Fourth weekend of July 2025

This weekend vs last year was always going to be Disney/Marvel vs Disney/Marvel, and because Deadpool & Wolverine was so massive last year it was going to be a tough hill to climb. Because Disney did such a good job on Fan Four, and the gross this weekend won’t be far off the combined opening 3 days of all 3 of the previous films, we’re only going to be about $100 million behind last year instead of a significantly higher number; but we’re still gonna give a lot of that cushion back this weekend. We’ll give some more back next week but it won’t be a ton, but in two weeks the movies we have coming in (Weapons, Freakier Friday) might be strong enough to counteract the $50 million It Ends With Us (and their Lawsuit enthusiasts) brought in. We were about 15% ahead of last year going into this weekend and by the time we get through the next couple of weeks it will probably be down to about 13%.

There’s been a lot of talk from our always dependable entertainment press the last couple of years about ’Superhero Fatigue’ and the usual hand wringing they cultivate; usually leading to ‘we’re all doomed/the sky is falling’. But as you remember it all comes down to the same issue……’it’s the movies, stupid’.

Now that we’ve had 3 Superhero films in a row that have delivered quality theatrical experience that polished up the genre (Thunderbolts, Superman and Fan Four) in an 11 week period, I’d argue the exact opposite of the fatigue argument. By delivering a quality moviegoing experience we’re getting the habitual moviegoer back, and having 3 good films from the same genre back to back to back, the quality of Thunderbolts and Superman actually helped make this weekend on Fan Four possible. I’m wondering what would have happened if Fan Four had gone the first week of May and Thunderbolts went today? If Fan Four had followed the somewhat tepid quality of Captain America: Brave New World plus had to reclaim the fans that Fox chased away with their Fan Four films, and Thunderbolts had gone this weekend; could the gross on Fan Four be less that what it’s going to do this weekend and the gross on Thunderbolts be more than the $74 million it opened to? Of course there are some core marketplace differences beginning with May vs July, but looking at the history of this genre, consistency built it up to what it is today. And who was key to building it up? The Tagalongs.

Before anyone started mumbling shitty movie Superhero fatigue, one of the reasons Marvel became such a juggernaut at the box office was its consistency and cadence of releases. They would release a couple of films a year and they would trailer the next film on each film, and since those films were so massive, getting those eyeballs with each monster release set the next film up for success. Of course, having storylines that connected each film with the next helped too, but that in theater exposure helped move the tagalongs and walkups from seldom fans to casual fans to moderate fans. But when you burn those non core fans a couple of times, sometimes you’re starting back at zero.

Just look at where we are with Comedy these days in the theatrical sector, it’s a rare occurrence. It used to be a staple and moviegoers that were fans of the genre were habitual attenders. But then Hangover and the Jump Street movies came along and suddenly everything had to be R. So a bunch of mediocre comedy scripts added a lot of fucks to the dialogue and got greenlit, but were still mediocre scripts (which became mediocre movies). And the audience told us clearly, please don’t use that language around us because it’s not as funny as you think it is and it’s actually pretty lazy writing, but fuck you, we’re not going to see mediocre. Until we get a decent cadence of Comedies in the theaters, each one is starting from scratch.

So what we’re seeing this weekend isn’t just strong work from Disney by making a good movie and using their dependable marketing muscles, it’s the Thunderbolts team and oddly enough the WB/DC team; it all is summing up to consumers jumping back on the bandwagon, because this genre feels safe enough now to spend their money on. As I’ve said before here, one of the early moguls was quoted saying ’there’s nothing wrong with this business that a few good pictures can’t solve’, and it’s funny how there is never good movie fatigue.

Anyway, with the same expected effectiveness as a Southwest Airlines landing helmet (only required for Burbank landings) here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

Fantastic Four: First Steps - Had an amazing opening day yesterday and the grosses look really good today on day 2. The grosses today were in lock step with Superman’s opening day this morning, but the last couple of hours it’s fallen a little behind. Supposedly the exits are just a step below where Superman polled, so it will be interesting to see how this stacks up against Superman for the rest of the weekend. Generally Disney does better than the rest with Hispanics, so we might see something manifest itself there as well tonight. For now let’s say it ends up about the same place and finishes the 4 days with $125 million, but (as I said above) that’s almost the total opening weekend for the other 3 Fan Four films combined. Disney is pretty good at this stuff.

Superman - This film was bound to be down a decent amount today, not only because there’s another Superhero movie in the marketplace, but they lost pretty much all of their PLF screens. If you look at the theaters that don’t have PLFs in the complex, the hold is a little better, but those PLF’s are destination screens and the price point is considerably higher. Looks like it’s down about 55% this weekend for a gross in the mid/high 20’s.

Oh, Hi! - Went 800 runs and other than some fair grosses in the best art houses of NY and LA, there’s nothing going on here, looks like a gross of about $700k.

The Home - Went 1000 runs and there’s nothing at all going on, maybe $500k for the weekend.