Movie Preview: July 2023

We’re halfway through the summer box office season! While June was certainly an eventful month in terms of the quantity of high profile releases, and while the combined box office of all the releases led to the first billion dollar month of the year and just the second since COVID (July 2022 being the other), the month was nevertheless viewed as a bit of a train-wreck in terms of the constant stream of individual disappointments. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” “The Flash” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” all opened in the $60 million range domestically for their three-day weekends, which considering their budgets and expectations were not what the studios were hoping for, especially since international numbers didn’t help much either. In a surprise turn of events, “Rise of the Beasts” was the highest of this trio and considering some thought it might only open with $35-40 million, a $61 million opening was a small silver lining, even though that was a far cry from what a Transformers movie used to open to. Meanwhile, on the animated front, both Pixar and DreamWorks earned their worst opening weekends ever with “Elemental” and “Ruby Gillman,” respectively.

What went wrong this month? Well, there’s probably not just one answer. I often mention that too many high profile releases at the same time can end up cannibalizing each other. And that’s certainly a possible part of the equation. But in each case with the so far mentioned releases, the movies were part of bigger franchises with less than stellar reputations. Combine that with mixed reaction on the movies themselves and you have an unfortunate formula for disappointment.

The obvious omission so far is that of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which was the lone bright spot of the month. It opened to $120 million and has legged out to over $330 million domestically so far, putting it on track for the highest grossing movie of the summer. The difference? Well, people loved “Into the Spider-Verse,” were excited for “Across the Spider-Verse,” and were very pleased with the result as the movie had very high marks across the board. Moral of the story, make a good movie that people want to see and people will go see it. Transition that into our upcoming July slate and the initial prognosis is looking very positive, although we’ll obviously have to wait until the movies come out to see the exact reaction, but let’s take a look at what we have on the schedule!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies scheduled are the ones currently listed for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are subject to change.

July 7 – 9 

Angel Studios' "Sound of Freedom"

This first weekend of July will see the second weekend of “Dial of Destiny” pull in around $25-30 million, which could make this a close race for No. 1, given the current projections of our three new films. And while there is a major studio film on the schedule that we’ll get to in a second, the potential spoiler comes from Angel Studios with their new film Sound of Freedom. Angel Studios is a Utah-based distribution company most well-known for the TV series “The Chosen,” of which they’ve actually had major success with in releasing certain episodes in theaters. “Sound of Freedom” tells the story of Tim Ballard, who quit his job as a government agent in order to dedicate his life to rescuing children from child sex trafficking, with the specific mission portrayed in this film taking place primarily in Colombia. Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard and the movie is directed by Alejandro Monteverde. As far as its box office potential goes, the movie actually opened on July 4 in 2,634 theaters and actually beat “Dial of Destiny” on that day with an opening day total of $14.2 million, compared to Indy’s $11.7 million. Could that spill over into the weekend, giving it a surprise upset at the top? It’s quite possible. Although it should be mentioned that both Monday previews and a certain total from a pay-it forward campaign were rolled into that $14.2 million, so that could indicate a bit of frontloading. But so far word of mouth is very positive with an A+ CinemaScore, an 8.6 score on IMDb, and a 99 percent Rotten Tomatoes audience score. That should at least translate into a very healthy theatrical run.    

The aforementioned major studio film getting released this weekend, that’s also in contention for the top spot is Sony Pictures’ Insidious: The Red Door. This is the fifth movie in the Insidious franchise, with the previous entry, “The Last Key,” having been released in 2018. So it’s been five years, which could be seen as too long of a break for a horror sequel, but nevertheless these are very low budget horror films made for $10 million or less that have in turn have come close to or made more than $100 million worldwide. So they’ve been very profitable. “The Red Door” is reported to have a budget of $16 million, the highest in the franchise, but that’s still a very low bar for profitability. The movie itself is actually a direct sequel to the second movie as the third and fourth movie followed a slightly different arc. The movie thus sees the return of Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne as Josh and Renai Lambert as the main conflict centers around their son Dalton, now in college, having the demons from his past come back to haunt him. Ty Simpkins will also be reprising his role as Dalton. Patrick Wilson will actually be directing this movie in his directorial debut, with a story by Leigh Whannell, director of the third movie, and produced by James Wan, director of the first two movies.  

Not to be forgotten, but also most likely looking at a fourth place debut, is the comedy Joy Ride. Although this is the second comedy of its nature to come out in three weeks, the other being Jennifer Lawrence’s “No Hard Feelings” on June 23, it’s nevertheless noteworthy the adult comedy has been much more rare than it has in the past, at least in terms of a theatrical release. Many of them have instead gone straight to streaming and found much success there. That means there should be a healthy market for “Joy Ride,” given that fans of the genre haven’t had much in terms of quantity. “Joy Ride” follows four Asian-American friends traveling in search of one of their birth mothers, with many shenanigans happening along the way. The movie is directed by Adele Lim, who was a part of the writing team for both “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Raya and the Last Dragons,” and stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Sabrina Wu as the four friends. Also helping the film out is the very strong initial reaction. The 91 percent Rotten Tomatoes score as of this post suggests that it’s a great crowd pleaser and that should help word of mouth. As a comparison, it’s fellow comedy “No Hard Feelings” opened to $15 million, although that was boosted by the star power of Jennifer Lawrence.   

