In what is arguably tradition, the Labor Day weekend is going to be slow this year, moving this summer to a projected $3.6 billion total per Comscore, and that’s because the studios decided to play it that way. Summer’s take is roughly half billion lighter than summer 2023’s $4.09 billion, and that more or less boils down to a Marvel movie missing from the May calendar (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 racking up $359M last summer).
Sony decided to push their R-rated Marvel movie, Kraven the Hunter, out of the four-day slot and into December to capitalize on the year-end moviegoing multiple. Fair and smart. In its place, they have the $12M PG-13 Blumhouse John Cho starring, Chris Weitz directed Afraid, which did $400k in previews (off showtimes that started at 4PM) and is projected to do around $5M for the 4-day weekend.
In Afraid, Curtis (Cho) and his family are selected to test a revolutionary new home device: a digital family assistant called AIA. Once the unit and all its sensors and cameras are installed in their home, AIA seems able to do it all. She learns the family’s behaviors and begins to anticipate their needs. And she can make sure nothing – and no one – gets in her family’s way. The pic was originally titled They Listen, and the studio opted to change titles, not because test audiences weren’t listening to that title, rather they wanted to play up the ‘AI’ which is italicized in the title.
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Disney/Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine will close out summer’s finale with $12M-$14M over 4-days for its 5th No. 1 this season, Disney’s tenth No. 1 for the 18-weekend season stretch. The movie at this point in time isn’t expected to hit the six-century mark at the domestic box office just yet, but it’s going to try. D&W is getting some Premium screen support, sharing most of the IMAX/PLF footprint with Alien: Romulus. This will allow exhibition to mix and match to make the best of both top titles, theatre by theatre. Inside Out 2 is also back in over 2,600 theatres; the Pixar Labor Day bringback tradition still alive and well. That pic prevails as 2024’s and summer’s top grossing title at $647.2M. D&W won the week with $25.4M, a $1.6M Thursday and a running total through yesterday of $584.3M.
Another wide opener this weekend is Showbiz Direct’s biopic Reagan about the 40th President starring Dennis Quaid in the title role. It did $525k last night. Pic has an outstanding 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Projections for the weekend are in the single digits, but the distrib hopes that Middle America turns out and gets this into double digits over the four days. Critics aren’t electing Reagan as a great movie with a 25% RT score.
Also on marquees this weekend is Bleecker Street’s Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne psychological thriller Slingshot at 845 locations. Pic follows an elite trio of astronauts aboard a years-long, possibly compromised mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut to maintain his grip on reality.
Lionsgate in 800 locations has one of Ray Liotta’s final movies, 1992, which also stars Tyrese Gibson and Scott Eastwood. Action thriller follows a shopkeeper who must save his son from an angry mob during the 1992 L.A. uprising after the Rodney King verdict. Pic is 70% fresh with critics on RT.
Roadside Attractions has in 774 locations the political hot-button border crisis movie, City of Dreams about a boy whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he’s smuggled from Mexico and sold to a sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles. Tons of celebrities put their names on this movie as EPs including Sylvester Stallone, Martin Sheen, Kathie Lee Gifford, Riverdale star Marisol Nichols, political leader Vivek Ramaswamy, and actress/producer Colleen Camp. Twelve reviews have this Mohit Ramchandani written and directed drama at 75% fresh on RT.