Fantastic First Steps as Other Brands Bomb - Weeks 12 & 13

The last real big-budget film of the summer finally launched and audiences were ready for the ride. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps stepped-out to a $117.6 million debut. While this is a little less than Superman’s $125 million and certainly Rebirth’s almost $150 million, it’s clearly above Thunderbolts*, Dragons, and every other Fantastic Four movie ever released. It’s also just about even with 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy 3’s start and that film finished around $360 million. Marvel and Disney would certainly take a win like that. 

Nostalgia wasn’t so kind to Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The little blue people hit a sour note for their musical with a $11.1 million start and the Gorton Fisherman killer from IKWYDLS failed to slay with a $12.8 million opening. Clearly, whatever lightning struck for Final Destination: Bloodlines did not hit the rebooting attempts of the I Know franchise. As always, Jennifer Love Hewitt deserves better! 

Catching up on some old favorites… Jurassic World: Rebirth is at $301.8 million and Superman is at $289.5. While Rebirth started with more of a bang, the tortoise is seeming likely to win the race as I expect Superman to surpass the dinos before Labor Day weekend. Does the Fantastic Four also have time to play the slow and steady game or is it too late to catch those raging raptors? 

I’ll try to keep the updates rolling, at least bi-weekly, during August even though this now seems like a month Hollywood is avoiding. It’s like they’ve already moved onto the fall season and there’s nothing but a couple cool-looking indie horror films I’m interested in. They’ve remade The Naked Gun with 99% less O.J., but can it even be 1% as funny? We’ll see. 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $420.2 million

#2. Jurassic World: Rebirth - $301.7 million

#3. Superman - $289.5 million

#4. How to Train Your Dragon - $257.1 million

#5. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $196.7 million

Superman Soars and Jurassic Roars - Weeks 10 & 11

Good golly, it’s fun to have theaters full and people wanting to see movies this summer. Last year had so many “Uh, $50 million openings aren’t so bad” moments, that it’s exciting to have some flicks knock it out of the park with legit triple-digit openings this season. Hopefully, the Fantastic Four can make it three-for-three next week!

Jurassic Park: Rebirth didn’t lay an egg with a $147.8 million five-day opening. Americans love their fireworks, dinosaurs, and air-conditioned screenings and this 4th of July Weekend was no exception. Also, kudos to Scarlett Johansson for passing Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. for highest grossing actor in history! 

Also, a special shout out to Hollywood for not using A.I. and letting actual humans write this script. There’s no way ChatGPT would’ve given us a 45-minute sub-plot about a family no one cares about, mercenaries with the personality of a #2 pencil, and opened every scene with a “Let’s remind the audience what we’re doing here again” line. I mean, my Echo Dot could’ve come up with something better than this. 

Meanwhile, the last son of Krypton (but not the last dog… and not the last cousin) had a rebirth of his own as Superman debuted to $125 million. People were ready to believe a man could fly again and the fresh coat of James Gunn paint seemed to do the trick. I was even tempted to try and bribe an AMC employee for one of the cool Superman promo t-shirts they were wearing, so the hype was working and people were buying. 

Warner Bros. was banking a lot on this film being the new start of their DC Universe and, truth be told, its debut was… fine. Honestly, it has another weekend with zero competition (Sorry, not sorry Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer), so there’s lots of room for old fogeys (people my age) who need people telling them “They need to see this” to get their butts into a theater. Remember, Top Gun: Maverick’s opening wasn’t what made it bonkers, it was the sustained tickets being sold to people who hadn’t gone to a movie in years. Suffice to say, it has a chance to be the mega-hit Warner Bros. wants it to be. 

Still, Man of Steel opened with $116 million 13 years ago. A $9 million improvement when some theaters are now $22 a pop? I’d be a little nervous if I was actually invested in this… and I am because I picked this as my #3 film of the season :) 

Meanwhile, in case you were hoping for F1 to race its way into the Top Five podium, you can pump those brakes. It’s at $136.2 million so far but there’s no next gear that can help it catch the other contenders at this point. It was a nice road-side stop though!

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $414.6 million

#2. How to Train Your Dragon - $239.9 million

#3. Jurassic Park: Rebirth - $232.2 million

#4. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $194 million

#5. Thunderbolts* - $189.9 million

F1 Leaves Others In The Dust - Weeks 8 & 9

Whenever there’s not a clear #1 film opening over a weekend, other films show up trying to compete and make a name for themselves. We’ve just had two weekends like that in a row with one clear winner, one mid, and two notable oops. 

