Posted in: Box Office, Movies | Tagged: deadpool & wolverine, despicable me 4, Inside Out 2, It Ends With Us, Summer Movie Preview, the watchers, Twisters

Summer Movie Preview 2024: Can Anyone Make $1 Billion?

Here we go! Our Summer Movie Preview is here! Will Deadpool & Wolverine end up on top? See our fearless predictions right here.

Summer movie box office lovers have eaten well these last two years. 2022 saw Top Gun: Maverick announce to the world that theaters were back, and we had a $1 billion grosser for the first time since before the pandemic, but the lack of films left money on the table. 2023 was the summer of Barbenheimer, with the two films playing off each other in ways nobody in their wildest dreams could have imagined, as the two combined for over $2 billion worldwide. But, a lack of films left money on the table, and a bunch of sequels were met with yawns and low grosses. So, what does 2024 offer us? Well, a bunch of sequels again. There will be 35 films released wide this summer, and 14 of them are either sequels or reboots. And yet, I don't think that many of this crop of sequels and such will suffer the same fate as last year.

For years, the summer movie box office has been ruled by one name and one name only: Marvel. This is the first time in 17 years that a Marvel-related film is not kicking off the summer that first weekend in May. That should worry theaters a little, as they are used to a big kick-off to the season. Instead, the studios are all falling all over themselves to try and win May. June this year is a little light, but with a couple of big fish that could make some big noise. July is once again a bloodbath, and features most of the films many are pegging to win the summer. August, which some people still consider a dump month, is loaded for once, and the month that could win a studio the whole summer. It should be an interesting year, and I, for one, have been counting down the weeks until it got here. So, let's dive in, and then I will predict my top ten in order.

Summer Movie Box Office: Will May Bring The Thunder?

Without a superhero film kicking off, studios are actually treating May like a battleground where they can make some noise. We kick off with The Fall Guy, Universal's big swing for the summer. Ryan Gosling trades in some of those Barbie chips to try and open an action comedy with Emily Blunt (May 3rd). After the $500 million+ combined grosses of the last three, 20th Century Studios re-launches the Planet of the Apes franchise with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 10th). The big battle date in May will be the 17th, as three big films go wide- Paramount's family film If, the Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black, and the first part of a 2024 trilogy, The Strangers- Chapter One. That last one is going to try and turn around the fortunes of horror at the box office in 2024 so far. We close out the month with a pair of Memorial Day openers, The Garfield Movie, with Chris Pratt voicing the famous cat (May 24th). The other big opener that weekend is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The trailer for that one is bonkers, and it looks like it will be huge…but will it? As respected as George Miller is, and as big as Mad Max: Fury Road became, it didn't exactly light the box office up. It is maybe the most interesting film to watch this summer. (May 24th)

Also in May: Horror film Tarot has some buzz and looks to counter-program the Apes (May 9th)…A24 also releases the trippy I Saw The TV Glow (May 3rd)…Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace turns 25 years old and gets re-released into theaters (May 3rd)…NEON releases animated film Robot Dreams wide (May 31st)…Daisy Ridley swims from France to England in the biopic Young Woman and The Sea (May 31st).

June: Is It The Summer Dump Month?

June is where things slow up a bit and the big movies have some room to breathe. Why, in the middle of summer, studios have decided these last two years to ease up, I am not sure, but if there was ever a time to shift an August movie to an earlier date and make some money, this is the summer to do it. Looking at you, Sony, more on that later. The biggest film of June is the Pixar sequel Inside Out 2, which has a pretty good shot of being the biggest film of the whole summer. The first film grossed over a billion back in the summer of 2015, adjusted for inflation, and is one of their most beloved films by not just kids, but adults. That one will be massive (June 14th). Other than that one, the rest all have question marks attached. Bad Boys: Ride or Die looks to build off the surprise success of the last film, but was that a fluke? And do people still hold Will Smith's actions from the last couple of years against him? (June 7th). Summer movie horror continues with The Watchers, the debut film from Ishana Night Shyamalan (June 14th), and the prequel A Quiet Place: Day One (June 28th). The biggest gamble of the summer closes out June, as Kevin Costner releases his western epic in two parts. Horizon: An American Saga- Part One will answer the question of if older audiences still want to go to the movies (June 28th).

