for an R-rated opening, making $211.4 million, beating the previous record by nearly $80 million. It wound up being the sixth highest opening ever at the domestic box office for any movie and the fourth highest opening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But “Deadpool & Wolverine” wasn’t the only success story. Both “Despicable Me 4” and “Twisters” also lived up to and exceeded expectations, leading the overall July box office to cross $1.1 billion, the first month of the year to hit the $1 billion mark.

Now even in the best of years, the August box office is always the cool down month of the summer. Every once in a while there’s a “Guardians of the Galaxy” or a “Suicide Squad” that gets released and dominates, but for the most part studios save their biggest blockbusters for the other three summer months, as August sees the summer wind down and school starting up again, leading to the slower fall movie season before the holiday season kicks things back into gear. So expectations aren’t exactly super high, so no worries if there’s not a massive hit. Looking at a glance, there are a few titles that could hit, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything like what we just saw in the last two months. Thus that leaves “Deadpool & Wolverine” to dominate the month as it only had six days in theaters during July. And thus we will be playing the game here of what movie can manage to dethrone “Deadpool & Wolverine” as we dive deeper into the August releases, so let’s get started.

This is where I usually say that release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. And while that’s still true, I had to cross reference things with a few other sites to attempt to have the most accurate information. Box Office Pro has been very inconsistent and sparse with their long range forecasts, while the-numbers.com has had a rough time loading the last few days and weeks. So I had to double check some things with my old friend Box Office Mojo. Metacritic also provided some useful help. Generally speaking, I have a good idea of the major wide releases, but it’s some of the small to medium sized films that provided a bit more ambiguity as to how big their releases are going to be. So the general idea is to list the movies that are currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada, which is always subject to change, but I’ll note the ones that I’m uncertain about as to whether it’s a wide release or a more limited on.

August 2 – 4

Warner Bros.' "Trap"

Before we jump into the new wide releases for this weekend, I did a bit of number crunching with “Deadpool & Wolverine” to try to have an idea of how well it will do each week this month, to see what the bar is for a movie to dethrone it. Due to it being the first R-rated movie to open above $200 million, it’s pioneering its own path, making specifics hard to predict, but I did compare it to a handful of movies that opened in a similar range to see what the possible paths could be. For this weekend, the worst case scenario would be a second weekend around $70 million, with the best case scenario being around $115 million. The correct answer is probably somewhere in between. In Box Office Pro’s weekend forecast, they pegged it at a range of $80-100 million. The first Deadpool movie fell 57 percent in weekend 2. If “Deadpool & Wolverine” has a similar fall, that would lead to a $90.9 million second weekend.

With that as the bar, there is most certainly not going to be an upset this weekend as the biggest competition is Shyamalan’s new mystery/thriller Trap. Shyamalan’s biggest ever opening is “Signs” in 2002 with $60.1 million. More recently, “Knock at the Cabin” opened to $14.1 million last year, while “Old” opened to $16.9 million in 2021. If “Trap” opens in that realm, that means it will be in a fight for second place with the third weekend of “Twisters,” which put up $34.9 million last weekend after its $81.3 million opening. That should see it on track for $15-20 million. That means “Trap” needs to hit on the higher end of expectations to earn second place. And it very well could do that as this is a more unique setting for a Shyamalan thriller, specifically a concert setting. A serial killer dubbed “The Butcher,” played by Josh Hartnett, is taking his daughter to a concert of her favorite pop star Lady Raven, played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka. Turns out the concert is a big trap with a massive police presence, who are there to try to stop him. So the attempt here is a serial killer crime thriller from Shyamalan, a thing he has done a time or two. Given the hit or miss nature of a lot of Shyamalan movies, reaction to this might be key to the movie’s success. 

On a completely different level than “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Trap,” or “Twisters” is the latest PG-rated family film, Harold and the Purple Crayon. This theoretically could lead to some solid counter-programming if parents are ready for another trip to the theaters with the kids. Or maybe they already spent their summer movie budget on “Inside Out 2” and/or “Despicable Me 4.” Either way, this is based on the 1955 children’s book about a 4-year-old boy and his magic purple crayon, which gives him the power to create a world of his own simply by drawing it. This became a series of books that is currently 10 books large and has been adapted a few different times via an animated short in 1959, a few other smaller animated movies, a 2001 TV series that ran for 13 episodes, and an upcoming Broadway musical that was announced in 2022. Production on this current film adaptation has been in the works for quite some time, initially slated as an animated film before ending up in its current form as a live-action/animated hybrid, with Zachary Levi playing an adult version of Harold. I don’t know exactly how high the interest in this one is, but it will at least be an option for families.

It appears that “Trap” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon” are the only two major wide releases this weekend, but there also might be a movie called The Firing Squad in some theaters near you. The different sites I looked at couldn’t quite agree on whether this was a wide release or a limited release. So looking at my local showtimes suggested that this is probably a more moderate release in a few hundred theaters rather than a super wide release. But regardless of exactly how many theaters, this is indeed a real movie getting released in some places. And it’s a Christian film starring Kevin Sorbo and Cuba Gooding Jr. and is about three prisoners facing execution who find Christ while in prison and undergo a change of heart. It is inspired by the story of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, two drug traffickers who were convicted and imprisoned in Indonesia, but were converted to Christianity before being executed by a firing squad in 2015.

August 9 – 11

Lionsgate’s "Borderlands"

Reporting in on the third weekend of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” based on the different models I created, it seems likely that it will land somewhere in the $40-60 million range. Is that enough for it to three-peat at No. 1 at the box office? Based on the three movies being released this weekend, that seems quite likely.

The first of these three is the live action adaptation of the video game Borderlands. Video game adaptations have generally had a very streaky success rate at the box office, but whether it be a bad or good streak, Hollywood keeps on trying. Recently the luck has actually been a lot more positive with shows like “The Last of Us,” “Fallout,” and “Arcane,” and movies like “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Sonic the Hedgehog.” I wouldn’t quite say we’re at the level of a video game movie revolution, but things have been quite positive. And on the positive note, Eli Roth is on board to direct “Borderlands,” which is described as an action role-playing, first person shooter video game series that has been out since 2009 and has had mostly very positive reactions. The movie adaptation looks quite colorful and vibrant, some making comparisons to a James Gunn style of film, like “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “The Suicide Squad.” And in addition to Eli Roth directing, the movie has a solid cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. However, despite the positives here, it also must be mentioned that the general online buzz doesn’t seem to be particularly great at the moment, especially as we get closer to release. Perhaps more casual viewers will not be as phased, but fans of the video games don’t seem to be particularly excited, which leaves the movie in a precarious situation, especially sitting here in the middle of August where things are easily forgotten about. A debut around $20-30 million isn’t outside the realm of possibilities, but it seems likely to fall below that.

