THB #701: Summer's Here... And I'm For That

I was away in TheaterLand for a week. Excellent trip, which I will write about it later this week.

Meanwhile, in “Hollywood,” it’s been a week of quiet discomfort. After a pleasantly surprising April, the 4th best in the history of the industry, the long-established start of the summer stumbled out of the gate with a Marvel movie that came with an asterisk. And then, in a Sunday night surprise, The Pope of Dumbass Village offered one of his stupid proclamations, that he wanted to tariff movies “that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Simply stated, no one really gives a fuck what you want, SIR. You are not a king. You are the worst president in the history of this nation and will only avoid a bottomless well of history hatred if you are saved from your own authoritarian impulses by the courts and what seems the inevitable refusal of the military to follow illegal orders.

And the filmed entertainment business, amazingly enough, is one of the best American-based examples of both embracing the world and effectively taking advantage of the world for a couple decades now. What kind of fool would try to mess that up because a washed up actor told him to over chocolate cake at Crime-A-Lago? (Rhetorical.)

The good news is that the idea is so complicated it will likely never land.

But I digress…

Let’s take a look at the summer!!!

I keep getting surprised by the fact that it’s May already… the onslaught of Mission: Impossible ads aren’t early, I’m just not paying attention to the calendar! And as a result, I haven’t done a real look at the summer that is coming… so let’s jump in!

MAY

So Thunderbolts*/*New Avengers is already out the door. I am projecting that it will open to… ha ha ha.

But what is shocking about May, even with all the trade writers going all giddy over the Memorial Day weekend tracking, is that the studios forgot to program this next weekend, the 2nd of the summer. What is with all the trouble walking and chewing gum?

In the last 5 “real years” of summer movies (2018/19/22/23/24), there were 5 $10m+ openings of movies in the 2nd weekend of the summer. 3 of those openings came with the 2 “summer opener” Avengers movies going a week early, into April. The movies that opened in that “2nd weekend” slot were The Hustle ($13m), Life of the Party ($18m) and Breaking In ($17m). None of them were major hits… but all 3 turned a profit… quite a nice one for Breaking In, which was reportedly made on a $6m budget.

Book Club: Chapter Two flopped ($6.7m) in the slot, a week after Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3 opened to $118 million… though The Super Mario Bros. Movie managed to pull $13 million in Weekend 5 to take #2 that weekend.

And last year, we got a bona fide hit in the 2nd weekend slot with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which opened to $58 million the weekend after The Fall Guy fell with just $28 million.

My point is… there is money in that slot. You wouldn’t open a wannabe blockbuster there, but there is no reason you can’t have a solid opening and hit in the slot.

And The Majors shrugged.

With due respect to Lionsgate and Shadow Force… nah.

May 16 at least has a studio release… Final Destination: Bloodlines. No FD movie has grossed more than $67 million domestic. So it could be successful, but there is naturally a limited ambition.

And then… MAY 23 happens. Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stitch.

Tracking has the duo opening together to $200 million or more. We have had 9 instances of single films opening to over $200 million, so this is completely possible, especially since the core audiences for the 2 films don’t conflict much. Huzzah.

But that is just 4 Major studio movies in May… until #5 lands on May 30… so 2 days of May… Karate Kid: Legends. The last Karate Kid movie, with Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s kid as The Kid, opened to $56 million and ended up with $177million domestic and $359 million worldwide.

Is this any way to rebuild the theatrical business? Two weekends without Major studio releases?

This May will be, in the rear view, a lot better than last May. This May’s 5 movies are more commercial than last year’s 5 movies. But the problem is… it’s still just 5 movies. Last year, the May 31 movie, was Young Woman & The Sea (on a very small number of screens), as compared to Karate Kid: Legends on May 30 this summer.

Marvel instead of Fall Guy
Nothing instead of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in the 2nd Weekend
The Final Destination reboot instead of IF and Lionsgate’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 and Focus’ Back To Black in the 3rd weekend.
Mission and Stitch instead of Furiosa and Garfield

So it’s better.

But once again, it is too dependent on a few big titles. There is enough room in the market that there could be more hit movies if The Majors made them. But even more importantly, if any of the films from The Majors falters, the fallback titles in the marketplace are Shadow Force, Hurry Up Tomorrow and The Life of Chuck.

The $144 million weekend we just had was, although the launch of summer, the weakest weekend since March 28 - 30. And next weekend, if the top movies holding over drop just 30% on average (unlikely), there is the real possibility that the weekend will gross under $100 million for the first time in 6 weekends.

In this summer launch with 3 Major Studio action movies (1 a hard R) over the first 5 weekends with 2 kids films on Weekends 4 and 5… and that’s it. And if you are in a group not looking for either of those 2 types of films, movies in theaters are just not interested in your business this month.

JUNE

Another month with “just” 5 Major Studio releases… 2 Hard-R action, 2 movies for kids, and 1 action drama with a major movie star.

This time, last year may have been a more commercial line-up than this year. I think Elio will be a surprisingly strong movie… but Inside Out 2 will be a big reach to come close to with its $1.7 billion worldwide gross. I believe the current “OMG… it’s an ORIGINAL… RUN!!!” schtick is crap. But I don’t expect more than $500 million from any animated original, period. And that would be great if even that happens.