Weekend Forecast: ‘Wonder Woman’ Poised to Upset ‘The Mummy’ Debut; Will ‘It Comes at Night’ Achieve Sleeper Hit Status?

June’s second frame is already upon us, and with it come three new releases. The Mummy stands as the highest profile opener of the weekend, but we’re expecting Wonder Woman to upset Universal’s Dark Universe tentpole following last week’s strong opening weekend and the excellent word of mouth that has followed the DC heroine. Our final analysis and forecast:

The Mummy
Universal

PROS:

• As an established property, The Mummy may entice fans of Universal’s classic monster movies.
• Tom Cruise adds an element of star power to help drive interest in this reboot. Under the circumstances, though, that will probably be a stronger asset in overseas markets.
• Facebook activity has been very respectable, attracting over 4 million total fans for the franchise.
• Older male audiences haven’t been targeted directly since Alien: Covenant, so this could present an option for them. Younger males will need to turn out in big numbers for this to beat expectations, though.

CONS:

• Demand for another reboot of the franchise hasn’t exactly been high. The target adult audiences aren’t that far removed in time from 1999’s highly successful Mummy film starring Brendan Fraser, not to mention its 2001 and 2008 sequels.
• Twitter trends have been improving, but overall activity still lags behind fellow Cruise films Edge of Tomorrow and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.
• The strong reception of Wonder Woman will likely undercut this film’s ability to attract Cruise’s female fans.
• Initial reviews are poor, unfortunately, with a 29 percent Rotten Tomatoes score across 56 reviews as of this article’s publishing.

It Comes at Night
A24

PROS:

• Joel Edgerton has steadily built a resume of well-received films, including his multiple roles in front and behind the camera on The Gift.
• Facebook growth has outpaced that of The Gift. The lack of recent breakouts in the horror genre could set this up to surprise during its run.
• Initial reviews are very encouraging, standing at 86 percent across 37 critics so far.

CONS:

• A24’s nature as a relatively newcomer distributor also means marketing reach has been more limited than that of similar films from larger studios.
• Conversely, Facebook growth has tracked behind that of The Witch.
• As of this publishing, the studio has not returned requests for an estimated theater count. This may or may not suggest they plan on releasing with a semi-wide strategy. If the official count deviates from our expectation, we’ll update our forecast prior to Friday.

Megan Leavey
Bleecker Street

PROS:

• Based on a true story, this could appeal well to military families and animal lovers in general.
• Reviews are also encouraging for this film as it claims a 87 percent score among 15 critics thus far.

CONS:

• Again, Bleecker Street’s distribution history leads us to believe this will not have the kind of audience/marketing reach of similar films.
• Social media activity has routinely stood well behind the pace of 2015’s Max.
• As of this publishing, the studio has not returned requests for an estimated theater count. Combined with the fact that the studio has never opened a film in true wide release, this might suggest they plan on releasing in a semi-wide strategy. If the official count deviates from our expectation, we’ll update our forecast prior to Friday.

Check out our weekend forecast in the table below.

Shawn Robbins and Alex Edghill contributed to this report.