F1 had a “maybe it can be minor hit like Ford vs. Ferrari” vibes coming into last week, but it ended-up doubling its early projections with a swift $57 million debut. That’s almost double what Ford vs. started with in 2019. The Brad Pitt starrer became his biggest opening weekend ever and the film looks like it might cruise through July as a nice alternative to the big dino and superhero flicks. 

28 Years Later entered the season as an oddball summer release. Cult status and big box-office don’t often go hand-in-hand (i.e. Blade Runner 2049), so in some ways a 10-day total of $50 million seems impressive for the film. Still, it dropped 67% in its second weekend, meaning there’s not going to be much “laters” left for this film to stay in theaters. 

Megan 2.0 tried to ride the wave of being a surprise low-budget, teen friendly, horror hit in 2022 and instead took a detour toward action, comedy, and Terminator 2. This was clearly a pitstop no one wanted to stay at as Megan 2.0’s $10.2 million debut was $20 million less than the original version! Yikes. It’s one of the biggest drop-offs for horror film sequels ever. Maybe they can add a patch and call it 2.1 when it starts streaming at home.

The ad-nauseum film of the summer has already become Elio. The Pixar film that only The Good Dinosaur will be thankful for was a bust of a bust for Disney. 25% of my Google home page feed is “why did Elio tank” and “what was Disney thinking.” In case you were wondering, the other 75% is usually about Nintendo, the NBA, and which craft brewery is closing this week. 

Regardless, Elio had the worst opening ever for a Pixar film ($20.8 million) and is at $41.9 million after 10 days on a $200 million budget. For all the massive success of Lilo & Stitch, all the naysayers are going to talk about are this year’s Snow White and Elio duds. Dem’s the breaks.  

Speaking of L&S, it did cross the $400 million mark! Kudos to 626.

Meanwhile, How To Train Your Dragon crossed $200 million as family films are doing great this summer… As long as you’re not Elio. 

Also, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is about $3 million away from Thunderbolts* and looks like it should reckon past it over the 4th of July weekend. 

This week, we’ll see if there’s a new trilogy brewing for our Jurassic friends or whether Rebirth leads to Reboot.

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $400 million

#2. How to Train Your Dragon - $200.2 million

#3. Thunderbolts* - $189.7 million

#4. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $186 million

#5. Final Destination: Bloodline - $136.7 million

Ballerina Slips While Dragon Soars - Weeks 6 & 7

As the summer of reboots, rebrands, remakes, and side hustles continues to try and make the box-office numbers rebound, we got a classic “win some, lose some” scenario. 

First, the win. How to Train Your Dragon came roaring out of the gate with an awesome $84.6 million opening. That’s almost double what the original animated feature debuted with in 2010. Fans of the original were ready to go back to the Isle of Berk and Universal didn’t hiccup this release. 

This was an even bigger opening than Thuderbolts*, and given the way families love to flock to the theaters in the summer, this PG-hit looks to be something that could fly past the $200 million mark. I can’t predict the future, but that’s the level in my mind any film needs to pass to be a legit Top 5 contender this summer. 

Then, there was a loss. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina tumbled out the gate with a $24 million opening. Despite trying to throw every side character they could to make this feel like a an actual John Wick movie (even including John Wick!), the folks who lined-up for John Wick 4 couldn’t be bothered for something that seemed like a Peacock exclusive. Still, I’m sure they’ll try a few more John Wick adjace projects before they consider the property excommunicado. 

Meanwhile, Lilo & Stitch continued being the “film of the summer” until something comes along to knock it off the mountain. It had been the #1 film for three weeks straight and only dropped to #2 after Dragon was released. With $366.5 million in hand, it has an outside chance of getting to $400 million. Oddly, standing in its path, is the new Disney/Pixar movie Elio that opens this weekend. Well planned, everybody. Good call. 

The Final Reckoning of Mission:Impossible continues to be about the same as all of their other reckonings. They’ve chosen to accept $166.5 million so far and will likely finish around $190 million. That’s above Dead Reckoning: Part One and just below Rogue Nation. While I keep thinking they could try and spin-off M:I with a new crew of agents, its likelihood of success is probably the same as Ballerina. We go to John Wick for Keanu and we go to M:I for Tom. Replacing them with an actor from an FX show is not the same. 

