Tranny Tackles The Cinema: The Films of 6/23

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Well, it was not a good weekend for two widely known brands at the box office.

Despite finishing in the top 2 spots, The Flash and Elemental both put forth the kind of disappointing openings that are setting them up to be the among the biggest bombs of the summers. Both budgeted at a reported $200 mil, the DC multiverse title and latest original title from Pixar opened to just $55 and $29.6 mil respectively. These figures were below tracking figures for both titles (particularly The Flash-which was expected to make somewhere in the $70-80 mil range coming into the weekend) and these performances have raised serious questions and inspired plenty of debates about the viability of these brands at the box office moving forward.

Smaller wide release The Blackening also didn't do much as it earned $6 mil from 1,775 theaters. Considering that Lionsgate only spent about $20-30 mil to purchase the rights to and market the independently-produced comedy horror film from Tim Story, they're not exactly feeling the same amount of hurt as their friends over at Warner and Disney are right now.

News on the arthouse market couldn't possibly be any more different as Wes Anderson once again proved that he's among the indie world's most reliable draws as his latest Asteroid City made a whopping $845,143 at 6 NYC/LA theaters. Asteroid City's $140,857 PTA figure is the highest by any film domestically since La La Land in December 2017, the highest for an Anderson movie since The Grand Budapest Hotel's $202,792 performance 4 theaters in March 2017 and the 13thh best PTA debut ever. Focus will engage in a more aggressive than usual release plan for an Anderson movie as they're expanding Asteroid City to about 1,500 theaters this weekend, which could slow the momentum this behemoth has built up pretty quickly. Still, this past weekend serves an incredible reminder of just how rabid Anderson's fanbase remains nearly 30 years into his career.

Wide Release:
Stop the presses: R-rated sex comedies are back! As a millennial, the existence of No Hard Feelings (Sony/Columbia) is oddly heartwarming to me. They truly don't make stuff like this anymore and seeing a title like this show up on a marquee in June brings back fond memories of my high school years where I had the pleasure of seeing movies like Superbad, Knocked Up and in packed theaters during the summertime.

While there are definitely people out there like myself that are loudly clamoring for the return of studio comedies, there's no evidence to believe this is a widespread sentiment. The summer of 2019 was a particularly depressing reminder of how far the R-rated comedy had fallen when Good Boys-which ironically is from No Hard Feelings director Gene Stupnitsky-was the only movie to perform respectably ($83.1 mil) on a slate that also featured the well-received Long Shot and Booksmart. With Joy Ride, Strays and Bottoms all set to release during the final 2 months of the 2023 summer slate, No Hard Feelings gets to be the guinea pig for this latest attempt to revive the R-rated comedy movement.

If it performs in-line with its current low teens tracking numbers, No Hard Feelings will be not be the savior Sony and theatrical comedy movie romantics would hoping it would be. As recognizable as she is, Jennifer Lawrence's box office track record post-Hunger Games has been pretty rough and despite solid visibility on the marketing, the trailers haven't seemed to grip people like the comedies of the late 00's did with their redband trailers. It's going to take some strong walk-up business and WOM for this turn this into a sleeper hit and while that's not exactly impossible, it does seem like a long shot considering the struggles of the genre of late.
Price: $6 ULT/$6 BO
Predictions: $10-18 mil OW /1-4 PTA/1-5 Top 5/mid to high 6 IMDB/$18-33 mil BO ($27-65 mil total BO)
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: Despite what I wrote above, it's cheap and has some overperformance potential. That's a good enough for it to earn a mild recommendation from me.


Limited Release:
After a lengthy festival run that started at Cannes and theatrical releases all over the globe last year, Revior Paris (Music Box) finally arrives in the United States this week. For the sake of our game at least, tMusic Box Films may have picked the perfect time to release this French drama about a woman dealing with PTSD after surviving a terrorist attack. While the respectable yet not overly glowing WOM and unknown theater count prevent it from being a clear slam dunk pick, it still possesses a strong enough pedigree to generate interest and the wide expansions of recent PTA juggernauts Asteroid City and Past Lives, poor debuts from The Flash and Elemental last weekend and modest expectations for No Hard Feelings mean the PTA race is wide open and easily winnable. It's fate would be more interesting to follow if anyone had picked it, but I'm still curious to see how it performs regardless.
Price: $2 ULT/$1 BO
Predictions: $10-25k OW/3-8 PTA/0 Top 5/high 6 to low 7 IMDb/$15-35k BO ($25-60 k total BO)
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: If you missed out on the incredible value pick that was Joyland earlier this season in ULT and have $2 to spare, absolutely.


