Author: Tom Brueggemann / Source: IndieWire
Summer 2018 shows signs of strength beyond the usual blockbusters. But will the box office sustain beyond its great first half? It depend how one defines sustain. The biggest openings — including Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp” next weekend — are likely behind us and make up the bulk of the long haul.
It will take some better-than-expected results from the rest of the forthcoming releases to keep up the pace.Two modest-budget titles under $50 million, “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” (Sony) and “Uncle Drew” (Lionsgate), performed better than predicted with their respective $19 million and $15.5 million opening weekends. While both fell short of summer 2017 sleepers “Baby Driver” and “Girls Trip,” by opening on the same weekend and adding to the strong holdover totals, the newbies helped the weekend totals come in slightly higher than their equivalent last year. That sustains a year to date total that remains up nearly ten percent.
While new releases deserve attention, let’s not kid ourselves. Brand names are the reason for continued summer results. “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” (Universal) and “Incredibles 2” (Disney) combined did 60 percent of the business this weekend. The Dinoworld sequel with $60 million notched #1 for its second weekend.
That’s a nearly 60 percent drop from its excellent opening. That compares to the 49 percent drop for the second weekend of 2015’s massive “Jurassic” reboot. That’s middling among the summer’s top openers (“Solo” and “Deadpool 2” are greater, with the latter affected by the Star Wars film opening its second weekend.)
If “Fallen Kingdom” in ten days reaches $265 million domestic, which along with outstanding foreign results gets it to a total $932 million worldwide (most foreign dates opened two weeks earlier), the movie should end up overall at about two thirds of the 2005 film (with the domestic share lower, but still strong). But the U.S./Canada total should approach $400 million.
The Pixar sequel “Incredibles 2” dropped 43 percent its third weekend. The easy comparison is to “Finding Dory” two years ago, a June release, a many-years-later sequel to a major success. The third weekend is the same gross as “Dory,” but that total was boosted by falling on July 1-3 on Independence Day weekend. The total so far is $40 million better ($440 million) than “Dory.”
“Incredibles 2” looks on track to become the highest grossing domestic Pixar release ever (including adjusted — it needs to get to the “Finding Nemo”…
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