July 14 – 16 

Paramount's "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"

Opening on Wednesday, July 12, most likely in an effort to keep as many IMAX screens as possible before Oppenheimer steals most of them away, is the next major summer tentpole, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. This is perhaps among the final wave of films that was directly impacted by COVID. Word on the street early on was that this two part “Dead Reckoning” story was to be filmed back-to-back, with Part One set for a July 2021 release and Part Two set for an August 2022 release. Filming for Part One began in February 2020, which was obviously immediately cut short. Instead of taking the route of rushing to film and release as soon as possible, the production team took the route of “Top Gun: Maverick” in patiently waiting for the right moment. Three years later, the movie is finally being released, with Part Two currently scheduled for next summer. Patience is looking to pay off as not only is this particular franchise continued to get more and more popular over time, with the 2018 release of “Fallout” finding huge success, but “Dead Reckoning” is also bound to get a bump due to the massive success of last year’s aforementioned “Top Gun: Maverick,” which not only made $1.48 billion worldwide, $718 million of that coming domestically, but was also a huge awards contender after being universally praised by pretty much everyone.    

“Dead Reckoning Part One” obviously sees Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt, but also sees Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg all return as well, with Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Cary Elwes being among the new additions. Director Christopher McQuarrie, who directed both “Rogue Nation” and “Fallout,” is also returning as director for both Part One and Part Two. As for its box office comparison this weekend, “Rogue Nation” opened to $55.5 million in 2015, while “Fallout” opened to $61.2 million. So that’s the previous bar set by the franchise. How much will the massive success of “Top Gun: Maverick” boost that? “Maverick” opened to $126.7 million last year. “Dead Reckoning” is not likely to get that high, nor is it fair to expect it to replicate that movie’s success, but it should manage to open higher than “Fallout,” with the other note being that the Wednesday opening is likely to mute the traditional 3-day numbers, with it’s opening being spread out over those five days. All things noted, Box Office Pro has it pegged at a $65-75 million range for its opening. As of this posting, initial critical reactions have begun to come out and it is sitting at a very strong 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after 119 reviews. From the note to start this post, if you make a good movie, people will generally show up. And if audiences like this movie as much as critics are, then this is in for a very healthy run throughout the rest of the summer. 

One other quick note on this weekend is that Crunchyroll will be releasing the anime film Pscyho-Pass Providence this weekend. These anime films are always a bit of a wildcard. Sometimes you’ll get a situation like “One Piece Film: Red” opening to $9.3 million in November 2022 or “Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village” opening to $10.1 million in March of this year. Other times will be like two of the other releases this year, “The Time That I Got Reincarnated as a Smile: Scarlet Bond” opening to $1.5 million from 1,473 theaters in January or “Sword Art Online” opening to $607,000 from 892 theaters in February. How popular is the “Psycho-Pass” anime? Well, the initial run had three seasons, beginning in 2012. It’s also had three movies released since then, none of which have had a domestic release. So “Providence” will be a first for the franchise in that manner as they celebrate the 10th anniversary. There’s also been a few mangas, novels, and video games. The release will obviously be overshadowed by “Dead Reckoning,” but its niche audience could show up as well.

July 21 – 23

Warner Bros.' "Barbie" and Universal's "Oppenheimer"

The third weekend of the month has been potentially one of the buzziest weekends of recent memory as two very different movies that can most definitely coexist will go head to head in a fated duel. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” vs. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” The online chatter for this weekend has been so strong that “Barbenheimer” t-shirts have been made and sold. The likely winner of this epic duel? 

You guessed it. Greta Gerwig’s live action adaptation of Barbie. It’s Barbie’s World and we’re all just living in it. As a writer and actress, Greta Gerwig has been around the indie scene for quite some time, going back to 2006. As a director, she came on strong with “Lady Bird” in 2017, which got five Oscar nominations. She followed that up in 2019 with her adaption of “Little Women,” which got six Oscar nominations. Both movies were nominated for best picture and screenplay, while Gerwig got a directing nomination for “Lady Bird.” So naturally it makes sense for her to follow that up by doing a live-action “Barbie” movie. But hey, when you’ve gained that much notoriety, you have more freedom in Hollywood to do what you want. And if Greta wants to do “Barbie,” then we let Greta do “Barbie.” She quite literally dragged her partner Noah Baumbach on against his will to help write, who himself has had quite the prestigious career with indie films such as “The Squid and the Whale,” “Frances Ha” and “Marriage Story.” The Hollywood power couple now combine their forces together to make the whole world excited to see a live-action Barbie movie.

Starring as Barbie in what might be the perfect casting choice is Margot Robbie, with Ryan Gosling co-starring as Ken. But there’s also a lot of other Barbies and Kens in the Barbie World, with Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Sharon Rooney, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, Ana Cruz Kayne, and Rita Arya being among the actresses playing different variations of Barbie, while Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and John Cena as different Kens. Not that one needs a plot for a Barbie movie, but the plot sees Margot’s Barbie suffering an existential crisis where she journey’s into the human world with Gosling’s Ken to learn what “real life” is like. That world has Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel and America Ferrera as a Mattel employee named Gloria who helps Barbie and Ken. Helen Mirren is the narrator of the movie. So yeah, everyone in Hollywood got on board for “Barbie.” Given how unique this movie is, there’s not really a direct box office comparison, but Box Office Pro currently has it opening in the $65-90 million range. If the response to this movie is as great as the advertising is leading people to believe, that could be even higher. I’ve seen projections as high as $80-100 million from different sources. So this is set to be quite the event.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is certainly not going to be left completely in the dust, though. The movie stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist who is often credited as the father of the atomic bomb. The movie is telling his story of the role he had in developing these nuclear weapons that of course were used later in August 1945 in the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. This movie seemingly has Christopher Nolan moving away from his huge, mainstream blockbusters like “Inception,” “Interstellar,” and “Tenet” and at least temporarily going back to his roots when he did movies like “Memento” and “Insomnia,” movies that are more psychologically grounded and adult-targeted. In fact, it’s his first R-rated film he’s directed since “Insomnia” back in 2002. That combined with the three-hour run time and the heavy subject matter will likely make this less of a huge summer opening and more of a long-term play with excellent staying power, assuming that the response to the film is positive. “Barbie” is likely to win the weekend, but “Oppenheimer” is likely to have the last laugh when all is said and done, especially if it manages to be a huge awards player. That said, Box Office Pro still has it opening in the $45-57 million range, which would put it in the realm of Nolan’s last non-COVID release, that being the $50.5 million opening of “Dunkirk” in July 2017. In fact, also in that range, “Interstellar” opened to $47.5 million in November 2014, while “Inception” opened to $62.8 million in July 2010. “Tenet” only opened to $20 million, but that was during COVID in September 2020, perhaps an unwise choice in hindsight.