Perhaps a sleeper pick for the weekend is the romance drama It Ends with Us, which is based on the popular novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, published in 2016. Hoover said her novel was based on the relationship between her mother and father and is the hardest book she’s ever written. The movie stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, who meets a guy named Ryle Kincaid and falls in love. Ryle is played by Justin Baldoni, who also directs the movie. He’s also directed other movies such as “Five Feet Apart” (2019) and “Clouds” (2020). Anyways, things are going great with Lily and Ryle until she notices random outbursts of rage, which reminds her of her father’s poor treatment of her mother. Lily then has to wrestle with whether or not Ryle is different than her father, while also keeping in mind her childhood lover Atlas, who left for the military, but promised to return. It’s while he was gone that she met Ryle. So here we have a classic love triangle in a romantic drama that seems like it has the possibility to connect with audiences. The hesitation might be looking at July’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” which was one of the month’s not so successful stories as that romance film only opened to $9.4 million, despite starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. But if “It Ends with Us” manages to successfully draw out the female crowd while the men are off at “Borderlands,” it could open in the high teens or even flirt with $20 million. And if “Borderlands” is a major disappointment, it could potentially take second place behind “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Riding the caboose in regards to the three new wide releases is the horror film Cuckoo. This stars Hunter Schafer as a 17-year-old girl who leaves her American home to live with her father, who has moved into a resort in the German Alps. And well, this is a horror movie, so things go crazy and bonkers. The trailer pulls some pull quotes that call the movie “wild, blood-soaked, big-screen fun” and “very bonkers and deliriously entertaining,” which does seem to fall in line with the general consensus from critics. The movie had a festival run earlier this year that included the South by South Film Festival in March and came out of that with decent buzz and an 83 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes through 46 reviews. Whether or not that translates into mainstream success with audiences in the middle of August is a different story. Horror fans can be quite picky and critical with their horror movies. But this does come from NEON, who has developed a decent reputation as of late as a distributor of good low-budget horror films. They just celebrated their biggest opening yet with “Longlegs” at $22.4 million, which has since legged it out to beat “Parasite” for NEON’s highest grossing movie overall. “Cuckoo” won’t get that high, but if it can hit $10 million, that would be a win. That said, there have been a lot of 2024 horror films opening in the $5-8 million range, which wouldn’t be terrible for a low-budget film like this.

August 16 – 18

20th Century Studios' "Alien: Romulus"

In all likelihood, the reign of “Deadpool & Wolverine” will end this weekend with the release of Alien: Romulus. Even if “Deadpool & Wolverine” experiences excellent holds similar to “Black Panther,” that would leave it at a $42 million gross this weekend. More likely is a gross in the $20-30 million range, which “Alien: Romulus” should soar past. This is a franchise that has been around since the original “Alien” in 1979, which was followed up by its equally as beloved predecessor “Aliens” in 1986. And even though it’s been a bumpy road since, the franchise has remained popular and even the “lesser” more critically divided entries in “Prometheus” (2012) and “Alien: Covenant” (2017) still opened to $51.1 million and $36.2 million. Given that this is the first movie in the franchise to open since Disney got the rights after buying Fox, they should be happy to know that the buzz on this one has been quite positive as it feels like a return to form after the franchise has wandered for several decades. “Romulus” specifically takes place in between “Alien” and “Aliens” chronologically and seems to be taking notes from those two movies. While Ridley Scott, director of the original movie and the most recent two, is still on board as producer, Fede Alvarez has taken the torch as director this time and he’s found plenty of success in this horror realm, directing things like “Don’t Breathe” and the 2013 remake of “Evil Dead.” Pegged as the last blockbuster of the summer, this is expected to open in the $45-50 million range.

While “Alien: Romulus” is the big event film this weekend, it’s a bit murky as to what exactly is joining it in wide release, but it feels somewhat safe to start out by talking about penguins with My Penguin Friend, a PG-rated, family-friendly drama about a Brazilian fisherman who discovers an injured penguin and rescues it and brings it home to help it rehabilitate. This is a Brazilian film that is in the English language and is based on the true story of fisherman João Perei de Souza and the penguin Dindim, which went viral in 2016. The movie stars Jean Reno, who played Léon in “Léon: The Professional,” and Adriana Barraza, who got an Oscar nomination for the movie “Babel” in 2006. This is a mid-budgeted movie, so expectations probably aren’t too high, but it should at least be around in theaters near you. And it is a movie that I’ve seen advertised, so that’s at least something.

The last two are even more up in the air, but both the-numbers and Box Office Mojo claim Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure will be hitting wide release. The movie is being distributed by Falling Forward Films, which did distribute Nicolas Cage’s “The Retirement Plan” in 1,175 theaters last year. The movie is a live-action/animated hybrid film and is based on the Ryan’s World YouTube channel, which is a bit of a new concept. But said YouTube channel, which is directed towards kids, does have 37.4 million subscribers and also has a video from eight years ago titled “HUGE EGGS Surprise Toys Challenge with Inflatable water slide” that has over 2 billion views, so there is an audience here. The movie sees Ryan’s twin sisters get sucked into a mystical comic book, leaving Ryan no choice but to jump in after them, transforming him into an animated superhero in this comic universe, while Ryan’s live-action audience watches his adventures from their devices. How this will all translate into a mainstream audience is good question, but if there are kids who love this YouTube channel and want to convince their parents to take them to the movie, it again should be an option.

And finally we have the crime thriller Skincare, which is being distributed by IFC Films, which usually does smaller, platform releases instead of wide releases. But they did recently release the horror film “Oddity” in 790 theaters last month, as well as the 2022 film “God’s Country” in 785 theaters. So if this is a wide release, it’s likely more of a moderate release in this range, one that you might have to search for if you’re interested. The movie stars Elizabeth Banks as a famed aesthetician Hope Goldman who is about to launch her very own skincare line, but suddenly finds out that rival boutique has opened directly across from her, which sends her on a quest to find out. Both previously mentioned IFC Films that hit moderate release opened to less than $1 million, so that seems like it could be the case here as well. A movie you might find on streaming down the road if it doesn’t expand far enough for you to catch it in theaters.

