As the final month of the summer box office season begins, theaters will have a trio of demo-targeting films — adult comedy, family animation and body horror — to offer moviegoers alongside returning “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and the other four-quadrant tentpoles from July’s slate.
On tap for the big screen: Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s “The Bad Guys 2,” Paramount’s revival of the comedy “The Naked Gun,” and Neon’s critically lauded date night film from hell “Together.”
None of these films are projected to take No. 1 from “Fantastic Four,” but “Bad Guys 2” is projected to take the No. 2 spot with an opening weekend in the $20 million range against an $80 million budget. The first “Bad Guys” earned a $23.9 million opening in April 2022 and went on to earn $97 million domestic and $250 million worldwide.
“The Naked Gun” is projected to take third with an opening in the mid-to-high teens. For comparison, Sony’s “One of Them Days,” one of the few other pure comedies in wide release this year, opened to a $14 million four-day start on MLK weekend this past January.
Finally, “Together,” a Sundance film which Neon acquired for $17 million in one of the festival’s biggest deals in history, is projected for a $7-10 million start over its 5-day launch after earning $1.3 million from early access screenings. After stewarding Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs” to breakout success in 2024, Neon is banking on “Together” being its next big summer indie horror hit.
Hunting for Sleeper Hits
All three films are heading into theaters with strong reviews as they try to attain sleeper hit status in a month that, in recent years, has been threadbare in terms of new releases. The Rotten Tomatoes scores currently stand at 85% for “Bad Guys 2,” 90% for “Naked Gun” and a stunning 97% for “Together.” Though in the case of “Together,” with its ambiguous ending, it might be a movie that wows critics more than audiences, who have given it an early 78% RT score.
Thanks in good part to the box office and awards success of “The Substance,” body horror is having a moment that “Together” could capitalize on. Like with “Longlegs,” Neon has put together an offbeat marketing campaign including an offer for, of all things, free couples therapy for anyone going to see the movie as a pair. How well it builds word-of-mouth will depend on whether moviegoers embrace the film’s cringe-inducing moments where Dave Franco and Alison Brie’s bodies start to fuse together and the pitch-black humor that comes with it, or if the film’s uncertain ending leaves them wanting something more conclusive.
“The Naked Gun,” which carries a reported budget of $42 million, is openly embracing its status as a straight-up comedy at a time when such films are an endangered species theatrically. In a PSA-style ad that has the fingerprints of producer Seth MacFarlane all over it, the film’s star Liam Neeson implores the public to buy a ticket for “Naked Gun” to help save the future of comedy in theaters amidst a montage of classics from the genre like “Anchorman” and “Clueless.”
While there’s a variety of factors that have gone into the decline of theatrical comedy, a big one is that tentpole blockbusters like “Superman” and most of Marvel Studios’ output have been filled with laughs along with big-budget action, making them a replacement for audiences to get their comedic fill. “The Naked Gun” will likely get an opening weekend audience that skews towards the Gen Xers who saw the original 1988 film starring Leslie Nielsen, but its sleeper hit hopes hinge on word-of-mouth among younger audiences who have never seen this brand of absurdly straight, sight gag-heavy comedy.
Lastly there’s “Bad Guys 2,” which is projected for a similar run to its 2022 predecessor even as the demise of Pixar’s “Elio” has left this summer without a breakout animated hit.
DreamWorks has a history of releasing animated films right before or right after kids go back to school, as seen with last September’s “The Wild Robot.” The late summer-early autumn positioning puts a ceiling on its top potential — DreamWorks’ top grossing post-COVID film is “Kung Fu Panda 4” with $549 million in March 2024 — but with an $80 million budget, “Bad Guys 2” could be a decent success for the studio while providing theaters with more of the animated fare they want Hollywood to provide in off-peak release slots.
What about ‘Fantastic Four’?
Amidst all of this, there’s the question of whether “Fantastic Four: First Steps” can hold as well as “Superman” has or if even a well-received, homework-free Marvel film isn’t enough to get lapsed moviegoers to give the MCU another chance.
So far, the midweek numbers for “Fantastic” are not quite as strong as “Superman” but still very good with a $10.4 million Monday and a $14 million Tuesday. The target for “Fantastic Four” is a second weekend total of at least $45 million, which would put its drop from a $117.6 million opening below 60%.
Like “Superman,” “Fantastic Four” is shaping up to be a domestic-driven film with softer numbers overseas, likely keeping its global total ceiling to around $600 million. That makes it more important for the film to keep drawing in moviegoers who haven’t kept up with Marvel lately and who aren’t interested in the lower-budget offerings hitting theaters this weekend.