July 28 – 30 

Disney's "Haunted Mansion"

After what is certainly poised to be a grand, epic weekend, with the winner likely to take a second weekend crown in this final week, Disney is nevertheless entering themselves into the ring with their remake of Haunted Mansion. The first “Haunted Mansion” came out in 2003 and was a decent hit that year. Starring Eddie Murphy it opened to $24.3 million, finishing with $75.8 million domestically and $155.8 million worldwide on a reported $90 million budget. While this 2023 movie is essentially a remake of that movie, it’s probably more accurately described as a second adaptation of the popular Disney theme park attraction, located at Disneyland, Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland. Movies based on rides don’t always work out, but it certainly did with “Pirates of the Caribbean” and every once in a while Disney attempts to see if they can replicate that success with other ride to movie adaptations. This certainly has the elements to work as a more family oriented horror/comedy. The haunted house subgenre of horror has existed ever since horror has existed, essentially. So it’s not too crazy of a stretch. The movie is directed by Justin Simien and has a cast that’s headlined by LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, and Rosario Dawson. The biggest question is why was this not released closer to Halloween instead of in the middle of the summer? It’s projected to earn around the same as the 2003 movie in its opening, which probably wouldn’t be considered a success given that we’re 20 years later. You would think that a September or October release would’ve given it a boost as opposed to being in the shadow of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”    

That’s mostly it for the weekend, and the month for that matter. But there is two other smaller films scheduled for a wide release on this weekend worth quickly mentioned. One of them is actually another horror film, that being A24’s Talk to Me. Although this is probably the opposite of “Haunted Mansion” as it’s an adult-targeted supernatural horror film that’s most definitely not for families. The movie follows a group of friends who discover how to conjure spirits using a certain embalmed hand. You grab the hand and say “talk to me.” Given the genre, this of course goes from a fun thrill to a deadly threat. While this sounds like things we’ve seen before, the movie had its debut already, initially at the Adelaide Film Festival in Australia in October 2022, given that Australia is its country of origin, then at both the Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest Film Festival in January and March of this year, respectively. And the reaction has been very positive. After 62 reviews, it has a 97 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie was directed by Danny and Michael Philippou, two brothers who run the RackaRacka YouTube channel. Best case scenario would be an opening like last year’s “Smile” or “The Black Phone,” both of which opened just over $20 million. But that would depend on how heavy A24 decides to push their campaign and how wide they actually release it.

The other smaller release is another anime film, this time being GKIDS’ release of The First Slam Dunk. See my comments above on “Psycho-Pass Providence” on how anime can be a wild card at the domestic box office. Another comparison in this instance might be the movie “Suzume” from this April, which had already made over $300 million at the international box office before then opening to $5 million here domestically. I mention that because “The First Slam Dunk” is a movie that’s already made $262 million at the international box office, most of that coming from China, Japan, and South Korea beginning at the end of last year. It also won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the year. So its domestic launch is irrelevant. But nevertheless it’s an anime sports film based on the “Slam Dunk” manga that ran from 1990 to 1996. It follows the Shohoku High School basketball team challenging the inter-high basketball champions, the Sannoh School. Central to the story is the character named Ryota Miyagi, the point guard of the team whose older brother of three years inspired him to play basketball.

Movie Preview: June 2023

We are well underway with summer 2023 at the box office as May kicked off what was a fairly healthy start to the summer. Sure, in comparing calendar grosses, we still haven’t quite hit the levels of the pre-COVID summer box office that saw eight Mays cross over $1 billion total at the domestic box office between 2009 and 2019. In comparison, May 2023 settled in with $773.9 million, just below May 2022’s $785.9 million total. Although in fairness, much of that was Hollywood staying mostly clear of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” before finishing with the one-two punch of “Fast X” and “The Little Mermaid” in the last two weekends. But all things considered, not bad at all. “Guardians 3” did great business, especially when looking at weekend holds that showed very positive word of mouth, while “Fast X” and “The Little Mermaid” got off to perfectly fine starts.

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

Sony Animation’s "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"

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.

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

Paramount's "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts"

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.

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

Warner Bros.' "The Flash"

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.

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

Sony Pictures' "No Hard Feelings"

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.

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

Walt Disney's "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"

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.”

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.

Movie Preview: May 2023

The summer movie season at the box office is officially upon us and it’s time to take a look at month one of four. Sure, actual summer doesn’t start until June 21 if you’re following the summer solstice via the Astronomical seasons or simply the beginning of June if you’re following the Meteorological seasons, but the Hollywood tradition is to begin a month early in May and we’re already underway with Marvel kicking it off with their latest superhero film, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” so we’ll take a look at that and the other May releases. At initial glance, June is looking like the most crowded month of the summer, but May still has some huge titles to talk about.