August 23 – 25

Lionsgate’s "The Crow"

We’re now getting into the weeds of late August where a lot of things are just dumped onto the schedule. We’ll definitely see that more in the final week of the month, but this weekend looks like an “Alien: Romulus” repeat at the box office crown while others fight for spots in the top 10. However, there is at least one notable title, even if it’s not getting notable attention, and that’s the long-delayed remake of The Crow. The original movie, released in 1994, has become a bit of a cult classic as it has a decent-sized fan base, but did not do particularly well in theaters, opening to $11.8 million and grossing $50.6 million domestically. It might actually be most notable for it’s star Brandon Lee, son of legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, dying on set after being fatally wounded by a prop gun. The movie had to be completed through rewrites, a stunt double, and digital effects. The movie went on to spawn three sequels, only one of which was released theatrically. This remake has been in the works since 2008 to varying degrees. Upon finally finishing, Lionsgate has emphasized that it’s another adaptation of the original graphic novel rather than being a remake of the 1994 movie. The movie is directed by Rupert Sanders and stars Bill Skarsgard in the lead role. And despite the marketing having made an attempt to get the movie off the ground, this is another case of the interest level just not appearing to be there as the expectation is an opening in the $6-10 million range, which is certainly not what Lionsgate is hoping for.

Next up we have a psychological thriller from actress turned director Zoë Kravitz, titled Blink Twice. Zoë might best be known for her acting roles in the likes of “The Batman,” “Divergent,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Big Little Lies,” but she sees her first attempt at directing a film with this movie. She brings with her a decently large cast that’s led by Naomi Ackie playing a cocktail waitress named Frida who becomes infatuated with a tech billionaire named Christian Slater, played by Channing Tatum, at his fundraising gala. He then invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. All things are going well until the audience remembers that this is a psychological thriller and we suddenly have a group of people all alone on a private island, which means lots of things are going to go wrong and Frida is going to start questioning her reality and work on uncovering whatever truth is there if she’s going to make it out alive. Now looking at this, this does have the cast, crew, and premise to potentially be a surprise. But again, there’s been a lot of horrors and thrillers that have managed to open in the $5-8 million range this year and a late August release doesn’t exactly inspire a ton of confidence. This is distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, which means if you don’t catch it in theaters, there’s a high likelihood that it’ll end up on Amazon Prime at some point before the year is over.

The third release of the weekend sees the return of the Kendrick Brothers, with their latest film The Forge. The Kendrick Brothers, Alex and Stephen Kendrick, have been making these Christian films dating back to 2006 with “Facing the Giants” and have since made things like “Fireproof,” “Courageous,” and “War Room.” They all pretty much have the same basic premise, with a slightly different setting. Life is hard for a character as they face a certain challenge, but when they come to Jesus and accept Christ into their life, he’s able to help them solve their life’s problems. This movie’s character is a kid named Isaiah who recently graduated high school, but has no real plans for the future and needs to start making better life decisions. Now the Kendrick Brothers have actually had decent success in the past in his exact slot. “War Room” opened to $11.4 million in late August 2015, but then held really well and actually took the top spot the following weekend, eventually making $67.8 million domestically. In 2019, “Overcomer” also opened in late August and earned $8.1 million in its opening weekend. That said, in 2021, “Show Me the Father” only opened to $700,181 from 1,073 theaters, but that might be a COVID recovery issue. So no guarantee for success here, but if the movie has a decent grassroots campaign, there’s the potential to surprise, at least in regards to the competition with new releases.

Finally, we have Lionsgate possibly competing with themselves this weekend as, in addition to releasing “The Crow,” they also have plans on releasing the mystery comedy Greedy People. Although if I were to guess, I’d say “The Crow” will be in as many theaters as possible while “Greedy People” might be a more moderate release in a few hundred theaters. I wasn’t initially going to put this on here because different sites disagree on how wide or limited this will be, but I did notice it had quite the cast listing with Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Himesh Patel, Simon Rex, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Gaffigan, and others. On the poster specifically is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Himesh Patel as two cops and the trailers show them investigating a murder and discovering a large sum of money, with a whole lot of things going wrong. And yes, this does appear to be very heavy on the comedy in its approach to this buddy cop/murder mystery film.

August 30 – Sep 2

Sony's "AfrAId"

And now we arrive at the final weekend of the month. And since September 1 is on a Sunday this year, that means Labor Day comes early this year, on September 2, making this the four-day Labor Day weekend, which has historically been very spotty as Hollywood usually avoids the weekend. Recent history has shown that it is actually possible to do well here if you put a movie on the schedule that people are excited about rather than treating it like a dumping ground weekend, but that doesn’t appear to be what happened this time around, thus your guess is as good as mine in regards to what ends up at No. 1. Could it be “Alien: Romulus” for a third weekend? Could “Deadpool & Wolverine” actually rise back up to No. 1 if it stabilizes in future weeks while “Romulus” could be a bit front-loaded? My model says “Deadpool & Wolverine” could be looking at a $10-15 million 3-day weekend, meaning those two movies could be in a battle. Or is one of the SIX new wide releases going to make a splash and take the weekend?

I don’t know if there is going to be a new movie that takes the crown, but if there is, it seems likely that it is the horror movie AfrAId, which is stylized a bit funny there. If you couldn’t tell, it’s the word “Afraid,” with the AI capitalized. Or I’m also seeing the whole title capitalized with “AI” in italics, and in a different color (red vs. black). However you stylize it, the point here is to emphasize the Artificial Intelligence in the title, as the movie is about a family who is chosen to test a new smart home AI, called AIA. And, of course, as this is a sci-fi horror film about rogue AI, the machine they’re testing becomes a little too involved in their lives. The premise of technology taking over the world has been a thing in movies pretty much since new technology has become better. I guess there’s the idea in the back of people’s minds of the horror of technology becoming too much and that has translated over into film many times over. This movie comes via Blumhouse, who is really good at making a quick buck off of a low-budget horror movies and they’re pushing the connection to M3GAN here, a similarly themed horror film that opened to $30.4 million. That’s, of course, the dream here, but anything around the $10 million range is probably going to be considered a success.

