Second weekend of July 2025
Because we had a Universal vs Universal swap last weekend (Jurassic this year vs Despicable last year) and both films did about the same business, we pretty much tied the total from last year’s 4th of July weekend. This weekend was a little light last year (Longlegs, Fly Me to the Moon), and just Superman’s gross should equal the weekend total from last year, so we’ll pad the lead by about $80 million or so this weekend with all the non Superman titles in the marketplace. Depending on how well Superman holds next weekend, we could be a little ahead of last year even though Twisters came into the market. But unfortunately the weekend after that it’s another same studio battle, and the IP strength of Fantastic Four won’t be able to negate the massive IP of Deadpool (oddly enough it’s a Fox Marvel IP vs a Fox Marvel IP, and they figured out one of them and flailed around aimlessly with the other), so we’ll be way behind 2024 that weekend.
As you’ve probably already heard, the WB hot streak is continuing this weekend, and they have another film that closed strongly and looks to have a great weekend. But how it got to this point is interesting and it’s a cautionary tale of how tough the media environment can be these days.
It’s interesting how the success of this film is a surprise for a lot of you, because the buzz until this week was tepid at best and kinda negative. And there’s a reason for that, WB kept this under tight wraps until the very last minute. They didn’t test screen the movie at any scale, and it was really hard (if not impossible) to find anyone outside of WB who had seen the movie. Since a lot of us have been around for a while, that usually means they are hiding a failure, so it’s logical (but actually kinda lazy) for our collective minds to wander towards ’it’s probably not good’. But we’ve seen some really smart positioning from WB lately and now it’s clear to me this was just really smart strategy. Sometimes a strategy like this could be seen as paranoid, but as the old saying goes ‘just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me’.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie yet, one of the many smart and timely story ideas is about hijacking a narrative to make someone who’s good look evil, and how dumb and easily manipulated the media (and the public) can be. We live in a world where you win, not by being better than your opponent, but by convincing everyone your opponent sucks. And because the media is profit driven instead of accuracy driven*, a culture slap fight gets amplified quickly. So now you’re seeing what WB was paranoid about, as soon as they started showing the movie, the hijacking started. But it’s now muted because it’s all happening after the Premier Monday was well received and the critics weighed in on the high side of positive.
As much as I’ve ranted here about how important the test screening process can be, it could have been a death sentence in this case. With an IP as substantial as this one (I’d argue that Superman, Batman and Spider-Man are at a different level than all the other Superhero IPs, by far), it would be virtually impossible to do a test screening at scale and not have a leak, and if the wrong subject matter leaked everything would have gone sideways. As a film like this is trying to get it’s creative footing (and that’s part of the reason you test screen) it’s impossible to get dickheads like World of Reel to understand it’s still finding it’s footing and leave it alone (because, you know, clicks). So as you see people latching on to this film for their own agendas today, imagine the damage that could have caused if it wasn’t already established that the film is really good? One could only imagine the hole this could have been in had this been branded the Woke** Superman 5 or 6 months ago, and it would have had all that time to become perceived truth; and as you know the other idea that seems to be becoming far too common is ‘say enough times and a lie with become truth’. Although the goal of the test screening process is getting as many fresh eyes as you can get, the alternative for an IP of this size is some trusted friends and family and a steady hand of studio executives; that could have gone either way too, but in this case it was good enough. By going that route, a film about hijacking a narrative to fit your own (evil) agenda didn’t get crushed by people hijacking it for their own agenda.
The bonus of playing their cards the way WB did is that now that anyone attempting to latch onto this for their own agenda feels kinda….sad. It’s nice to hear that Dean Cain is still alive, but does anyone have any doubt that he would have been just fine with this movie if he had been offered a cameo? It’s always the same thing, if I say it sucks how can it work in my benefit?
Anyway, with the same accuracy as a FBI Analyst’s resume who worked on the Epstien files, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Superman - Had a great opening day yesterday and day 2 today is really good as well. Yesterday was very similar to the first day of The Batman, but it will be interesting to see if this performs a little differently as the weekend unfolds. This film is nearly an hour shorter than The Batman, so where The Batman hit a wall around 7pm, this has a shot at generating some 8, 9 and 10pm show business. The Superman IP is also a little broader than the Batman IP, and it’s a little more family friendly and not as dark, so we could see some additional daytime business tomorrow and Sunday. Of course this time of year, pretty much all kids are out of school, so the uptick tomorrow will be for very young kids who need a parent to take them on a day when they’re not at work. What’s great about the audience so far is that it’s not old, it’s actually pretty young and over half the audience is under 35. For an IP that’s ‘of a certain age’ like this is, clearly the reboot has attracted younger audiences, and our sector needs that. Right now this looks like about $130 million for the weekend, but there’s superior playability here; and unlike the Marvel Superhero films that pretty much arrive fully baked, this film is just coming out of the oven and it’s possible that late inertia could show up as the weekend unfolds.
Jurassic World: Rebirth - Not looking as bad as I thought it would today, with a monster coming in against it, they lost all of their PLFs and only had decent exits last week. Looks down about 55% for a weekend around $40 million.
F1 The Movie - Because I was a little checked out last week and was suffering from minfort*** when I wrote last week’s email, there were a couple of things I needed to catch up on today. Last weekend this movie passed $100 million gross domestic, and that makes this Jerry Bruckheimer’s 24th film to achieve that. Just in case you’ve forgotten, they are; F1, Bad Boys Ride or Die, Top Gun Maverick, Bad Boys for Life, Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales, Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides, G-Force, National Treasure Book of Secrets, Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest, National Treasure, Bad Boys II, Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl, Black Hawk Down, Remember the Titans, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Gone in 60 Seconds, Enemy of the State, Con Air, The Rock, Beverly Hills Cop II, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop. This film had IMAX presentations as it’s core and they’re all with Superman now, so it’s down a decent amount today, but the theaters that didn’t have an IMAX presentation aren’t too bad. This film will probably be more interesting next weekend when they aren’t losing PLF screens, but this weekend it looks down 50% for a weekend of about $13 million.
- Which we can thank the movies for; Network predicted the profit driven news model in 1976, and 1997’s Private Parts gave the road map to the current clickbait environment during the walk and talk between Paul Giamatti and NBC research, where the data showed that haters listen more than fans because ’they wanna hear what he’s gonna say next’. I had a couple of friends who worked at Fox News in the late 90’s and they said that scene had a profound effect on Roger Ailes.
**I’m still not sure what Woke means, it seems like it’s bad and I don’t want to be that, but the opposite of Woke is Asleep and I don’t want to be that either, so I’m just confused.
*** my way of saying minimum effort with minimal effort.