This week, we’ll see if 28 Years Later can be more than a fan-boy curiosity like last year’s Furiosa and if Pixar has truly found its groove after Inside Out 2 or if it’s back to its days of Lightyear. 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $366.5 million

#2. Thunderbolts* - $188.5 million

#3. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $166.5 million

#4. Final Destination: Bloodline - $130.7 million

#5. How to Train Your Dragon - $84.6 million

Lilo & Stitch Cinch Memorable Memorial Day Weekend - Weeks 4 & 5

The big guns came out firing over Memorial Day weekend, yet it wasn’t the gadgets of the IMF that won the day. Instead, something a little more extra-terrestrial stole the show. 

Lilo & Stitch had a record breaking Memorial Day weekend with a $182.6 million four-day explosion. It broke the record of 2013’s The Fast & The Furious 6 $117 million start. It like literally topped the four-week run of Thunderbolts* in FOUR DAYS!

I expected the film to do well but this is bonkers. It might already be the film of the summer and we only reached June three days ago. The film tacked on another $61.8 million in its second weekend and is already at a $279 million total. It was a 57% drop from the previous huge weekend, which is actually solid given the size of that debut. All that talk about Disney’s “live-action” pipeline being over after this year’s Snow White flop was obviously just sitting at the wrong table. 

On the other side of the holiday weekend was the return and potential end of Ethan Hunt. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning accepted a four-day weekend of $79 million. That this was heralded as the biggest opening ever for an M:I film only shows the disparity between this franchise and some of the other heavy hitters. It’s nothing to sneeze at, yet multiple Marvel movies have debuted with $200 million over three-days. 

Still, Tom and his crew packed them in and The Final Reckoning is at $122.5 million after its first 10 days. No amount of masks, gadgets, chases, fights, stunts, shootouts, AI, and techno gobbledygook could stop this film from accomplishing its mission. Now Mr. Cruise can get back to what people really want to see… Top Gun 3: More Mavericky.

Karate Kid: Legends was also released to a $20 million opening. While not awe-inspiring, it’s a huge improvement over the other “leftovers” of May that usually opened with $5 million or less. With a modest budget, KK:L should at least turn a profit and maybe more “legends” will be coming our way. Surf Ninja’s Ernie Reyes Jr., I’m looking at you!

It should be noted that Final Destination: Bloodlines has the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating of our Blockbuster Pool movies so far. That was definitely not on my bingo card. Neither was a $111.8 million total after three weeks, yet the film has been “death” defying since its release. Well done, you. 

Finally, Thunderbolts* seems to be on its last legs with $181.8 million. A $190 million could still be in play, though that’s the floor it’s bolted to. Someone tell Disney+ they need to do a modern-day series of What About Bob with the Bob from Thunderbolts*!  

We’ll see if the not-John Wick John Wick movie can stop Disney’s Lilo & Stitch ride this weekend… 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Lilo & Stitch - $279 million

#2. Thunderbolts* - $181.8 million

#3. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - $122.5 million

#4. Final Destination: Bloodline - $111.8 million

#5. Karate Kid: Legends - $20.3 million

Final Destination Shows New Life With Bloodlines - Weeks 2 & 3

Sorry, not sorry about taking Week 2 off for an update. When Clowns, Planes, and Shadow Force are the only new options at the box-office, there’s a reason why most of them haven’t even grossed $5 million in ten days. While Fight or Flight is kind of a fun B-Movie Bullet Train and Shadow Force just made me giggle every time a character said the phrase “Shadow Force” with a straight face on-screen, it’s a little crazy how these were the films that were actually released in theaters when big-budget movies like Wolfs and The Gorge were dumped as streamers. 

Just feels like it should be flipped with the B-Movies being straight-to-streaming and A-Listers going to theaters… Though maybe that’s how you stay an A-Lister these days is by going to a streamer and avoiding the “box-office bomb” label when you underperform in theaters. Hey, I see what’s happening here!

Finally, Week 3 arrived and the hits were back, baby! Final Destination: Bloodlines had an amazing opening weekend of $51.6 million. That’s already more than the last FD film grossed in its entire run! Great call on whoever made the decision to bring back this franchise… and maybe it points again to something people still enjoy going to movies for: crowd reactions and audience responses and Chicken Jockeys.