Given the timing of the upcoming election season, another movie to possibly look out for is the historical biopic Reagan, about the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. This is bound to be quite divisive, as Reagan is seen as the gold standard by most Republican politicians, who also seem to bring him up in their election speeches, while also being seen as one of the worst modern-day presidents by many on the Democratic side. Without making this a political post, I’ll just say that divisiveness often leads to good success at the box office. And given the liberal nature of a lot of critics, this is bound to be a movie that is trashed by critics and praised by a lot of audiences. Many might choose to see it just to be a part of the conversation. From an objective filmmaking standpoint, though, this is directed by Sean McNamara. And when you look at his filmography as a director, he has a long list of very low quality movies, with the occasional hit, so that doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence, but that might not matter much here. Dennis Quaid is playing Ronald Reagan in the movie, so there’s a positive in regards to the movie’s lead actor.

Another movie to potentially look out for, again based on the subject matter alone, is the movie 1992, which was originally titled “April 29, 1992,” which is a reference to the first night of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the unrest following the Rodney King verdict. The movie follows two different families caught in the crossfire of all of it, one being a father trying to restore his relationship with his son and the other being a father and son planning a heist at the other father’s workplace. The movie is directed by Ariel Vromen and stars Tyrese Gibson, Scott Eastwood, and Ray Liotta. This was the final film that Ray Liotta shot back before he died in May 2022. He had finished all of his scenes in this movie before he died, so this movie has been on the shelf for a little while. According to IMDb, it even had a brief premier at the Harmony Gold Theatre in Los Angeles back in October 2022. I’m not sure what happened to it in the meantime, but Lionsgate is finally unloading it off their schedule here at the end of August, which again is usually not the best sign.

Next we have a pair of sports films getting released. Although the first of which might just have the sportsing as a brief backdrop and that’s the movie City of Dreams. Inspired by a true story, this tells the story of a Mexican boy whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he’s smuggled across the border and sold into a sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles, where he is forced to work a grueling 18-hour work day under a boss who theoretically promises freedom to those who fulfill their quotas, although our main kid quickly realizes that his only actual way out is by figuring out a way to escape. So yeah, this is more of a crime thriller here. And another movie that has sat on the shelf for a while before being dumped at the end of August as it premiered last March at the Mammoth Film Festival and is finally being dumped here by Roadside Attractions. Although the few reviews it does have seems like it’ll lean positive, so perhaps it has a chance of some sort of life either in theaters or on streaming afterwards.

The other actual sports movie here is You Gotta Believe, which seems to be a bit of a traditional, run-of-the-mill baseball story. It’s about a Little League baseball team of misfits that dedicate their season to one of their player’s dying father and eventually do the impossible by making it to the Little League World Series in a final game that, according to IMDb’s description, became an instant ESPN classic. The movie is rated PG, so a solid option for families. And it does have Luke Wilson and Greg Kinnear, so a solid cast with a feel-good story potential. But it doesn’t seem to have much of a marketing footprint yet. I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia page for the movie and the trailer currently only has 373,000 views from Well Go USA Entertainment, the movie’s distributor. So that’s what leads me to believe that this will be more of a smaller to moderate release rather than a movie that’s going to be released everywhere.

And finally, in what is most likely another small to moderate release, we have the space movie Slingshot. This is distributed by Bleecker Street, so the release strategy could go either way, but it stars Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Tomer Capone as astronauts who are on a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Along this multi-year journey, that could potentially be a fatally endangered mission, one of the astronauts seems to start losing grip on reality. And that is about as much plot detail as I can discover, even by watching the trailers, but I’m sure there’s a few other layers to this space adventure. Honestly it reminds me a bit of the Adam Sandler space movie “Spaceman” that debuted on Netflix earlier this year, as well as “I.S.S.,” a space movie that was released in theaters in January. So there’s been a few of these smaller space movies scattered through 2024. In regards to a comparison, “I.S.S.” opened to $3.1 million and was also distributed by Bleecker Street, so that seems like a fair mark for “Slingshot.” Although “I.S.S.” was released during an empty weekend in January with no other new wide releases and thus managed 2,520 theaters. With six new releases on this weekend total, as well as all the holdovers from the month, “Slingshot” might not have the luxury of that many theaters. But if Bleecker Street actually stars marketing the movie, maybe it can catch some attention.

Movie Preview: July 2024

 

Cinema is dead, they said. People just don’t go to the movies anymore. It’s all about staying home and watching things on streaming nowadays. Especially not family audiences. Why spend all that money to take your kids to the theater now when you can just watch the latest from Disney or Pixar later on Disney+ for just the cost of your monthly subscription?

Well, those were the conversations of last month after a pretty miserable May. Fast forward one month and it’s funny how quiet those people are at the moment. Now that’s not to say that everything is back to the way it was pre-COVID. Times are definitely different nowadays and I think that’s something we just have to accept. And that’s fine. Things are always changing in life. But it now appears in hindsight that the problems with the month of May were simply the individual movies that were on the schedule and not a problem with the industry as a whole. Because, if you haven’t heard, “Inside Out 2” absolutely exploded with a $154.2 million opening weekend domestically, the second highest opening ever for an animated movie, behind only “Incredibles 2” ($182.7 million). Since that open, in three weeks it has already gone on to make $1 billion worldwide, the fastest animated movie to do so. And it wasn’t just that movie that had success. “Inside Out 2” was bookended on the month by $50 million openings from “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “A Quiet Place: Day One,” both of which opened on par with previous entries in their respective franchises and above expectations.

And the fun part of all of this is that the success is looking to keep rolling into July. Even before June surprised in a big way, July was always expected to be the biggest month of the summer. Granted, nothing is a guarantee these days, but when you have one of today’s most bankable animated franchises returning to the schedule, paired with everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed superhero, things are looking pretty good. So let’s dive in and explore the possibilities here.

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 always subject to change.

July 3 – 7

Universal's "Despicable Me 4"

As we’re nearing towards the end of the extended 4th of July weekend, there’s been plenty of options to see, with staggered releases throughout the week. Not only are people still seeing “Inside Out 2” and “A Quiet Place: Day One” over the holiday, but we have four new releases and a prominent expansion. Leading the way through all of this is the long-awaited Despicable Me 4. Well, long-awaited for some people, anyways. The minions are certainly quite divisive these days, but the kids still love them. This is the sixth movie overall in this franchise, with now four main “Despicable” movies and two Minions spin-offs. While the first movie was more of a sleeper hit that grew over time, the four movies after that were all mega hits, averaging a worldwide total of $1.026 billion, which is why I mentioned earlier that this has become one of the most bankable franchises, two movies crossing that $1 billion mark and two movies coming awfully close. So with it having been seven years since “Despicable Me 3,” having the full gang together again, going on another mischievous mission of sorts, could be seen as quite the event for certain family audiences after 2022’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru” proved that this franchise still is quite popular. And the advertising has done a solid job of promising plenty of Minions shenanigans in the midst of the return of adult Gru and his family.

