Burgundy's Box Office Banquet - The Films of 6/17

[Ron Burgundy]

Hey folks! Last weekend saw the carnivores feast on the cinema, roaring its way to a $145 million opening weekend. Top Gun held fairly well dropping 42% to give Maverick a cool $51 mil in it's third week. I didn't see it coming, but T. Cruise seems to just get better with age in terms of Box Office. Top Gun will overtake Dr Strange as the highest grossing movie of 2022, which is slightly nuts. Interestingly as pointed out by our own Tranny, Firestarter claimed its first PTA points of the season?!

This week's only wide release will look to beam up the charts, to infinity and beyond!



Lightyear(Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

Lightyear is the newest film from Pixar studio's, instead of being a direct sequel its a kind of spinoff or a movie within a movie from the much loved Toy Story franchise. Toy Story 3 and 4 both made over $400mil though they had the whole gang appearing including the original voice actors Tim Allen and Tom Hanks. This...is different. Combined with a new cast appearing for what would seem as another launch for a new franchise are some mixed reviews so far, this isn't exactly promising a tally north of the last Toy Story efforts. Some added possibly non factors are that the film got banned in some Arabic countries due to an on screen kiss by members of the same gender, shock horror and its not even real people doing it, im pretty disappointed by these Arab film censors.

Anyhoo, i think a more apt comparison is Harrison-Ford's character where he was wasn't in the movie based on his character, yes another Disney schamozzel Solo: A Star Wars Story. That film got around $220mil. I can see this making more than that based on the Rottentomatoes score of 82% fresh from critics and 100% from fans (its a wildly different story on imdb.com).

Before i jinx myself with a prediction on how it fares (i picked it in the yearlong draft...one pick before Top Gun...facepalm!) lets have a quick look at the director and cast. Angus McLane co-directed Finding Dory and has been involved in lots of other Pixar projects, while that looks ok on paper, personally i found Dory much less pleasing than Nemo. The cast has Chris Evans taking on the Buzz Lightyear role, again, looks good on paper, will see if the droves of Marvel fans flock to catch his next headliner. Taika Waititi appears as the comic relief which could be good...on paper (personally I think he can be very hit or miss and better as a director) while Bill Hader appears as well. The silver lining in all this is Isiah Whitlock Jr, who is from The Wire, we all know those cast members are pure gold.

So, a prediction is cooked and ready to serve: $290mil with a $110mil opening. Priced at $19, it should grab 9-10 Top 5 points, about 7 PTA and an imdb around 7, with 2 weeks Box office probably around the $170mil mark. Its a good option for this season, but if we were playing with next months movies (Gru, Thor, Paws) it would face some real competition.



Official Competition (IFC films)

Starring Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, this is a black comedy about a big businessman hiring a big director to make a smash hit film is supposedly quite tongue in cheek and gives some commentary on the film industry. The film is in Spanish and has a limited release but i doubt it will be under 10 cinemas. Spanish language movies usually have a wide-ish release so 250-400 locations is possible with the star power attached. With this in mind maybe 1-2 PTA points are in play but that's all. With an imdb rating of about 7, its not worth the $3 risk on your slate.



Brian and Charless (Focus Features)

Priced at just $2, this Sundance festival darling actually looks really good. A combination of comedy and hope with the added bonus of being a mockumentary just looks like it's all going to work to give you a warm fuzzy feeling. If only we had a better idea of the actual amount of cinema's it will be released in, if it is under 100, you could be looking at 3-6 PTA points, about 7.5 on imdb. If you need a filler for your slate, even if the season is nearly over, this is a pretty good option.

Predictions for the weekend

1. Lightyear - $110m
2. Jurassic World Dominion - $65m
3. Top Gun: Maverick - $28m
4. Dr Strange 2 - $3.5m
5. Bob's Burgers - $2m

PTA race: Lightyear, Jurassic, Brian and Charles, Top Gun, Official Competiton

Next week we'll see 2 more Top 5 contender's battle Lightyear and each other with Baz Luhrman's Elvis and Universal Pictures' The Black Phone with Ethan Hawke to cap off a season where we may be finally able to look back at the covid saga with little pity.

