This weekend, a disappointingly quiet July—with just six new wide releases, five of which were reboots—will give way to an unusually busy August at the box office. Summer’s fourth month—theatrical summer runs from the first Friday in May until Labor Day—features old-school kids’ cartoons (The Bad Guys 2), horror movies (Weapons), action sequels (Nobody 2), and two live-action comedies with The Naked Gun and Freakier Friday, but no major tentpoles, which could be a problem. So far, the “in-season” new releases have earned $2.53 billion, less than any “by July 28” summer total since 2001, not adjusted for inflation. Sure, Fantastic Four’s $117 million domestic opening was far below Deadpool & Wolverine’s $211 million in this same frame in 2024, but the real culprit is the paucity of theatrical releases overall.

There’s not much to be excited about on the horizon, either. Amid a tentpole-light September and an October suddenly bereft of a Michael-sized juggernaut, the movie business will be chasing 2024 right up until Christmas. The good news is that all three major tentpoles released in July are performing and showing some box office endurance. But they’ll need to work hard to make up for an industry-wide decline in overseas grosses (not just in China) that’s also exacerbated by fewer movies. Herewith, a look at what went right (and wrong) this month…

With $289 million in North America and $503 million globally, the third Man of Steel reboot is maintaining altitude. From its second weekend to its third, Superman fell just 57 percent, to $24.8 million, even as it lost its premium large format theaters and faced down Fantastic Four, Marvel’s biggest non-sequel opening since Captain Marvel ($154 million in 2019). Superman could become the summer’s second-biggest domestic earner, partly because, unlike most of this summer’s franchise revivals, it was sold as new to you.

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In fact, many of this season’s “big movies” were revivals of old (and not terribly successful) franchises. Fantastic Four: First Steps is a loose remake of Rise of the Silver Surfer; Thunderbolts was sold as a Marvelized Suicide Squad; and Jurassic World: Rebirth looked like a loose redo of Jurassic Park III.

It’s hard to become the movie of the moment when audiences know exactly what they’re getting. But James Gunn’s Superman was just distinct enough, and sold as a paean to the comic books rather than the Richard Donner and Richard Lester movies. The DC Studios reboot offered modern updates of classic characters, introduced new-to-cinema heroes and villains from the DC universe, and also kept Superman distinctly old-school in a grimly modern world. It stood out as the closest thing to a new franchise we’ll get this summer.

Marvel’s fourth attempt to turn Fantastic Four into a franchise (yes, I’m counting the 1994 Roger Corman–produced version) had a disconcertingly frontloaded opening weekend, barely doubling its $57 million Friday gross. Still, it’s reasonable to expect that it will perform similarly to Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million from a $117 million debut in 2017), partially because it’s the last big-deal, all-quadrant fantasy franchise release until Tron: Ares in October.

Even if it doesn’t match Superman, the Matt Shakman–directed Fantastic Four achieved two of Marvel’s key goals. First, it’s widely regarded as a significantly better film than its predecessors, with 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, 4.5/5 on PostTrak, and an A- from CinemaScore. The notion that Marvel can take an already-adapted property and make something as good (Spider-Man) or better (Fantastic Four) will be critical to getting moviegoers excited for another round of previously adapted Marvel properties. (An extended creative rut for the MCU would have made yet another X-Men and/or Blade far less enticing.)

Second, Marvel proved it could make a Fantastic Four movie work in modern tentpole terms. Fantastic Four: First Steps’s first day beat the $56 million opening weekend for Fantastic Four (2005), and the domestic total of Fantastic Four (2015). The Fantastic Four—as in, the actual superheroes—are more well-known than well-loved among regular moviegoers, and so the latest adaptation’s early success may settle the debate about Pedro Pascal’s value as a marquee character in a franchise flick.

I’ve long noted the perils of normalizing the $1 billion global grosser. In 2012, there were four movies—Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and The Avengers—that passed that milestone, and it became the new benchmark for success. Between 2003 and 2009, only The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Dark Knight, and Avatar grossed more than $1 billion globally, joining Titanic’s run in 1997-98. Eleven such films passed the milestone between 2010 and 2014, thanks in part to the proliferation of 3D and Imax theaters.