The trick here, of course, is seeing what will happen here with the major breakout of “Inside Out 2.” Will Pixar’s huge success steal some of the thunder away from Illumination or will the new animated movie cause the one from last month to slow down a tad bit? Or will it be a miserable summer for parents’ bank accounts as a whole with both movies doing excellent business? “Despicable Me 4” is off to a solid start as it’s looking at a 5-day start in the range of $120-130 million. It’s 3-day opening is looking to be in the range of $75-80 million. Compared to last month’s “Inside Out 2” that doesn’t look super great. But the 3-day openings for the second and third “Despicable Me” movies were $84.2 million and 72.4 million, respectively, and as noted those two movies did just fine in the end.

There are a handful of other movies opening, although much smaller in comparison. In direct contrast to the big family sequel, the adult audience also gets a highly anticipated sequel with Ti West’s MaXXXine. This is third movie in Ti West’s horror trilogy, following “X” and “Pearl,” both of which were released in 2022. “X” is a movie about a group of young adults who go to a rural farm to shoot an adult film, only to get terrorized by a crazy, old woman named Pearl. The next movie, “Pearl,” is a prequel to “X” and is the origin story for the character of Pearl, showing how she became this crazy, psychotic killer. And now “MaXXXine” is the direct sequel to “X,” taking place in 1985, as “X” was set in 1979. In “X,” Mia Goth played both the lead female Maxine Minx and the old lady Pearl. She’ll be back playing at least one of those characters in “MaXXXine” (no spoilers here). Now this trilogy hasn’t quite broken out in the mainstream as both “X” and “Pearl” made just around $10 million domestically, but it’s been quite the buzzy trilogy among some niche film fans, which should lead this new movie to be the biggest of the three. “X” opened to $4.3 million, while “Pearl” opened to $3.1 million. “MaXXXine” in its opening day, which was Friday, opened to $3.2 million, which means it could open in the $8-10 million range for the weekend as a whole, depending on how well it holds and Saturday and Sunday. Either way, its opening weekend could wind up coming close to the previous two movies’ final totals, which would be saying something.

The third major wide release of the weekend comes from Angel Studios with their latest movie, Sound of Hope: The Story of Possom Trot. While “Despicable Me 4” opened on Wednesday and “MaXXXine” opened on Friday, “Sound of Hope” opened right between the two on Thursday, meaning each of the three new movies this weekend had their own opening day. “Sound of Hope” is inspired by the true story of Donna and Reverend Martin from Possom Trot, Texas, as they opened their hearts to foster care children that no one else would take in. The result led to them adopting 77 children. Filming for the movie reportedly took place back in the fall of 2022. Distribution rights were purchased by Angel Studios in February 2024, after which they added “Sound of Hope” to the title, which seems like an obvious attempt to connect the movie to “Sound of Freedom” in a way, which has been Angel Studio’s biggest financial success in the movie realm. Although Angel Studios would love to see something else have the success of “Sound of Freedom,” this latest release is still looking more like it will follow the likes of “Cabrini” and “The Shift,” which opened to $7.2 million and $4.3 million, respectively.

While that concludes the major wide releases (“MaXXXine” and “Sound of Hope” are both opening in over 2,000 theaters, with “Despicable Me 4” opening in over 4,000 theaters), opening in a moderate amount of theaters is the movie Kill, which opened on Thursday in 828 theaters to be exact. This is an Indian film, in the Hindi language, and is about a pair of commandos facing an army of invading bandits during a train trip to New Delhi. Indian cinema has actually done quite well over here in America as a lot of these show up in a moderate amount of theaters and have a decent per theater average. “Kill” opened in 11th place on Thursday with $165,638 and will hope to sneak into the top 10 by the end of the weekend.

Finally, while not a new release, Yorgos Lanthimos latest movie Kinds of Kindness will be more widely available as it expands from 490 theaters to 920 theaters this weekend. It opened in limited release in June and has been slowly expanding in the weekends since as it builds more buzz. Yorgos is quite the unique filmmaker with a very specific style that is certainly not for everyone, but his previous two movies, “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” were both showered with Oscar nominations, so he’s certainly becoming more recognized, even if “mainstream” is probably not a thing he’ll ever care about. “Kinds of Kindness” is another bizarre, off-kilter Yorgos film that will shock some and garner praise from others who know his style. The plot is essentially three smaller movies in one, following a man seeking to break free from his predetermined path, a police officer questioning his wife’s demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning, and a woman searching form an extraordinary individual prophesied to become her spiritual guide. There are many humans starring in this movie, but Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are the headline acts.

July 12 – 14

Sony's "Fly Me to the Moon"

After that busy holiday weekend, the second weekend of July is more of a cool down week before the final two weekends give us two more blockbusters. “Despicable Me 4” will take a second weekend at No. 1 here, but the top new release will be the comedy Fly Me to the Moon, which looks to be a bit of a satirical take on the moon landing. I’m sure most people are aware of the conspiracy theories that the moon landing was faked and that seems to be what this movie is having fun with. The setting is the 1960s and the goal is to get man on the moon, but when certain government people deem this mission too important to fail, other people are hired to direct a staged fake moon landing as a backup. In the midst of this are characters played by Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson, which give this movie its romance angle. There are also a lot of other humans in this movie, like Ray Romano and Woody Harrelson, so it has a bit of a stacked cast. And the advertising has been pushing it decently well. But the big question will be whether it can capture enough attention from audiences or if they’ll instead choose to save their money for the next two weekends.

The other movie that is theoretically sneaking into a few theaters in the sci-fi horror film Lumina. This has not had much of an advertising campaign and comes from a distributor in Goldove that has not yet released anything. But the Goldove YouTube channel has put out a few low qualities trailers in the past few weeks, one of which being a testimonial video from people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens who are definitely “not actors.” Anyways, the movie is certainly fictional and is an alien abduction horror film, written and directed by Gino McKoy in his feature-length directorial debut. I clearly have lots of faith in this, as you can see. Yes, that’s sarcasm. But the-numbers has it listed as a wide release, so I feel obligated to include it.