Also in June: Motorcycle gang drama The Bikeriders finally opens, starring Austin Butler and a great young cast (June 21st)…Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone team up again for Kinds of Kindness (June 21st)…Russell Crowe takes on exorcisms again in The Exorcism (June 7th).

July Is The Smackdown Month

The biggest month every summer movie season is July, and boy is this year a doozie. Three of the most anticipated sequels all open in July, starting with what many are saying will be the biggest film of the summer, Despicable Me 4. The Illumination franchise always crushes it, and most studios also refrained from opening anything the week after as well because of how strong it usually holds (July 3rd). 28 years after the original Twister became one of the biggest summer movie films ever, the sequel Twisters finally comes to theaters after decades of development. The trailer for the film has created a ton of buzz, and if it opens huge, will cement Glen Powell as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood right now. Lots riding on that one (July 19th). Finally, the big one. The only superhero film opening this summer, the only Marvel Studios film opening this summer, and the first X-Men Marvel Studios film, Deadpool & Wolverine. The R-rating for this does not matter, as the last two Deadpool films both grossed over $320 million domestically, and that was without all of the other stuff involved in this one. But will it be number one? (July 26th).

Also in July: Ti West wraps up his trilogy with MaXXXine (July 5th)…Nicolas Cage stars in the highly anticipated serial killer thriller Longlegs (July 12th)…Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum fall in love and fake the moon landing in Fly Me To The Moon (July 12th).

August Is The Wild Card

The final month of the month is the one with the most question marks. Older box office prognosticators will still claim this is a "dump month" where films go to die and don't make money, even though this has not been true for quite some time. Why else would Lionsgate open one of the biggest video game adaptations ever attempted, Borderlands (August 9th)? That one has a shot to be huge, as does the latest from M. Night Shyamalan, Trap (August 9th). That one has one of his better hooks in years and breakout potential. Throw in the second part of Kevin Costner's Horizon (August 16th), The Crow remake (August 23rd), and one of my personal highlights of the summer, Alien: Romulus (August 16th), and there is some real opportunity there. If I am Universal, I am moving Trap to the first week of August to avoid Borderlands a bit. But the biggest opener could be It Ends With Us (August 9th). yes, Trap and Borderlands are also on that day, but the adaptation of the Colleen Hoover mega-bestseller is going to be huge. This is one that moved from earlier in the summer to that date in August, which was pretty stupid. It should be opening in June and cleaning up.

Also in August: Harold and the Purple Crayon gets the live-action film nobody asked for (August 2nd)…Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens star in the horror thriller Cuckoo (August 9th)…Zoe Kravitz makes her directorial debut with Blink Twice with a stellar ensemble cast (August 23rd).

Fearless Summer Movie Predictions

So, that is what is opening. Here are my fearless predictions for this year:

• No May opening film will open to more than $75 million.
• Furiosa will get to $500 million worldwide but will gross less than $200 million domestically.
• No horror film will gross more than $75 million.
• Horizon- Part One will do well, but Part Two will bomb.
• No film will cross $1 billion worldwide this summer.

The Top Ten Grossing Films of Summer Movie Season 2024:

1. Despicable Me 4
2. Deadpool & Wolverine
3. Inside Out 2
4. Twisters
5. Borderlands
6. Horizon: An American Saga- Part One
7. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
8. It Ends With Us
9. Alien: Romulus
10. The Watchers

In the end, summer movie season belongs to the Minions, as it usually does when they are a part of it. I do think it will be close, though, as Deadpool & Wolverine is the right recipe for Marvel Studios to score and score big. I believe in Twisters, and I think Borderlands can clean up in August. I think Kevin Costner fans will show up to try Horizon, then wonder why it's not a TV show by the time Part Two opens. And I think It Ends With Us is going to surprise, as well as The Watchers coming out of the horror pack to surprise as well.

Agree? What do you think will be the biggest summer movie this year? What will flop? What are you excited to see?

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