Although if you look at it from a financial prospective, it would almost look like summer has already begun at the box office as “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has completely dominated the box office, crushing all sorts of animated movie records on its way to already earning over $1 billion worldwide and over $500 million domestically in just the month of April, making for the highest grossing April on record outside the two Aprils that had “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” on the calendar, starting the summer season a week early. So these blockbusters on schedule for this summer will hopefully look to continue the momentum of “Mario” and add to the continued success and theatrical recovery of the box office.

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are subject to change.

May 5 – 7

Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"

As previously mentioned, it is tradition to start the summer movie season off with the next big Marvel movie. This has been the case with very few exceptions for as long as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has existed, dating back, of course, to May 2008 with “Iron Man.” This year it’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that kicks the summer off. It’s been six years since “Guardians 2” kicked off summer season of 2017 with $146.5 million. However, with how the MCU is structured, the characters have remained relevant in this six years between films, showing up in several places, specifically having major roles in “Infinity War” and “Endgame.” In their first adventure together following “Endgame,” the plot centers around Rocket Raccoon and his past history with the villainous presence of The High Evolutionary, as played by Chuckwudi Iwuji. The rest of the Guardians are trying to save Rocket and get caught up in the web of The High Evolutionary’s current schemes.

While the characters in the film have the ability to continue to show up in future Marvel projects, including whatever “Avengers” film is on the docket, James Gunn will not be returning for a “Guardians 4” as he is off to lead the future of DC. The likelihood of Marvel attempting a fourth movie with a different director seems slim, so this is essentially written as the swan song or final ride for this sub-franchise in the MCU, which should help boost interest.

Financially speaking, prior to the current estimates from the weekend being released, I would’ve looked at the previous Marvel films to gauge where “Guardians 3” might open to. Outside looking at that $146.5 million opening of “Guardians 2,” the previous four films opened with the following: “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” with $187.4 million, “Thor: Love and Thunder” with $144.2 million, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” with $181.3 million, and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with $106.1 million. So despite grumblings from fans that have made Marvel seem more vulnerable than in the past, people have still showed up and thus I would’ve said that a $150 million opening would be in the cards. However, as I type this on Saturday, Thursday night preview and Friday opening day totals have been more in line with “Quantumania.” So maybe this is a tad bit lower than expected, but it still continues the trend of $100 million openings for the MCU, which if you add in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” is at five in a row, looking to be six with “Guardians 3.”

While most audiences will be heading out to see “Guardians 3,” there is one other option in regards to new releases. Sony’s Love Again has hit about 2,700 theaters, although it opened in fourth place on Friday, behind the fifth weekend of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the third weekend of “Evil Dead Rise.” With a debut at or below $3 million, “Love Again” is a rom-com about a woman who sends texts to the phone number of her fiancé who has passed away to help ease the pain and winds up forming a connection with the man who the number has been reassigned to. The movie stars Priyanka Chopra Jones and Sam Heughan in the lead roles, as well as Céline Dion as a fictional version of herself, as the man receiving the texts is a journalist who goes to Céline for advice after getting the assignment of writing a feature about her. Céline has written five new songs for the film while also having six of her current songs woven in as well. The movie is based on the 2016 German film “SMS für Dich,” which itself is based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Sofie Cramer.

May 12 – 14

Focus Features' "Book Club: The Next Chapter"

The second weekend of May will mostly dominated by the second weekend of “Guardians 3.” Before getting to the long list of smaller releases, allow me to state real quick that it’ll be curious to watch how much “Guardians 3” will fall. While Marvel is on a good stream of high openings, they’re also on a streak of extra sharp falls in their second weekends, most falling 60 percent or more. After opening to $106.1 million, “Quantumania” earlier this year fell nearly 70 percent in its second weekend with just $31.9 million. It’s worth pointing out, though, that “Guardians 3” currently has an audience score of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with an A on CinemaScore. That means word of mouth should be pretty strong with how opening weekend audiences have responded. Either way it’ll win the box office in its second weekend, but will positive word of mouth help it hold better than the other recent Marvel films?

Opening in a very distant second place will be Book Club: The Next Chapter. This movie is a sequel to the 2018 movie “Book Club,” which starred Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen as a group of older friends whose lives changed after reading “50 Shades of Grey.” You may or may not have heard or seen that movie, but it was actually quite the sleeper hit back in summer of 2018, providing counter-programming to “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Deadpool 2” that month. It only opened to $13.6 million, but it held remarkably well, finishing with over five times it’s opening weekend at $68.6 million domestically and crossing $100 million worldwide. So now all the ladies are back and they’re off on a European vacation together as one of the ladies is now engaged. Whether or not the movie is able to repeat the feat of its predecessor is yet to be seen, but it is at least looking to open in about the same range. Similarly themed and cast, while sharing Jane Fonda as a cast member, “80 for Brady” also opened to $12.7 million earlier this year.

Outside “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” there are four other smaller films scheduled for a wide release that are looking to fight for some sort of positioning in the top 10 in whatever various levels of wide release they’re actually being put in. I’m not sure exactly how they’re going to stack together, but the first one I’m bringing up is Knights of the Zodiac, titled in Japan as “Saint Seiya: The Beginning,” as this is a live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga series “Saint Seiya,” which was released between 1986 and 1990 and had 28 volumes. Released right along with that was a 114-episode anime TV series released in Japan from 1986 to 1989, with a handful of other smaller movies and shows since then. And while anime has grown in popularity recently, live-action adaptations of anime have mostly not been received well and this one appears to be no different. It got released in a handful of countries, Japan included, back in April and so far has a 4.7 score out of 10 on IMDb, which is not a good early sign.