Another horror movie that I definitely know is real is Longlegs. I listened to a podcast from a guy who saw an early screening of this and called it the best serial killer horror film since “Silence of the Lambs.” Making that claim (this was Joey Magidson from Awards Radar) got him a spot on one of the posters advertising this movie. Anyways, the movie stars Nicolas Cage playing a serial killer who is referred to by the name Longlegs and Maika Monroe as a young female FBI agent who gets assigned to his case. No, this is not based on a true story, but I’m sure it’s inspired by similar cases of Satanic serial killers from the 80’s and 90’s. Being compared to movies like “Zodiac,” “Se7en,” and “Silence of the Lambs” will surely get it some attention, especially if more reviews continue to give it such high praise, but NEON is giving this a limited release this weekend and I’m sure that will lead to an expansion in the weeks following.

July 19 – 21

Universal's "Twisters"

The biggest movie even of the month comes in the final weekend of July, but before we get to that, perhaps the biggest wild card of the month and the summer comes here in the third weekend with the release of Twisters. This movie is a sequel to the 1996 mega blockbuster “Twister,” which made $241.7 million domestically that year, which was the second highest grossing movie of 1996, behind only “Independence Day.” Adjusted for ticket price inflation, the-numbers claims that is the equivalent of $589.5 million in 2024 ticket pricing. So yeah, think of something like “Barbie” or “Top Gun: Maverick” in modern era and that was “Twister” back in 1996. People loved their tornado and disaster movies in the 90s. But is that something that can be replicated today or is it just an isolated 90s phenomenon? There have been disaster movies released in the modern era, but nothing remotely on the level of “Twister” in 1996 in regards to the box office. Speaking of the only movie in 1996 that beat “Twister,” there was an eventual sequel to “Independence Day” in 2016 with “Independence Day: Resurgence.” It opened decently with $41 million, but quickly disappeared with rather sour, toxic reviews as it wasn’t able to capture 90s nostalgia. Will “Twisters” suffer the same fate or will it a bonafide hit? Box Office Pro in their long range forecast is giving it a range of $65-85 million for its opening weekend, which would definitely be a massive success. But critical and audience reaction will be the key to seeing if people are up for watching tornado disaster movies in 2024.

Filling in the gaps in theaters is another smaller horror film being released, this one being Oddity, which is another real horror film that you could see in theaters near you. This one was released back in March at the South by Southwest Film Festival to very positive reaction. Now festivals crowds and general audience crowds can often give two quite different reactions to movies, especially in the horror genre, but “Oddity” does currently hold a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes through its first 18 reviews. This is a movie about a girl named Darcy who is trying to uncover the truth behind her sister’s murder from a year prior. People initially suspected a patient from a local mental hospital, but then that patient also wound up dead. Darcy is a psychic and a collector of cursed objects and pays a visit to a guy named Ted, who was a doctor at the local mental hospital, claiming there is more to her sister’s murder than others are giving credit. Again, this might be a question of exactly how big this release is. This one is listed as a wide release by the-numbers, but it could end up as a smaller release that expands. Either way, it’ll find its audience if the reviews continue to be positive.

July 26 – 28

Marvel's "Deadpool & Wolverine"

And now for the big event of the month. And maybe the year? That’s, of course, the release of Deadpool & Wolverine. The first Deadpool movie in 2016 completely changed the game when it proved that R-rated superhero movies CAN make money. Prior to that, both Marvel and DC strictly stuck to a PG-13 rating with their highest profile releases because there was the thought that you couldn’t do well with the R rating in this genre and there were a few prior examples of movies that showed that. Turns out that if you make a movie that people like that does justice to a character that they love, people will show up. It’s not a guarantee that it’ll make money, but it shows that the possibility exists with the right cast and crew. So yeah, a $132.4 million opening for “Deadpool” was a huge deal. It’s still the highest opening weekend for an R-rated movie. Two years later, “Deadpool 2” came close to matching it with an opening of $125.5 million, proving the first movie was no fluke. But as you may have been well aware of, between 2018 and 2024, there’s been lots of drama on the superhero front, namely Deadpool’s studio Fox got bought by Disney and now Deadpool has the opportunity to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And not just that, but Marvel themselves have been having a really rough time, to say the least. So not only does Deadpool get to enter the MCU, but he’s aiming to be, as he says in the trailers, “Marvel Jesus.” A massive win here with the third Deadpool movie could do wonders for Disney and Marvel, like “Inside Out 2” just did with Pixar. After a very miserable 2023, Disney would love to have another massive win in the summer of 2024.

But how high can “Deadpool & Wolverine” actually fly? Well, as the title suggests, it’s not just Deadpool here. But he’s dragging Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine with him. And give the nature of Deadpool as a fourth-wall breaking comedy, there’s lot to poke fun at here and lots of potential surprises to be had. If you didn’t hear, there was a post credits scene that introduced the X-Men into the MCU and this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce more. Are there more surprises awaiting? I don’t know. I don’t want the surprised spoiled. But I hear there are. And all this combined has people very excited. And it has professional box office prognosticators saying this is going to be very huge. Like, a $200+ million opening weekend type of huge. Some have thrown “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and its $260 million opening into the conversation. I’m not personally predicting that. I’m just relaying what I’ve heard. Box Office Pro has it listed as $175-200 million for the weekend in their long range forecast and maybe it’s also worth pointing to “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which opened to $187.4 million in 2022. Realistically, anything in the range of $120-130 million, which the first two did, is a win. Especially considering the rating. But signs are pointing to it blowing those two movies away. Just remember, parents. This is still rated R. Just because it’s the MCU, doesn’t mean you can take your kids. Don’t get mad at the movie for you not paying enough attention.

Oh. There are two other movies this weekend, hoping for a bit of counter-programming. The Fabulous Four is a comedy that stars Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullany, and Sheryl Lee Ralph as four friends, three of which are traveling together to be bridesmaids at a surprise wedding for their fourth friend. It seems like a comedy aimed a more adult audience. We’ve seen a handful of movies like this recently in the vein of something like “Book Club,” a group of slightly older ladies going on certain adventures. This could be decent counter-programming for an older crowd not interested in superhero shenanigans.

