THB #538: If You Don't Build It, They Won't Come

A Box Office Column

This will be brief (for me) because I am repeating myself on this.

I understand that Anthony D'Alessandro is in Cannes, working hard. So this weekend, he just let Chris Aronson’s office write his box office column in Deadline. I mean, Anthony works his ass off, but at some point they are asking too much of anyone.

And yes, a projected $35 million domestic opening for IF is better than a big summer movie smashing into the rocks and utterly destroyed… like, say, opening the summer with a $27 million domestic gross.

That said, it is the 85th best opening in the month of May (87th best launch-of-summer, if you include the Marvel week-early April launches). All 20 of the May openers have opened better. All 40 Top 100 May openings launching on May 20 or later have opened better. In this couple of weekends in between, there are 26 of those Top 100 May openings. There are just a couple $100m+ openers in that period Shrek 3, Deadpool 2). And only 7 true originals: Deep Impact, Dinosaur, Shrek,