Thunderbolts* kept grinding away at the cinema for the past couple weeks. Racking up weekends of $32 million and $17 million, the film now sits with a $155.5 million total. The path to $200 million will be hard for this film with two new mega-contenders coming out this Memorial Day Weekend, but it has a chance to crawl its way there much like Bad Boys: Ride or Die was able to stay on over 1,000 screens for two months after it debuted. 

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Thunderbolts* - $155.5 million

#2. Final Destination: Bloodline - $51.6 million

#3. n/a

#4. n/a

#5. n/a

“Thunderbolts*” Bolts To The Top - Week 1

We went one year without a Marvel movie opening the Summer Blockbuster Pool and what a sad May we had without it in 2024. It started with a mere $27.7 debut for The Fall Guy. Thankfully, the MCU has started cranking films out again (well, opinions may vary on the “thankfully” part), but at least we started with more of a “bang” this year. 

Thunderbolts* kicked off the season with a $74.3 million opening weekend. That’s much higher than last May’s selections of The Fall Guy, Something About Something of the Planet of the Apes, IF, and Quiet Place: Even Quieter. That’s the good news!

The “you’ve been warned” news is that the opening weekends of the last MCU films released in the summer have been Dr. Strange 2’s $187 million, Thor: 4’s $144 million, Gaurdians 3’s $118 million, and Deadpool & Wolvie’s $211 million. The Thunderbolts* debut is more in line with Black Widow’s $80 million start in July 2021 and that finished with $180 million. Is this where we Gulp, Big Gulp, or Double Gulp?

Even this year’s thud Captain America: Brave New World opened with $88 million and found a way to finish with $200 million. Can word of mouth and the replacing of that asterisk to a new title for the film change the box-office momentum of the film? Absolutely! Am I mostly telling myself that because I had this film as #4 on my Top Five list? Absolutely! 

Besides, there’s nothing major being released this weekend, so Thunderbolts* has another week to play before the Memorial Day Massacre begins with Ethan Hunt’s impossible mission to stop Lilo & Stitch. West Chesapeake Valley Thunderbolts, Assemble!

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Thunderbolts* - $74.6 million

#2. n/a

#3. n/a

#4. n/a

#5. n/a

 

*****

Extra Bonus Section

 

As per the Week 1 tradition, here are my esteemed, extremely well thought-out, and certainly terrible 2025 Summer Movie Pool prognostications. 

The Didn’t Make Its: Elio (no clue what it is or how it’ll do), Live-Action Dragon (is it too scary, too good, too the same, idk), and the hardest omission Mission: Impossible (the series is a family fave, yet the last one finished with $170 million and I think that’s not enough for the Top Five this year). BTW, on a scale of “totally got this” vs. “shaking in my boots,” I’m jump scaring myself with each of these picks!  

#1. Jurassic Park: Rebirth - It has all 4th of July Weekend to itself and we all know what it is. Seems like a winner to me and I went with the easy, breezy Cover Girl guesstimate of $375 million (which I may have done the last three summers in a row).      

 

#2. Lilo & Stitch - There’s such a superhero overload this summer, I may have overthought the “What’s going the be THE family film of the summer” question. Maybe this is the next Minecraft Movie hit or maybe it’s the next Snow White. Obviously, I’m hoping a lot of the kids who saw L&S the first time are going to want to bring their kids to see it this time. As Elvis would say, let’s Rock-A-Hula, Baby!      

 

#3. Superman - I went with the single DC film over the two MCU films. Warner Bros. has so much invested in their first new DC reboot, they’ve got to make this one of their biggest movies of the year. Both of the other MCU films are setting up next year’s Return of The Avengers movie, so they have less stakes. Can we believe a man can fly… again?

 

#4. Thunderbolts* - Before I thought about it (first mistake), I would’ve put Fantastic Four above Thunderbolts* as it's a known brand. However, every time I saw a trailer for TB, it looked fun and I wanted to see it more and the inverse was becoming true for the FF to me. It has an extra week to make money before Lilo and Ethen Hunt come to play, so I ultimately put this ahead. I’m going to need all the asterisks I can get for this to work. 

[And, yes, after the first weekend I’m already freaked-out about how I flipped these two at the last second]

#5. The Fantastic Four: First Steps - While it is a known brand, this is our FOURTH FF film in 20 years… and none of them have done amazeballs. If Marvel can’t make it work this time, this truly might just be a relic of the 60’s. I’m hoping they pull it off, but I feel like casual fans will be more in a “wait and see” approach.  

Good luck, everyone!