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