And as another option for people not interested in superheroes, or wanting to see something else after they have already seen Deadpool, is the movie Didi. This is an independent film out of Sundance this year that also played at South by Southwest and a handful of other smaller festivals. The movie is about a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy in the summer before high school begins learning how to do things his family can’t teach him in this coming-of-age comedy/drama. This did get great reactions out of its festival run and currently has a 91 percent from 35 theaters. I don’t imagine it’ll make more than a few million this weekend, but it could be a thing that catches on in certain niche film groups.

Movie Preview: June 2024

The summer box office is under way and it began with a thud. May 2024 was a really bad month for the box office. Perhaps a historically bad month. Not counting the two COVID years where movies didn’t really exist, this was the worst May at the domestic box office since May 1998. While the internet has certainly been buzzing about the death of cinema, or at least the death of theaters, I’ll point out that this wasn’t particularly surprising. I noted in my May preview the fact that “Deadpool and Wolverine,” which was the month’s big tentpole event, was removed from the schedule due to the strikes and nothing really stepped up to replace it. That said, it doesn’t help that just about everything else that was on the schedule either hit on the low end of their expectations or straight-up disappointed. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” was the only movie to overperform, but “The Fall Guy,” “IF,” “Furiosa,” and “Garfield” all kinda collapsed.

Is this a sign of things to come or just a strange anomaly of a month? Well, there’s legit concerns about the future of the theatrical experience for a wide variety of reasons, but even in the current landscape, it’s worth reminding people that even this year there’s been stories of movies that did well, like with “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong” in March, not to mention the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon of last year or other movies like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in recent years. People have shown that they are still willing to show up to the movies when there’s a movie that they want to show up for. So is there anything in June that people are going to show up for? Well, there’s at least a title or two where we’ll certainly have conversations if people don’t show up, but let’s dive in and analyze all the options that we have.

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 always subject to change.

June 7 – 9

Sony's "Bad Boys: Ride or Die"

A quick note before diving into the first two new releases of the month is that the weekend of May 31 – June 2 was covered in last month’s preview. Even though two of the three days were in June, the weekend started in May, so that’s where I included it. In that preview, I covered “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle” and “Ezra.” As it turns out, there were two other moderate releases that wound up coming out, “In a Violent Nature,” a slasher horror film from the vantage point of the killer, and “Summer Camp,” a comedy starring Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, and Alfre Woodard who play three best friends who get together for a summer camp reunion after they used to spend every summer there as kids. All four of these movies were moderate releases that opened in around 1,500 theaters. The highest grossing of the bunch was “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,” which opened in seventh with $3.6 million. I also covered “Robot Dreams,” which ended up only opening in two theaters, so I’m guessing that will be expanding here in the next few weeks.

Onto the weekend proper, June begins with the fourth movie in the Bad Boys franchise, Bad Boys: Ride or Die. The first two movies came via Michael Bay in 1995 and 2003, respectively, and starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two off-kilter detectives investigating various drug-related crimes. Both were poorly reviewed, but were of their time and came out at the height of both Will Smith and Michael Bay, so they were both fairly big hits. The franchise was revived in January 2020 with “Bad Boys for Life,” which saw the return of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but had the directing duo of Adil and Bilall take over at the helm. The movie became the first breakout hit of 2020, opening to $62.5 million and finishing with $204.4 million… before the world shut down due to COVID. Because of that, it wound up as the highest grossing movie of 2020. Four years later and a pandemic in between, “Ride or Die” comes out with the same cast and crew returning and will try to replicate that success. But was that third movie received well enough to warrant another huge hit in the franchise or are people done with these movies? Also, this is the first big release for Will Smith since the slap incident at the Oscars. Might that affect the movie’s opening? Or have audiences moved on and are willing to forgive him? Box Office Pro is expecting an opening in the range of $45-55 million going into this weekend, but that was also the expectation for “Furiosa” before that opened to just $26 million, so we’ll see what side of the fence this falls on.

Opening alongside “Ride or Die” is the psychological horror film The Watchers, which comes via the Shyamalan clan. Horror has had a bit of an interesting year so far. There’s been several titles that have been well received by audiences and critics, but none of that has translated into high box office turnout. Currently the highest opening weekend for a horror film is “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” which opened to $11.82 million last month and barely topped January’s “Night Swim,” which opened to $11.79 million. Can the Shyamalan name propel this to an opening that’s at least slightly higher than those two movies or is this another $7-10 million opening for a horror film. Now this is a PG-13 psychological horror film, which should open the door for a younger audience to show up and provide counter-programming to the R-rated, male-targeted action film of “Ride or Die” that it’s competing against. But it should be noted that this is not M. Night Shyamalan himself directing. He’s on as producer and has his own movie called “Trap” coming out in August. Directing the movie is his daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan, with her feature-length directorial debut after helping her dad out on the Apple TV+ show “Servant.” The last two movies from M. Night were “Old” in 2021 and “Knock at the Cabin” in 2023, and they opened to $16.8 million and $14.1 million, respectively, so we’ll see if Ishana can hit her dad’s mark on those two movies as she attempts to create a trail herself. As is typical with a Shyamalan horror/thriller, the plot is intended to be a bit mysterious, with a twist that is sure to come, but the general idea involves a young artist, played by Dakota Fanning, who gets stranded in a forest in Ireland.

June 14 – 16

Pixar’s "Inside Out 2"

Only one new wide release on the second weekend of June, but this is the main movie I referenced in the beginning where if it fails, a conversation will need to be had because this is the opening of the newest Pixar film Inside Out 2. It’s worth mentioning that Pixar has had a bit of a rough go of it since COVID as Mother Disney sent three straight movies of there’s directly to Disney+, which got some out of the habit of seeing their movies in theaters. Disney tried to remedy that with “Lightyear,” but failed as that movie massively under-performed based on Toy Story standards. Then there’s the case of “Elemental” last year, which experienced one of Pixar’s worst openings, but then caught on like wildfire and had a very leggy run in theaters, finishing with $154 million domestically and $484 million worldwide. Might that be the course correction Disney and Pixar needed? A stepping stone in the right direction? If there’s a next step to continue moving Pixar in an upward direction, it’s a sequel to “Inside Out,” one of their most successful original films, which made $356.5 million domestically in 2015 after opening to $90.4 million. The story of “Inside Out 2” follows the natural progression of its main protagonist Riley, as it dives into her teenage years, adding a handful more emotions as it tackles a complex time in a young person’s life. Now there’s several examples of Pixar sequels exploding with $100+ million openings. If this becomes the first $100 million opening of 2024, that’s obviously a huge story. But given the aforementioned struggles of Pixar and the continued existence of Disney+, if this movie can at least come close to the opening of the original, then that should be considered a big enough success. Tracking has this anywhere in the $70-100 million range.

