THB #131: Summer Begins... What's Next?

And so… the first season of real opportunity for movies in theaters in 2 years has officially launched.

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness will open to over $180m domestic and perhaps $400m worldwide. (Sunday edit: $185m/$450m)

Yay.

And then we have 3 weeks until the early-hyped Top Gun Maverick, with only one film in counter-programming that can do any serious business in between (Downton Abbey).

In 2019, the Marvel movie pushed into April, but we still had another 3 $100m grossers in May (Aladdin, Pikachu, Wick). In 2018, early Avenger, plus Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story. In 2017, another TWO Disney movies in May (Guardians 2, Pirates 4), and others that didn’t deliver but were seriously chasing included Alien: Covenant, Baywatch, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (different meaning back then), Everything, Everything, and Snatched, so bad a movie with so little box office that my brain won’t recognize the title as having existed.

Point…