Long Range Forecast — August 1, 2025
The Naked Gun | Paramount
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $20M – $30M
Led by Liam Neeson, produced by Seth MacFarlane, directed by Akiva Schaffer, and from the writers of the straight-to-Disney+ Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, The Naked Gun was a hit at CinemaCon based on advance footage, though it will have to single-handedly revive R-rated, theatrically released comedies to break through in the market.
The last R-rated comedy directed by Schaffer—June 2016’s Popstar: Don’t Stop Never Stopping—spent only three weekends in theaters, opening to $4.6M and topping out at $9.6M. Aside from the Deadpool movies, only three R-rated comedies have opened wide to over $20M since 2018, all of them summer releases: 2015’s Spy ($29M), 2016’s Sausage Party ($34.2M), and 2017’s Girls Trip ($31.2M).
There hasn’t been a true R-rated comedy breakout released in theaters since Girls Trip, with the biggest successes—like the aforementioned Deadpool trilogy or 2023 rom-com Anyone But You, which opened to a modest $6M in December 2023 and subsequently legged out to $88.3M—piggybacking under another genre label. Given the heavy dose of slapstick that comes baked into the Naked Gun series’ DNA, it’s hard to sell the reboot as anything other than an out-and-out comedy. That’s something this summer has been without, so there’s potential, but it will take something special to get audiences more used to watching R-rated comedies at home to get out to the cinema.
The Bad Guys 2 | Universal
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $25M – $35M
The animated sequel The Bad Guys 2 should be a solid performer in August, released before the end of summer vacations. The first The Bad Guys ($23.9M domestic opening, $97.4M domestic total) was an April release, which could be cause for concern—moving the latest installment of a winter/spring franchise to summer didn’t exactly work out for Ballerina: From the World of John Wick and M3GAN 2.0, for example—but an April 2025 release would have put The Bad Guys 2 up against the mega-successful A Minecraft Movie, so August was probably the right call.
With its August release date, The Bad Guys 2 is the first animated family title to hit theaters since Disney’s Elio, which gave Pixar the worst wide theatrical debut in its history with $20.8M. Among late summer family titles, our panel’s $25M – $35M opening weekend range puts The Bad Guys 2 roughly in line with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem ($28M) and DC League of Super-Pets ($23M) and above Harold and the Purple Crayon ($6M), PAW Patrol: The Movie ($13.1M), Dora and the Lost City of Gold ($17.4M), and The Angry Birds Movie 2 ($10.3M).
Together | Neon
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $6M – $10M
This body horror movie is generating positive word of mouth and could be a solid niche play for Neon. The studio had a major success in the horror genre last year with Longlegs ($22.4M domestic opening), which supplanted 2019’s Parasite as the company’s highest domestic earner. Other recent horror releases from Neon include The Monkey ($14M), Immaculate ($5.3M), Presence ($3.3M), It Lives Inside ($2.6M), and Infinity Pool ($2.5M), as well as last year’s Cuckoo ($3M), like Together released in early August.
Tracking Updates [as of July 14]
| Release Date | Title | Predicted Opening Range | Distributor |
| 7/18 | Smurfs | $12M – $18M | Paramount |
| 7/18 | I Know What You Did Last Summer | $12M – $18M | Sony |
| 7/18 | Eddington | $3M – $5M | A24 |
| 7/25 | The Fantastic Four: First Steps | $100M – $125M | Disney |
Share this post