Next up is the directorial debut of actor Charlie Day with Fool’s Paradise. Charlie Day is currently having success as a part of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as the voice of Luigi, but he’s been around the block for a while, perhaps most known for playing the character Charlie Kelly in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” His first step into the directorial chair has been in the works since 2018 and stars himself in the lead role as a mute man just released from a mental health facility who gets found by a publicist due to him looking just like a method actor who won’t leave his trailer. With the help of a powerful producer, this publicist helps this mute man become quite the big celebrity, which leads him on quite the journey. Starring with Day is a huge party of actors that includes Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, Jason Bateman, Common, the late Ray Liotta, and John Malkovich.

The last two I was a bit unsure of due to the distributor, so I’m not sure how big of a release they are, but I can at least verify that the Ben Affleck sci-fi crime thriller Hypnotic at least exists. It was released at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March and is directed by Robert Rodriguez, with Affleck as the lead star. Based on the trailer, it looks like potentially quite the trip, initially seeming straightforward as a crime thriller with Affleck playing a police detective whose life has fallen apart following the abduction of his 7-year-old daughter. But then a mysterious man shows up and things start to get weirder and trippier. In an interview with Collider back in 2021, Rodriguez said that he started writing the movie way back in 2002 and said it’s like a Hitchcock thriller on steroids. The hang-up I speak of is that it’s distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, a distribution company I’ve never heard of. On their website, they claim to have been around since 2012, but looking through their filmography it appears that they’ve mostly released smaller European films. This is their first U.S. theatrical released, so exactly what they’re planning and how many theaters is something I guess we’ll find out.

Last and possibly least on the weekend is the smaller animated film Rally Road Racers. This is more of a smaller, independently made animated film rather than something coming from a big studio and is released by Viva Kids and helped produced by a few other production companies that are hard to get information on. The trailer, which was only released a few weeks ago, has just 10,000 views and looks like not a very high quality film. But nevertheless they did convince both J.K. Simmons and John Cleese to voice roles. And if it happens to be playing around you and your kids want to get their Fast and Furious kick in, without actually seeing the next movie we’ll be talking about this is a story about a slow moving mammal who wages a bet to be part of a big four-day race to save his grandmother’s house. It’s kind of a “Tortoise and the Hare” meets “Fast and Furious” sort of thing, but for really young kids.

May 19 – 21

Universal's "Fast X"

After a weekend of a bunch of smaller films that is basically Hollywood giving Marvel some space, Hollywood is back in the third weekend with their next big blockbuster, Fast X. And yeah, this is the only film currently scheduled for a wide release, so Vin Diesel and company will have theaters all to themselves. To the uninitiated it might seem a bit mind-blowing as to how a simple street racing movie has created a franchise that has now endured over 20 years and 11 movies – 10 in the main saga and one spin-off. But yeah, this franchise has been on quite the journey, adding just about every Hollywood actor along the way and even making it to space in the most recent one. But, believe it or not, they might be finally coming to end? At least that’s the tagline here. “The end of the road begins.” The plan for a while has been to make the 10th and 11th film a two-part finale, with the 11th film planned for a 2025 release. Although it seems a bit doubtful that they’ll let this franchise completely go. It seems likely that they’ll at least keep it going with various spin-offs, but we’ll see.

The main conflict involves the addition of Jason Momoa joining the fun as the villain of the film, playing the character of Dante Reyes, the son of drug lord Hernan Reyes from “Fast Five.” Dante is seeking revenge against Dom and crew for the death of his father Hernan. And by the looks of it, Jason Momoa seems like he’s relishing his opportunity to be the villain in this movie.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle of the movie is the budget, which is reported to be a massive $340 million, making this one of the most expensive movies ever made. Not helping is the diminishing returns of the franchise. “F9” opened to $70 million, making $173 million domestically, which is closer to the spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw” than “The Fate of the Furious,” which opened to $98 million and made $225 million domestically. But the domestic numbers are almost irrelevant as this is a worldwide franchise. The seventh and eighth films were both $1 billion films, while “Hobbs & Shaw” and “F9” both made over $700 million. Given the budget, Universal is probably hoping “Fast X” goes back to being a $1 billion film, in which case they can probably blame the pandemic for “F9” not doing quite as well. But either way, it’s probably fine. They just got a tad bit carried away with the money thing.

May 26 – 29

Disney's "The Little Mermaid"

The fourth and final weekend of May is the four-day Memorial Day weekend. And although this is another busy weekend with five films, there’s really only one main event and that’s Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Yep, laugh and roll your eyes all you want, but Disney seems to be basing their decisions with these constant live-action remakes on their bank account and box office receipts rather than social media reaction. And despite the whining and constant complaining, people keep showing up to see these movies, so Disney keeps to be putting them out. And although not all of them have been massive hits, and several recent ones have gone straight to Disney+, the three that have scored huge are the three Disney Renaissance films, “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” So it makes perfect sense for “The Little Mermaid” to be up next, again from a financial vantage point. And although they’ve maybe put less effort into a few of the Disney+ movies, it seems like they’ve realized that “The Little Mermaid” is their big money maker, so they went all out in at least attempting to make this a big, popular summer blockbuster.

No need to describe what “The Little Mermaid” is, especially since Disney doesn’t really stray from the idea of doing mostly carbon-copy remakes, but this is directed by Rob Marshall, director of the best picture winning musical “Chicago,” as well as two other big Disney musicals in “Into the Woods” and “Mary Poppins Returns.” Lin-Manuel Miranda is back with Disney getting his paycheck for making music for them. Singer and actress Halle Bailey, perhaps most known for being one half of the musical duo Chloe x Halle, is Ariel. Highlights from the rest of the cast include Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Jonah Hauer King as Prince Eric, and Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, and Awkwafina voicing some of the animal friends. Perhaps the best financial comparison is “Aladdin” also opening on Memorial Day weekend in 2019. It opened to $91.5 million over the 3-day and $116.8 million over the 4-day. It went onto make $355.6 million domestically and $1.046 billion worldwide.