But from 2015 to 2019, with help from a newly voracious China and a handful of overperforming franchises (Fast & Furious, Jurassic, Star Wars, Marvel, etcetera), a whopping 25 releases banked 10 figures, all but three (WB’s Aquaman and Joker, Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home) of which hailed from Disney or Universal. Throw in unexpectedly strong grosses for Illumination’s Despicable Me/Minions series, Disney’s Zootopia (which earned $235 million in China), and a run of Katzenberg-era Disney live-action remakes (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King), and you had a recipe for unrealistic expectations.

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Now, however, in our post-Covid, streaming-skewed movie ecosystem, the $1 billion grosser has once again become a rarity—a benchmark reached by only the most successful, zeitgeisty films, like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the $2.3 billion–grossing (mainly in China) Ne Zha 2. I still expect each of the next three Avatar sequels to gross $1.7 billion to $2.5 billion each. However, Lilo & Stitch and A Minecraft Movie might be the only two movies this year to gross north of $900 million globally.

And unless you’re Apple and can spin a reportedly $300 million racecar melodrama as a big win at $500 million worldwide (to be fair, F1 is Hollywood’s best-performing live-action original since Interstellar in late 2014), budgets must reflect this new normal. In a world where box office receipts can often skew closer to 50-50 domestic-overseas versus the previously semi-regular 35-65 split, even aspirational success now looks more like The Batman ($770 million) and Wicked: Part One ($757 million) than Aquaman ($1.15 billion) and Beauty and the Beast ($1.2 billion).

We’ve seen only four major releases pull multipliers above 3x this summer, which is the typical benchmark for a film that has “legs”: Elio has earned $71 million from a $21 million debut (still a terrible gross, but I digress). Materialists has earned $36 million after an $11 million opening, and How to Train Your Dragon has notched $257 million from an $85 million debut. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning has earned $197 million from a $64 million Friday-Sunday and $79 million Friday-Monday holiday weekend launch.

To be fair, Lilo & Stitch ($420 million from a $145 million Friday-Monday debut) and Jurassic World: Rebirth ($301 million so far from a $145 million Wednesday-Sunday launch) are doing fine as holiday weekend tentpole releases. Offhand, Superman ($289 million from a $125 million debut after 17 days) and F1 ($165 million from a $57 million debut after a month) should make it, as will The Bad Guys 2 (DreamWorks toons average around 3.5x their respective opening weekends).

Perhaps, as I’ve argued, this is partly about audiences prioritizing PLF auditoriums over showing up on opening weekend. However, there were just six 2,000-plus-screen debuts in June, and another six in July, many of which were I.P. revivals no one asked for, like 28 Years Later, Smurfs, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. So this could simply be a case of a summer slate lacking volume and must-see titles. Or it could be that casual moviegoers have caught on to the shrinking theatrical exclusivity windows and are waiting for a film to arrive on P.V.O.D. or streaming—a longtime industry fear. However, given that Sinners has notched 5.8x its $48 million debut and Wicked: Part One earned another $42 million after debuting on P.V.O.D., it’s not time for theaters to panic quite yet.

Of course, if most of this year’s films perform well on their own terms, there will be less concern if 2025 falls short of last year’s $8.5 billion total, let alone 2023’s $8.9 billion cume. If a wider variety of movies—in terms of both budget and genre—meet or exceed expectations, distributors (whether it’s Sony or Amazon Prime) will presumably make more multiplex-friendly titles. Theatrical success begets more theatrical releases—and the more theatrical releases there are, the better the chances for a breakout on the level of Longlegs or Everything Everywhere All at Once.

In a healthy, fully stocked theatrical ecosystem, it should be mere trivia that Fantastic Four might not earn even half of what Deadpool & Wolverine earned. And it shouldn’t be a life-or-death issue when a major tentpole like Michael gets delayed or a would-be blockbuster like Joker: Folie à Deux flames out. But in this current zero-sum theatrical ecosystem, Avatar might join the Monsterverse in the “saved theaters twice in a row” club.

Thanks, Scott. Have a great week, everyone.

Matt

Correction: On Thursday, I said there was an image in the recent South Park episode of Trump “violating a goat.” I’ve been made aware by two readers (I won’t name them) that it’s actually a sheep. I regret the error.

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a pleasant-smelling mosquito repellent? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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