Weekend Predictions:
1.The Flash $18 mil
2.Elemental $16 mil
3.Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $14 mil
4.No Hard Feelings $13 mil
5.Transformers: Rise of the Beasts $10 mil

-Asteroid City $6 mil

PTA: Revior Paris, Asteroid City, The Flash, Elemental, No Hard Feelings

Tune in next week when Screen previews a slate that includes Harrison Ford's farewell to the only character he's ever enjoyed playing and a documentary that Elon Musk would rip off multiple witless, bigoted tweets about if he was aware of its existence.

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I can't imagine there's much of an audience for No Hard Feelings outside of the creepier Jennifer Lawrence fans and those who really miss movies like The Hangover. In addition, reviews are not good (I knew something was wrong with it when Sony didn't lift the review embargo after the Saturday night sneak previews). Lawrence needs to get a better agent going forward. Otherwise, she might end up turning into Uma Thurman and just showing up in really bad, straight-to-Redbox level projects.

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No Hard Feelings did $2.15 mil in previews

[Chienfantome]

Maybe No Hard Feelings can score 15M+ this weekend after all.

[Buscemi2]

Does that number include the Saturday night previews?

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No

[numbersix]

Maybe No Hard Feelings can score 15M+ this weekend after all.

Unless it had a rabid fanbase that makes it frontloaded, then I think it probably will. I think the general multiplier of a Thurs preview is around 7x, so should be 14-15m by Monday.

[Buscemi2]

It wouldn't surprise me if rabid Lawrence fans saw it on Thursday night, as the film seems to fulfill their J-Law fantasies. But it might play well with the 30-49 crowd who grew up with these types of movies from the 90's and 2000's.

[numbersix]

It wouldn't surprise me if rabid Lawrence fans saw it on Thursday night, as the film seems to fulfill their J-Law fantasies. But it might play well with the 30-49 crowd who grew up with these types of movies from the 90's and 2000's.

If the latter, which I think it more accurate, then they tend not to flock to previews and even opening weekends, which fares well for the film

[Buscemi2]

Even though its wide numbers look to be solid, Asteroid City got a disappointing B Cinemascore. However, that's on the high side for the few Wes Anderson films that have been polled.

Meanwhile, The Flash could end up with the biggest second weekend drop ever for a film that opened to over $50 million. Fifty Shades of Grey currently holds that record with 74%. The Friday-to-Friday drop for The Flash is well past Fifty Shades of Grey's (81% to 73%) so unless numbers pick up on Saturday and Sunday, the weekend drop could hit 80% but I think it misses by a few percentage points.

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Weekend Estimates:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $19.3 mil
Elemental $18.5 mil
The Flash $15.3 mil
No Hard Feelings $15.1 mil
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts $11.6 mil
Asteroid City $9 mil
The Little Mermaid $8.7 mil
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 $3.5 mil
The Blackening $3 mil
The Boogeyman $2.5 mil

-Revoir Paris $8.1 k

PTA:
Asteroid City $5.4 k
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $5.1k
No Hard Feelings $4.7 k
Elemental $4.6k
Revoir Paris $4k

[Chienfantome]

Big hard fall from The Flash. Elemental is holding alright, even though it comes from too low. Spiderverse might be the film of the summer. No Hard Feelings is making a solid debut, with good WOM it could make decent money. And Asteroid City starts bigger than I would have thought.

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Weekend Actuals:
1.Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $19 mil
2.Elemental $18.4 mil
3.The Flash $15.1 mil (-72%, which puts it right behind Morbius for the title of worst drop in superhero movie history)
4.No Hard Feelings $15 mil
5.Transformers: Rise of the Beasts $11.8 mil
6.Asteroid City $9.1 mil
7.The Little Mermaid $8.6 mil
8.Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 $3.5 mil
9.The Blackening $3 mil
10.The Boogeyman $2.6 mil

-Revoir Paris $7,682

PTA:
1.Asteroid City $5,405
2.Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $5,021
3.No Hard Feelings $4,677
4.Elemental $4,571
5.Revoir Paris $3,841 (2 theaters)