Movie Preview: August 2023

Following what was seen as a disappointing June at the box office, the July box office, led by the massive Barbenheimer phenomenon, lit the summer on fire. In fairness to June, it did manage to be the year’s first billion dollar month and was led by the massive hit that was “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” so collectively as a whole it could still be considered a positive month. It was just stained by a string of underperforming blockbusters following “Spider-Verse” that led some to wonder if the general population was getting tired of the theatrical experience.

Nope. My general conclusion last month was that if you make a movie that people are excited about, that also gets great reaction, then people will show up. Maybe people just people weren’t that interested in “The Flash,” “Transformers” and “Indiana Jones.” Each of those were part of long-winded franchises that hadn’t had a great entry in quite some time, which would explain their disappointing performances. Compare that to “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two movies that were highly anticipated by audiences that both got great response from critics and audiences alike, and you have a great formula for success. It’s, of course, a very positive added bonus that the combined release date created the unique Barbenheimer phenomenon, which I definitely feel boosted both movies quite a bit. But I still think both movies would’ve still done well had they released separately. Make a good movie and people will show up.

As far as how big this ended up being? Well, if you look back at my July Preview, you would realize that “Barbie” making $93 million and “Oppenheimer” making $46.7 million was EXACTLY what I was expecting… for their opening weekends. But that’s how much both made in their SECOND weekend. “Barbie” opened to $162 million and “Oppenheimer” opened to $82.5 million. That’s an insane opening combo. I did a very detailed breakdown on my personal Facebook of how many records this set, so I won’t repeat myself here. Wander over there to see that post. But nevertheless, the two movies combining for nearly $250 million in their opening weekends helped set lots of records and pushed the overall month of July to a $1.328 billion, the highest grossing July since 2016.

The unfortunate consequence of this is that “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Haunted Mansion” were both swallowed up in this success. “Haunted Mansion” seemed doomed to fail, but the failure of “Dead Reckoning” is a peculiar one because it was set up for success. Popular franchise. Great critic reviews. Great audience reviews. Tom Cruise being hugely popular after “Top Gun: Maverick.” But the result was one of the worst entries in the franchise at the box office. Outside maybe the “Part One” label causing people to be less interested, this seems to come down to an unfortunate release timing, one in which you can’t really blame Paramount for because no one expected Barbenheimer to be as massive as it was.

What does this all mean for the month of August? Well, what it means is that we’re going to play a game of “what can dethrone ‘Barbie’ at the box office?” And, spoiler alert, I’m not so sure anything can. But let’s dive in and find out!  

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.

August 4 – 6

Paramount's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem"

Before we dive into the first of our two new releases this weekend, the baseline I’m establishing for this little game of ours comes from another movie that opened earlier this year. “Barbie” is a fairly unique movie with little to directly compare it to and while it’s not a direct apples-to-apples comparison, the stars have aligned in an interesting way that “Barbie” has followed an almost duplicate trajectory of our current top grossing movie of the year, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” “Barbie” opened to $162 million. “Mario” opened to $146.4 million, but that was muted a bit by it opening on a Wednesday. Its five day total, Wednesday through Sunday, was $204.6 million. “Barbie” had the advantage of opening in the summer, so higher totals on weekdays with school not in session than “Mario” in April, but nevertheless “Barbie” earned $214.1 million in its first five days. Both movies fell about 40 percent in weekend 2, “Barbie” slightly more, but they both wound up with nearly identical weekend results, “Barbie” earning $93.0 million and “Mario” earning $92.3 million.

If we make the prediction that “Barbie” continues to closely follow “Mario,” we note that “Mario” in weekend 3 fell just 35 percent to $59.9 million, with only “Evil Dead Rise” and “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” as competition, both of which were very different target audiences. So with that $60 million mark as our projected total for “Barbie,” is this the weekend it falls?

