This week’s report takes an early look at what to expect from four wide releases currently slated for the weekend of Friday, August 16.
PROS:
- The Angry Birds Movie 2, opening on Wednesday, August 14, will offer up the final animated pic of summer for kids before school resumes session, and there could be enough distance between it and July’s The Lion King to allow for a solid turnout by the young ones and their parents. The first film earned a respectable $107.5 million throughout its domestic run in early summer 2016.
- 47 Meters Down: Uncaged looks to build on the sleeper success of its predecessor ($44.3 million off an $11.2 million opening) two years ago with a late summer release that targets teens and young adults. Shark films have seen a mini-resurgence at the box office over the past few summers with the original film, as well as 2016’s The Shallows and last year’s The Meg.
- Good Boys will hope to attract fans of raunchy R-rated humor with the added branding of producer Seth Rogen’s Point Grey Pictures behind it. Early industry screenings were met with very enthusiastic reactions earlier this year, suggesting potential for a late summer sleeper in the vein of Sausage Party.
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette? will counter-program the younger-leaning releases of the weekend with director Richard Linklater’s latest likely to draw arthouse moviegoers, his own fans, and those of author Maria Semple’s original best-selling novel. With Cate Blanchett in the lead of a solid ensemble, this could be positioned for a healthy run into early autumn.
CONS:
- Although a fair performer, the original Angry Birds Movie earned just a 2.81x multiplier from its $38.2 million opening weekend in May 2016 — abnormally low for a non-sequel animation. That suggests word of mouth wasn’t strong enough to kindle enough demand for a sequel to match the first film’s performance. We’re also cautious with Birds 2‘s proximity to Dora and the Lost City of Gold, plus the recent under-performance of a similar August animated release, The Emoji Movie.
- It’s typically challenging for horror/thriller sequels to live up to the performance of their breakout predecessors, underscoring current forecasts for 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. Still, with another modest budget, it should be in position to achieve financial success.
- Good Boys will have a challenging time selling tickets to a sizable portion of its target audience (teens and tweens) given the hard R-rating of the comedy. While that hasn’t prevented August releases like Sausage Party and Superbad from excelling in the past, word of mouth will be crucial among adult audiences for this reach the box office heights of those films. The recent under-performance of the widely acclaimed Booksmart is another cautionary tale.
- Adult-aimed dramedy releases have a mixed history in late summer with many prospective audiences fitting in their last chance for summer vacations. While comparable titles like Eat Pray Love and Julie & Julia found considerable success upfront and continued to build from there, recent titles like Florence Foster Jenkins and The Hundred-foot Journey saw varying degrees of box office power despite their popular leads and built-in appeal.
8-Week Forecast
| Release Date | Title | 3-Day Wide Release Tracking | % Chg from Last Week | Domestic Total Forecast | % Chg from Last Week | Estimated Location Count | Distributor |
| 6/26/2019 | Annabelle Comes Home | $31,000,000 | $101,000,000 | 3,500 | Warner Bros. / New Line | ||
| 6/28/2019 | Yesterday | $10,000,000 | NEW | n/a | 2,600 | Universal | |
| 7/2/2019 | Spider-Man: Far from Home | $120,000,000 | $405,000,000 | 4,350 | Sony / Columbia / Marvel Studios | ||
| 7/3/2019 | Midsommar | n/a | n/a | n/a | A24 | ||
| 7/12/2019 | Crawl | $18,000,000 | $47,000,000 | Paramount | |||
| 7/12/2019 | Stuber | $17,500,000 | $65,000,000 | Fox | |||
| 7/19/2019 | The Lion King (2019) | $201,000,000 | $650,000,000 | Disney | |||
| – | – | – | – | – | |||
| 7/26/2019 | Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood | $50,000,000 | $165,000,000 | Sony / Columbia | |||
| 8/2/2019 | Hobbs & Shaw | $100,000,000 | $245,000,000 | Universal | |||
| 8/9/2019 | The Art of Racing In the Rain | $8,500,000 | $32,000,000 | Fox | |||
| 8/9/2019 | Brian Banks | n/a | n/a | Bleecker Street | |||
| 8/9/2019 | Dora and the Lost City of Gold | $28,000,000 | $85,000,000 | Paramount | |||
| 8/9/2019 | The Kitchen (2019) | $11,500,000 | $34,500,000 | Warner Bros. / New Line | |||
| 8/9/2019 | Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark | $10,000,000 | $26,500,000 | Lionsgate / CBS Films | |||
| 8/14/2019 | The Angry Birds Movie 2 | $19,000,000 | NEW | $70,000,000 | NEW | Sony / Columbia | |
| 8/14/2019 | Blinded By the Light | n/a | n/a | Warner Bros. | |||
| 8/16/2019 | 47 Meters Down: Uncaged | $15,000,000 | NEW | $39,000,000 | NEW | Entertainment Studios | |
| 8/16/2019 | Good Boys | $15,000,000 | NEW | $43,000,000 | NEW | Universal | |
| 8/16/2019 | The Informer | n/a | n/a | Aviron | |||
| 8/16/2019 | Where’d You Go, Bernadette | $11,000,000 | NEW | $45,000,000 | NEW | United Artists Releasing |
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Alex Edghill & Jesse Rifkin contributed to this report
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