As far as the other four releases from this weekend, Kandahar is another Gerard Butler action film. This time Butler plays an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in Afghanistan and has to fight his way out with his Afghan translator when his identity is leaked. The easy box office comparison here is “Plane” from this year, another Gerard Butler action film that opened to $10.3 million.

About My Father is a comedy that stars Sebastian Maniscalco as himself in a movie loosely based on his actual life, where he tells his his immigrant father Salvo, played by Robert De Niro, that he plans on proposing to his girlfriend. After which, Salvo insists on joining them for a weekend with her parents. The movie is directed by Laura Terruso from a screenplay written by Maniscalco and Austen Earl.

Also starring in a movie based on his own life experiences is Bert Kreischer playing himself in The Machine. The premise is Kreischer and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago while drunk on a college semester abroad in Russia. The story revolves around how he inadvertently helped the Russian mafia rob a train while on this college trip, which earned him the nickname “The Machine.” Kreischer is a stand-up comedian and podcaster and this movie is based on a 2016 comedy routine that he told about this story. Starring along with Kreischer is Mark Hamill playing his father.

And finally, A24 will be releasing the Sundance film You Hurt My Feelings. This is written and directed by Nicole Holofcener and is comedy-drama starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an author named Beth who overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest novel when he told her that he thought it was great. A couple of pull quote the trailer uses from Sundance reviews is that the movie is “a hilarious look at the little white lies we tell our loved ones” (Consequence Film) and “a story about how love means always having to say you’re sorry” (Slate).

So yeah, as mentioned, “The Little Mermaid” is the biggest attraction of the weekend, but these other four films will at least provide options to those who maybe are less enthused about seeing another carbon copy remake of a Disney animated film.

Movie Preview: April 2023

It was a very successful March for the box office, so long as you’re not DC. But the other major franchise films that opened – “Creed III,” “Scream VI,” and “John Wick: Chapter 4” – all had franchise high openings. The jury is still out on the new attempted franchise in “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” but it at least opened higher than was expected after getting positive reviews across the board. This definitely made things feel like an early summer month at the box office, which has often been the case for March.

Normally April ends up being the calm before the storm. The quiet month in between two blockbuster filled months via March and May. But Mario said we’re having none of that and might singlehandedly push the month to being as big as its two neighboring months. More on that in a second. The rest of the month’s releases will make this about par for the course, though. So not a ton of help for Mario in terms of big releases. But as also the case with April, there’s a lot to talk about in terms of quantity. Whether or not many humans will be particularly interested in comparison is yet to be seen. But nevertheless we will discuss the options.

Noting that the weekend of March 31 – April 2 was covered in my March preview a month ago, we’re only one weekend behind here. So we’ll recap what just happened this past week, while previewing the upcoming three. 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.

April 7 – 9

Illumination's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie "

We live in an era where studios are looking frantically for the next big movie franchise to cash in on. And while many of these mines of content have been explored quite a bit, multiple times over in certain cases, there is one mine that had almost not been touched. Nintendo. For the record, this was not out of a lack of desire from studios, but rather came from a stingy stance on the side of Nintendo themselves. But the gate has now been opened and Universal and Illumination may have struck absolute gold. We’re of course talking about The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which, if you haven’t heard the news, just experienced what one might call cinema-changing box office revenue. I don’t need to inform you that this movie exists or tell you anything about what it’s about. The numbers say you were well aware and probably have already seen it at this point. But nevertheless, the staggering opening definitely deserves a bit more reflection on what it means than I might normally give.

Here’s the numbers. After opening on Wednesday, April 5, “Super Mario Bros.” opened with a 5-day total of $204.6 million, with $146.4 million of that coming on the traditional 3-day opening.

In regards to expectations, or at the least what I was expecting heading in, I knew very well that this had a lot of buzz going into it and would do very well, especially given that Illumination has an excellent track record, combined with the fact that they were adapting one of the most popular fictional characters ever. I was looking at the highest opening weekend ever for Illumination, which was “Minions” in 2015 with $115.7 million. There were two other instances where Illumination also opened an animated movie above $100 million and that was “Minions: The Rise of Gru” last year with $107.0 million and “The Secret Life of Pets” in 2016 with $104.4 million. So conceivably it would make perfect sense for “Mario” to hit somewhere in that range. But the fact that it opened on a Wednesday made me wonder if its box office would be a bit more spread out, which often happens for movies getting a 5-day weekend. Thus I had my eye on “Despicable Me 2,” which also opened on a Wednesday, making $84.2 over the traditional 3-day weekend, but $143.1 million over the 5-day weekend. And a tad bit for inflation since 2013 and somewhere around $100 million for the 3-day made sense.

Box Office Pro’s official projection leading into Wednesday of last week was $112 million for the 3-day and $164 million for the 5-day. So you can imagine the shock that was experienced as numbers started to roll in and they were blowing everything out of the water, even the most generous of expectations.

Obviously looking at numbers, this was the highest opening weekend for Illumination with just that 3-day total. But on a broader spectrum, $146.4 million is the second highest opening weekend for any animated film, behind only the $182.7 million of “Incredibles 2.” It would be third if you counted the 2019 “Lion King” remake as animated, but I personally do not. It’s not perfectly fair to compare worldwide openings, in my opinion, because not all movies open in the same set of countries, but nevertheless it’s definitely worth noting that “Mario” opened with a worldwide total of $377.6 million, which is the biggest opening ever for an animated movie, besting “Frozen II,” which opened to $358.5 million. And, the final notable number before I move on, “Mario” is now the highest grossing video game adaptation at the domestic box office. That’s not a comparison of opening weekends, but final domestic totals. Yes, the $204.6 million in five days is more than “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” the previous record holder, did in its entire run - $190.8 million.