The first of our two competitors is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which actually gets a head start on the weekend, opening on Wednesday, August 2. In my calculations, this is the fourth attempt at starting up a new TMNT franchise cinematically. We had the live action trilogy in the 90s, the 2007 animated movie, and the two live-action Michael Bay produced movies in the 2010s. Added to that, of course, a long series of various comic books, TV shows, and video games, all of which began as a comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, released by Mirage Studios, in 1984. It was more or less a parody of various superhero comics at the time and has now blossomed into its own mega franchise. This latest version, “Mutant Mayhem” takes the characters back to animation, with an animation style that seems to take influence from the Spider-Verse films, which can be seen as a new era of animation where not everything is your traditional 3D, computer generated animation. The team behind the mayhem is Seth Rogen and Evan Golberg, who have collaborated on a lot of things on the writing and producing side of the game, from your long list of raunchy comedies that you might associate Seth Rogen with to various shows like “The Boys” and “Invincible.”

Rogen does lend his voice to the movie as well, as John Cena and him voice Rocksteady and Bebop, but he’s primarily been pushed as writer and producer of this, the trailers advertising, “From permanent teenager Seth Rogen.” While animation is often a team effort, the actual directors of this are Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears, Rowe being a co-director of “Mitchells vs. the Machines” and Spears having directed 20 episodes of Disney’s “Amphibia.” As far as our game of can it beat “Barbie”? Well, a $60 million debut is probably a bit on the high end here, especially with it opening on a Wednesday.  If you look at the six previous theatrically released TMNT movies and adjust for ticket price inflation, the original 1990 movie would clock in at $63.4 million ($25.4 million unadjusted) for its opening weekend and the 2014 Michael Bay produced movie would equal $84.5 million ($65.6 million unadjusted), so it has theoretically been done, but maybe the more apt comparison is the 2007 animated movie, which unadjusted opened to $24.3 million, which would equal $37.1 million adjusted. With great early reviews that should lead to positive word of mouth, while this probably won’t top “Barbie,” it could end up as its new second place running-mate throughout the rest of August.

The other movie opening this weekend is one that feels like it should’ve come out 2-3 years and that is The Meg 2: The Trench. While “Mutant Mayhem” will be primarily attracting young males and boys, “The Meg 2” is a movie that will attract older males. This means that both movies can co-exist, both with each other and with “Barbie,” which had an opening weekend audience that was 65 percent female. “The Meg” was a very simple movie that was a huge surprise back in August 2018 as the movie about Jason Statham fighting a giant Megalodon opened to $45.4 million, when it was expected around $20 million. It also came out around the time of a random string of other shark movies, like “47 Meters Down” and “The Shallows.” If you do that well, you typically want to capitalize on that by getting the sequel out a year or two later. But five years later? Do people still care? Now, if you do the math, maybe they tried to start production and were stopped by COVID. So perhaps it’s not all their fault. But nevertheless, five years ago, with a pandemic in between, makes August 2018 feel like 10 years ago. “The Meg 2” is also projected at around $20 million, so is it possible we’re in for another surprise? Sure. But if so, probably not a $60 million surprise. The original didn’t even hit that. The other challenge is that, a few days away, awareness doesn’t seem super high and the reviews have not been released. This movie could surprise, but it’s also an easy candidate to be a dud.

August 11 – 13

Universal's "The Last Voyage of the Demeter"

The second weekend of our will it top “Barbie” game will most likely see “Barbie” come in around $40 million. In the fourth weekend of “Mario,” it fell an even softer 32 percent to $40.8 million, with the only competition being the moderate release of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” If neither “Mutant Mayhem” or “The Meg 2” were able to hit $60 million, ain’t no way that our one new wide release will sniff $40 million.