June 21 – 23

Focus Features' "The Bikeriders"

Before we get into the final weekend of June, which has a couple more notable titles, we get a bit of a breather week. “Inside Out 2” will certainly be taking a second weekend at No. 1, while The Bikeriders looks to fall somewhere in the top five. This is a smaller festival film that stars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, director of “Mud” and “Loving,” two other smaller indie films. “The Bikeriders” is about a Midwestern motorcycle club, led by Tom Hardy that goes from being a gathering place for local outsiders into a dangerous underworld of violence, forcing its newest member, played by Austin Butler, to choose between his loyalty to the club and a girl he met, played by Jodie Comer. After debuting at the festivals towards the end of last year, this was initially poised to open in December to make a potential awards run, but amidst the strikes Focus Features pushed it from the awards season to the summer movie season so that the cast could help promote it. Maybe they also read the tea leaves that this was perhaps not quite the awards player they thought it could be following and decided it might be more fit as a summer crowd-pleaser.

Not to be confused with “The Exorcist” or any of it’s sequels and remakes, the second movie to be released this weekend is The Exorcism. Exorcist-related horror movies, whether they be a part of the aforementioned movie’s franchise or not, have been coming out in a steady stream since the original movie back in 1973, so this here is nothing new. Despite the slightly generic title, the spin on this movie is that it’s about an actor playing a priest in a horror film who suddenly starts exhibiting strange behaviors. So it’s a bit meta in that regards – a horror movie about people making a horror movie wherein some sort of demonic presence exists. Now if you watch this trailer and something feels awfully familiar here, outside the general knowledge that these movies come out all the time, it might be because this stars Russell Crowe in an exorcism movie, which he literally did last year with “The Pope’s Exorcist.” And hey, if a guy likes making these types of horror films, then by all means we should let him make these horror films. In that regard, “The Pope’s Exorcist” opened to $9.0 million last April, so that’s the bar here if Crowe wants to replicate his success. That could put it in close competition with “The Bikeriders” for the top new release of the weekend.

June 28 – 30

Paramount's "A Quiet Place: Day One"

Speaking of movies that were supposed to come out, but got postponed by the strike, a common story that I have been covering, this final weekend of June at one point was the scheduled release date for the eighth Mission: Impossible film, previously titled “Dead Reckoning – Part Two,” but now currently untitled as they dropped the “Part One” and “Part Two” thing. However, unlike “Deadpool and Wolverine” that pushed back only a couple of months, Mission: Impossible 8 moved all the way to Summer 2025. So if you need another example of a dead zone left by a departing franchise film that has impacted this summer, there you are.

Taking its place in this spot is another franchise film, A Quiet Place: Day One, which continues John Krasinski’s popular A Quiet Place saga by telling the story of how the world became quiet. Both A Quiet Place movies did very well, especially for a horror genre that often comes with lower production budgets. The first movie opened to $50.2 million on a budget of $17 million and eventually went onto make $188 million domestically and $334 million worldwide. The second movie, despite opening in 2021 when the box office was still recovering, managed to duplicate those numbers, opening to $47.5 million and making $160.2 million domestically and $296 million worldwide, albeit on a slightly larger budget of $61 million, which it earned by the first movie doing as well as it did. Might this be a sign that “Day One” is a good position to be a relatively safe hit at the box office? I think there’s certainly an argument that this should do quite well. However, one might look at “Furiosa” as a slight cautionary tale. While there’s not one definitive reason as to why “Furiosa” failed, one potential explanation was the fact that it was a prequel with a different cast. And maybe that caused people to be a bit hesitant to check it out, having been burned by many prequels in the past. In that case, “Day One” is also a prequel with a different cast, so no John Krasinski or Emily Blunt. And speaking of Krasinski, while he did help write this movie, he’s also absent from the director’s chair, with Michael Sarnoski, director of the 2021 movie “Pig,” taking the helm. Maybe this won’t matter in the long run, especially since the budgets of these movies don’t require as high of a bar for success, but it will be a test to see how strong the brand of A Quiet Place is, if it can survive with a different cast and crew.

The other notable release of the weekend is also the biggest wildcard of the month and that is Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. This is a movie that’s gotten quite a bit of buzz in certain film circles, mostly due to its unique approach. This is a Western from Kevin Costner, who wrote, directed, and stars in the film. What makes this unique is that this is a multipart film where “Chapter 1” and “Chapter 2” have both been made and are both coming out this summer. “Chapter 1” right here at the end of June and “Chapter 2” in August. Word on the street is that Costner also wants to make a “Chapter 3” and a “Chapter 4” at some point soon as well, although production hasn’t begun on those final two just yet. The first challenge here is the genre. There’s been a few Westerns here and there that have surfaced, whether it be via movie or series. And the genre certainly has its following. But the heyday of Westerns being enormously popular with the masses has long since passed and we don’t have a ton of examples of ones that have performed super well recently. On top of that, audiences will be committing to, not one but two of these movies this summer. And on top of that, “Chapter 1” debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May and it was learned that the movie is three hours long. And given that this was written as a four-part story, that’s mostly three hours of introducing the world and all the characters. Reaction from Cannes has been understandably divisive. So how will this do with general audiences? That’s a great question. The long range forecast from Box Office Pro has this anywhere from $20-40 million for its opening. I’m inclined to think it’ll wind up on the lower end of that. But regardless, we’ll be back in a couple months to re-evaluate this project for when “Chapter 2” rolls around.

The final wide release of the weekend is a smaller one and that’s Blue Lock The Movie -Episode Nagi-, which is another anime from Crunchyroll. They’ve been rather consistent with these releases and the strategy has worked well for its niche targeted audience. “Blue Lock” is a bit unique in that it’s a sports anime, following the Japanese National Football Team, or Soccer as we say in the States. It’s based on a Manga that was first released in 2018, with the anime series debuting in Japan in 2022, running for 24 episodes. Crunchy Roll’s website describes “Episode Nagi” specifically as a prequel movie to the series. Some of these anime films have been known to surprise at the box office, so that’s always something to look out for. But the easiest comparison is to look at the most recent one that came out, that being “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle” opening in 1,119 theaters at the end of May and earning $3.6 million.