And the crazy thing is, animated movies directed at family audiences often have great holds as parents with kids don’t always rush out opening weekend. Maybe they did in this instance, but this has a chance to wind up as the highest grossing movie of 2023, or at least close to it. The final domestic total of “Incredibles 2” was $608.6 million. And given that “Mario” got an A on CinemaScore and a 96 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes means that fans are loving it. And that bodes well for its box office prospects, especially since it has no direct competition all month. The closest competition is a month away with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” on May 5. And even that is not the exact same target audience.

All of this also means that you’ll be seeing a lot more of Nintendo in the future, whether that be all from Illumination or if Nintendo decides to spread the love more is yet to be seen. But it’ll happen. And other studios that don’t get Nintendo directly will try their hardest to replicate this in any way they can. Yes, video game adaptations happen a lot, but like “The Avengers” in 2012 sparked a new wave of superhero films across the board, “Mario” is certain to do the same with video game adaptations.

Amazon's "AIR"

Oh? There were two other movies that were given a wide release this past weekend?

We’ll definitely be more “normal” in my analysis and projections for the rest of this post, but nevertheless on its own scale, the Ben Afflect directed AIR also had a solid showing. Sure, “Mario” probably made more in a few hours than “AIR” did in its entire weekend, but the $14.5 million debut in third place was above the $10-12 million it was expected to do. It also opened on Wednesday April 5, making $20.2 million over the 5-day. Since you may be less familiar with this than with “Mario,” the story here follows Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro and Ben Affleck as Phil Knight as the two Nike businessmen push hard to sign Michael Jordan to a shoe deal prior to his rookie year in 1984. Spoiler alert, it worked. Air Jordans are a shoe that exist. And the gamble paid off Jordan being considered the greatest to ever play. But this is all about the journey of how they got there.

The response here has been positive enough that this would definitely feel like an Oscar contender had it come out at the end of the year. But given that our most recent two best picture winners were both from the first part of the year, maybe there’s a new trend brewing that may give Affleck and co. a chance with “AIR”?

The third movie of the weekend wasn’t as lucky as the previous two. Opening down in 10th place from 819 theaters, with $570,512 was Paint. Sure, less theaters obviously makes for less box office, but a per theater average of $697 is not good when you at least want that to be in the couple thousand range. The movie is… NOT a Bob Ross biopic, but is at least aimed to be a parody of sorts of one. Owen Wilson stars as a fictional painter named Carl Nargle with a giant afro and a very popular painting show. He seemingly has it all going for him until a younger painter starts to steal his spotlight. Outside of being largely ignored by audiences in the theaters it was playing in, its 32 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 56 percent from audiences seems to say those who saw won’t help its word of mouth. This might be gone in record time and possibly on streaming somewhere soon.

April 14 – 16

Universal's "Renfield"

While the second weekend of “Mario” may be positioned to earn as much in weekend No. 2 as some predicted it would in its opening weekend, there are a large handful of films that will be fighting for positioning somewhere in the top five or top 10. Leading the way will likely by Renfield, the latest vehicle in the more recent Nicolas Cage renaissance. Cage has been acting since the 80s and even got an Oscar win under his belt in the mid-90s from “Leaving Las Vegas,” so he’s always been popular to a degree, but after the well-received dramatic role in “Pig” in 2021, followed by the super Nic Cage meta comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” he’s definitely on the upper swing once again. And “Nicolas Cage plays Dracula in a movie” might be the only sentence needed to get his fans out once again. Perhaps the most genius play following “Massive Talent.” Despite the positive reaction from fans, “Massive Talent” opened to just $7.1 million, finishing with $20.3 million. So “Renfield” might not blow the doors off the gates, but positive buzz around Cage and solid early reviews that are just now coming out as I type this should help this to be a decent moderate hit.

The other film making the most buzz of the new releases, at least in terms of an actual advertising push, is the horror film The Pope’s Exorcist. The bigger horror film of the month will come out next weekend, but nevertheless what makes this particular one slightly more than just your traditional throwaway horror film is that it stars Russell Crowe in the lead role. Crowe plays Father Gabriele Amorth, an actual Italian Catholic priest, ordained in 1954 and appointed an exorcist in 1986. In 1990 he founded the International Association of Exorcists along with five others and by 2013 he made the claim of having performed 160,000 exorcisms in his career, counted by each individual prayer or ritual, not the number of victims. The movie is based on his two memoirs he wrote and specifically follows his investigation of the possession of a young boy that results in him uncovering an old conspiracy that the Vatican has apparently tried to cover up. Again, this is not the horror film of the month that is likely to make much of a dent, but these low budget horror films often don’t need much, anyways.

Hoping to play spoiler on the weekend is the anime Suzume. This comes from director Makoto Shinkai, who is notable for directing the films “Your Name.” and “Weathering with You,” the former of which became quite the buzzy phenomenon in 2016, at least on the international scale where it earned $349.7 million worldwide, only about $5 million of which came from the domestic box office. “Weathering with You” followed that up with $189 million worldwide and $8 million domestically in 2019. Following suit, “Suzume” has already earned $132.2 million worldwide after beginning its worldwide rollout back in November 2022. So yeah, this director’s movies haven’t done much on the domestic side of things, but it’s definitely put his name on the map and fans of anime will certainly be curious about his next outing, which is a bit of a fantasy/action adventure following a girl named Suzume who meets a mysterious young man who is opening and closing that are causing disasters all over Japan.