If this weekend feels a bit empty, it’s because Sony took one look at the Barbenheimer success and said, “Yeah… no. We’re not releasing ‘Gran Turismo’ this weekend.” That movie was supposed to come out this weekend, but was bumped last minute to the final weekend of August. So we’ll tackle it there. That leaves the only wide release of this weekend as The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which is a Dracula-themed horror film that’s tracking to open to less than $10 million. The specifics here is that this is a movie based on one specific chapter of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” specifically the chapter titled “The Captain’s Log,” where a crew was haunted by this Dracula figure as they were traveling on their ship from Transylvania to London, of which there ends up being no trace of the crew when the ship arrives in London. Believe it or not, production on this film dates way back to when writer Bragi F. Schut was inspired by the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” The rights to the film were first acquired in 2003 and it’s been a long journey since. It also winds up being the second Dracula-themed movie this year, as April’s “Renfield” was a major flop, opening to just $8 million on an $86 million budget. Early signs point to “Demeter” opening in a similar way with a budget that might be even larger?

August 18 – 20

Warner Bros.' "Blue Beetle"

The third weekend of August is where our “Barbie” game becomes interesting. “Mario” becomes slightly less helpful in this instance because in its fifth weekend it went up against “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and plummeted 55 percent, its first big drop. But nevertheless, it still made $18.6 million. With that on the low end of the spectrum, and $25-30 million being more on the realistic side if it continues to only fall 30-40 percent, this is the first weekend where it seems like the top spot at the box office could be up for grabs if one of our late August films over-performs.

I say the “Mario” comparison is slightly less helpful here, but as it turns out there is a superhero movie opening on this weekend. And while it ain’t no “Guardians 3,” DC will have Blue Beetle opening here. This is a movie that perhaps has the absolute worst timing. It’s been well documented that DC, at the end of last year, has already made plans to completely reset their universe, with James Gunn leading the charge. And that was questionable timing even at that point given that DC had four movies in the old DCEU on the docket. And so far the people questioning that timing seem to have been proven right. While poor reaction to the first two could’ve been a big reason why they failed, the idea that the future was very cloudy for the characters of Shazam and Flash had to at least play a big role in why their movies failed. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” opened to just $30.1 million and finished with just $57.6 million total domestically, which was almost less than the opening weekend of 2019’s “Shazam!” at $53.5 million, which itself was considered a bit of a disappointment. That, of course, was followed up by “The Flash,” which, despite three variations of Batman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and a handful of Superman cameos, in addition it being advertised as a big multiverse movie that even James Gunn promised was pivotal to his universe in using Flashpoint Paradox to reset things, opened to just $55 million, tanking historically to making just $107 million domestically, not only finishing with less than “Guardians 3” did in one weekend ($118.4 million), but barely beating out the opening weekend of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which opened to $106.1 million.

And with DC’s image and reputation at an absolute low, perhaps a historic low, “Blue Beetle” is supposed to follow up? A movie based on a comic book character that few have ever heard of? Had DC been doing great, this would’ve been a solid intro to a new character. But even then, Marvel even sometimes has a hard time taking a brand new character and making everyone care. It’s not often they strike gold with a “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Going in favor of “Blue Beetle” is that it’s either the first or one of the first major superhero movies based on a Latino character. Representation can go a long way in that realm. Just look at “Shang-Chi” or “Black Panther.” But again, do people care? Even if the movie is well received, it’s possible that DC’s reputation is so low that people just don’t show up and cause “Blue Beetle” to be dead on arrival. Reviews probably have to be through the roof for this to find success, and even then it would probably be a word of mouth hit rather than a huge opening. Actors not being able to promote this during the strike also doesn’t help. In Box Office Pro’s long range forecast, they said initial tracking has it significantly behind “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” which again, only opened to $30.1 million. They pegged it as a $12-17 million opening weekend, with a $27-55 million range for its final domestic total.

If worse comes to worse for “Blue Beetle,” it might not even be the top competition for “Barbie” this weekend. That might end up being Strays, an adult-targeted raunchy comedy about a group of stray dogs wanting to get revenge on their owners that abandoned them. The trailers point to this as being from the humans who brought you “21 Jump Street” and “Cocaine Bear,” those humans being Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who have a long string of success in the comedy realm. Lord and Miller are producers on this film, with the director being Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) and the writer being Dan Perrault (“American Vandal”). Although the real draw is Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx leading the voice cast of foul-mouth dogs. This movie isn’t a Seth Rogen vehicle, but speaking of his team, they had a movie called “Good Boys” that opened to $21.4 million in late August of 2019 that this could replicate. And if “Barbie” ends up in the $18-25 million range, this could be a competition.