[Buscemi2]

Lightyear's been getting low-end reviews for Pixar and the idea of a Buzz Lightyear movie without Tim Allen just seems odd. If this is a monster hit, it will be because of the cat robot.

And every time I see the Brian & Charles trailer, it makes me wish that it were about the robot trying to kill his creator. It looks so obnoxious.

[numbersix]

Yeah I'm thinking Lightyear won't open over $100m. We all may love the toy version, but I was really put off by the trailer.

[Chienfantome]

I'd say Lightyear will more likely be in the 75/85 million region.
As for JW, it will take a harder hit, 50/55 million.
Top Gun will remain strong with a soft drop. Around 35 million I'd say.

[transformers2]

Being a spin-off will definitely hurt Lightyear to some degree. The million-dollar question will be just big will the impact be. $65-80 mil seems like the most likely range for an opening, but the lack of true family options of late could get it closer to $90 or 100.

On the limited side, Ron may end up having Official Competition and Brian and Charles' fates reversed. Official Competition is only opening in NYC/LA this weekend whereas Brian and Charles seems to be playing in at least 100-200 theaters (9 theaters within 50 miles of me are showing it.)

[Buscemi2]

Brian and Charles is playing at a theatre near me. It looked to be semi-wide as the trailer actually does mention the June 17th date instead of "coming soon".

Speaking of semi-wide, Mr. Malcolm's List on July 1st looks to be opening in at least a few hundred theatres.

[numbersix]

Focus love releasing films semi-wide that should really build from a 2-10 theatre opening. Instead, like Wolf or You Won't Be Alone, they dump on a few hundred and then they bomb completely. An odd strategy.

[Buscemi2]

I think that's more a case of COVID leading theatres to need product as many titles originally planned for theatres went to streaming or got delayed. Bleecker Street's done the same thing.

[Buscemi2]

Friday numbers

1. Mr. Lightbeer $20.7 million (A- Cinemascore)
2. Jurassic World: Dominion $15.7 million
3. Top Gun: Maverick $11 million
4. Doctor Strange $1.1 million
5. The Bob's Burgers Movie $0.3 million
6. The Bad Guys $0.3 million (fifth and sixth separated by $79,000)
7. Downton Abbey: A New Era $0.3 million (sixth and seventh separated by $10,000)
8. Everything Everywhere All at Once $0.3 million (seventh and eighth separated by $166)
9. Brian and Charles $0.07 million
10. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 $0.05 million

[transformers2]

Weekend Estimates:
Jurassic World Dominion $58.7 mil
Lightyear $51 mil
Top Gun: Maverick $44 mil
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness $4.2 mil
The Bob's Burgers Movie $1.1 mil
The Bad Guys $980k
Everything Everywhere All at Once $960k
Downton Abbey: A New Era $830k
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 $228k
Brian and Charles $198k

[numbersix]

Is that Pixar's lowest opening?

[transformers2]

No, Onward only made $39 mil.

[Chienfantome]

Disney should have released their Pixar films sooner in theaters, they should have done so with Luca, and Turning Red. They took themselves out of the theatrical equation all by themselves, and that was not a clever calculation.

That Top Gun hold is phenomenal.

[Buscemi2]

Looks like Disney is going to get their wish and be able to merge their animation studios, which was apparently the whole reason why they reduced Luca and Turning Red to Disney+.

[transformers2]

I think there's 2 lessons that can be gleaned from Lightyear's performance this weekend:
1.Spin-offs just don't tend to have the same juice as a traditional franchise.
2.Families aren't going to theaters at pre-COVID rates. Believe it or not, Lightyear is easily the highest opening for an animated movie during the pandemic and it will certainly join Sing 2 in the lonely club of animated movies that cleared $100 mill at the box office from August 2020-today. Considering the current curve in the marketplace, that's not exactly an awful finish.

Can this trend of animated movies posting relatively modest numbers be reversed? Sure, but I'm not overly confident that any of the titles on the schedule for the rest of this year is capable of truly breaking out.