Yes, there are three other films also scheduled for some sort of wide release, although how big of a wide release they are is something we’ll find out in a few days. They might be smaller releases of a few hundred or close to a thousand. Nevertheless, Sweetwater sees lesser known actor Everett Osborne star as Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, who was the first African American to sign an NBA contract. Cary Elwes and Richard Dreyfuss are in supporting roles. Mafia Mamma is an action/comedy starring Toni Collette as an American mom who inherits her grandfather’s mafia empire in Italy. And finally, Nefarious is horror/thriller about a serial killer who, on the day of his scheduled execution, gets a psychiatric evaluation where he claims he is a demon and also claims that the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own. Six smaller movies opening on one weekend means that some of these will be left in the dust in hopes to maybe gain a new life on streaming in the future.

April 21 – 23

Warner Bros.' "Evil Dead Rise" 

The horror film in late April that looks like it actually might have a strong life to it is Evil Dead Rise. This is the return of the Evil Dead franchise, which began in 1981 with “The Evil Dead,” which actually only grossed $2.4 million in the United States, but has since become one of the biggest cult classics and is often thought of as one of the best horror films ever made. The movie was directed by Sam Raimi, long before his Spider-Man fame. Raimi also directed both of the original sequels, “The Evil Dead II” in 1987 and “Army of Darkness” in 1992. Fast forward 20 years and in 2013 there was a reboot titled “Evil Dead” and a TV series that ran from 2015 to 2018 called “Ash vs Evil Dead.” So this month’s “Evil Dead Rise” will be the fifth film in the franchise and is directed by Lee Cronin, who was reportedly hand-picked by Raimi to write and direct this film, which is about the reunion of two sisters that is cut short when they find a strange book in one of their apartments that unleashes flesh-possessing demons. So far so good with this sequel as it debuted to positive reaction the South by Southwest film festival in March and currently holds a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

A second Guy Ritchie film in two months will hit theaters and yes, this one has his name in the title to remind people it’s his movie. That is Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, which I will refer to simply as “The Covenant” from here on out. In March, “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” was released after quite the wild journey to finally hitting theaters, which resulted in a big flat dud, opening to just $3.1 million and currently standing at $6.5 million. Obviously Ritchie will be hoping “The Covenant” will at least do a little better than that. And even though it has his name in the title, some have pointed out that it almost looks like the least Guy Ritchie film, who is known for movies such as “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” before directing the Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” films. “The Covenant” is, rather, a straight up war film starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a U.S. Army sergeant who was saved by an Afghan interpreter following an ambush. After learning that said interpreter was not given safe passage to America, he is headed back to the war zone to repay the debt and retrieve him and his family.

Rounding out the weekend are two other smaller films. First up is Chevalier, a festival film that began at the Toronto International Film Festival last September and has bounced around to other various festivals before landing in traditional release here in April. This is based on the life of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who lived in France in the late 1700s, around the time of the French Revolution, and was the illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner. He rose to improbable heights as a composer before then falling out of favor due to an ill-fated love affair. The other film is Beau is Afraid, which might actually be in more of a limited release at this time – reporting is mixed on how big of a release it will have this weekend. But this is the third feature-length film for director Ari Aster, whose previous two films are “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” two wildly divisive and intense horror films. “Beau is Afraid” follows Joaquin Phoenix as an anxiety-ridden man named Beau who embarks on a journey home after his mother dies. Early reviews just coming out seem to reflect this being another crazy journey of a film for Ari Aster, which at the very least might spark curiosity from those who checked out his previous two films.

April 28 – 30

Sony Pictures' "Big George Foreman"

We finish the month off on perhaps one of the more precarious weekends of the year, the weekend before the beginning of Hollywood’s summer movie season, which will this time around be kicked off with Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” Opening in the shadow of that might not be the greatest idea, but nevertheless a movie with perhaps the largest subtitle I’ve seen will be giving it a go and that’s Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and a Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. And with that subtitle as more of a movie description, I almost want to call that good. “Future” heavyweight champion is a curious word choice, but this is nevertheless a biopic of the famous boxer George Foreman, who was also an entrepreneur, minister, and author. The entrepreneurial side obviously saw him find great success with the George Foreman grill, which very well could be the main reason some know his name. Foreman is played in the movie by actor Khris Davis and sees Forest Whitaker as a supporting character. Coming the month after “Creed III” found great success, this has a chance of being a decently timed movie if that genre success spills over.

Battling “George Foreman” on this weekend is a movie that is actually primed to come out on top based on presales and that is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This is based on a popular novel published in 1970 by Judy Blume. The protagonist is a sixth grader named Margaret who goes on her own journey of faith in a coming-of-age drama as one of her parents is Christian and the other is Jewish. Young Margaret is played by Abby Ryder Forston, while her parents are played by Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie, with Kathy Bates playing the grandma. Author Judy Blume has apparently had several offers for her book to be adapted that she has rejected. Finally winning the sweepstakes to write and direct was Kelly Fremon Craig, whose other directed movie was “Edge of Seventeen,” another highly praised coming-of-age drama. According to Box Office Pro, current presales reflect similarly to “Where the Crawdads Sing,” which opened to $17.3 million last summer.

Rounding out the month will be the war film Sisu. This is a Finnish film that is another film that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of last year, then debuted in its home country in January 2023. So its domestic release is a later than other countries and maybe not the highest priority for Lionsgate, the studio that purchased its domestic distribution rights. But nevertheless, the movie is set in Finnish Lapland during World War II and follows a gold prospector living on his own trying to find gold. When he is successful, he attempts to bring it to the nearest town, but is instead met by a Nazi platoon who attempt to attack him and take it for themselves, not knowing that the prospector was also a skilled fighter during a previous war, which leads to some brutal clashes.