August 25 – 27

Sony's "Gran Turismo"

The final weekend of August will be the most vulnerable “Barbie” will be if nothing still has knocked it out. Continuing the “Mario” comparison, in weekend 6, “Mario” dropped just 32 percent to $12.6 million, but again that was after getting dinged the weekend before. If “Barbie” ends weekend 5 in the $25-30 million range, $15-20 million could be its range for weekend 6. In late August with little to offer, this is where often a previously popular summer film either continues to reign or even resurfaces at top after conceded the previous weekend. Will “Barbie” complete the sweep of August before “The Equalizer 3” and “The Nun 2” hit in early September?

This was going to be another empty final weekend of August, but as mentioned earlier, this is where Gran Turismo got moved to. And Sony has been pushing this one hard. In fact, if I’m projecting “Barbie” to earn somewhere in the $15-20 million range, it’s noteworthy that that’s the exact range that Box Office Pro has “Gran Turismo” at for its opening weekend. Granted, their last Long Range Forecast post was right before it swapped dates, but still. The bar isn’t very high and there’s no guarantee “Gran Turismo” clears it, but there’s at least a pathway for it to, uhh… “race” to the first place finish. “Gran Turismo” began in 1997 as a racing game for PlayStation and the franchise has since become the highest selling video game franchise under the PlayStation brand. The franchise so far has eight primary releases, the most recent being “Gran Turismo 7” in 2022, as well as a handful of secondary releases. The movie adaptation is not based specifically on the game itself, but rather tells the true story of Jann Mardenborough, who transitioned from being a video game player to a professional  race car driver after winning the GT Academy competition in 2011, beating 90,000 other entrants. The GT Academy was a television program from 2008 to 2016 that allowed the best Gran Turismo players the chance to earn a professional racing career. Mardenborough was the third and youngest winner, successfully transitioning to a racing career despite having no previous on-road experience.   

There are two other movies scheduled for a wide release this weekend. Both of them seem like they’re heading for weekends that barely register. Typical late August affair as this last weekend of August before Labor Day is often the worst weekend of the year. But anyways, speaking of unlikely success stories in sports, the first of these two small films is The Hill, a movie based on the story of Rickey Hill, a baseball player who had to overcome a severe physical handicap (the trailer shows him having very bad legs) to becoming a professional baseball player. Dennis Quaid plays his dad in the movie who is trying to be real with him, saying he’s not going to make it with his condition. The movie is being released by a small distribution company named Briarcliff Entertainment, whose highest grossing movie is the Liam Neeson thriller “Blacklight,” which opened to $3.5 million in February 2022. Relevant to “The Hill,” they also released the sports drama “Sweetwater” this April, which only earned $351,010 in 1,204 theaters.

And actually, speaking of Liam Neeson thrillers, he has yet another one coming out this weekend with our other small film, that of Retribution. In this scenario, Liam Neeson is in a car with his kids when he gets a phone call from a person saying that there is a bomb in his car that will go off if he decides to leave the car, so he is held hostage in his own car while being forced to follow the demands of the person on the phone. If this type of generic action thriller, that feels like he’s redone “Taken” about a hundred times, is what Liam Neeson enjoys doing, then all power to him. Do what you enjoy. But they’ve definitely become very predictable, at least at the box office. The last five of them have all made less than $20 million total at the domestic box office and all opened below $5 million. The said openings are “Honest Thief” (October 2020) - $3.6 million, “The Marksman” (January 2021) - $3.1 million, “Blacklight” (February 2022) - $3.5 million, “Memory” (April 2022) - $3.1 million, and “Marlowe” (February 2023) - $1.8 million. Based on that, you should know what to expect from “Retribution.”

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.