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July 2018 Box Office Predictions
The 2018 summer box office got off to massive start in May with Avengers: Infinity War ($257 million opening weekend) and Deadpool 2 ($125 million opening). It continued full-steam ahead in June after Incredibles 2 had the biggest opening of all time for an animated film ($182 million) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom beat expectations and earned $150 million its opening weekend.
While July is still the heart of the summer season, things will likely begin to cool down at the box office as in years past, and $100 million openings are less likely to show up until the holiday season. That's not to say there aren't some big hits in store for the month, but the bigger movies are more likely to tap out in the range of $75 million.
The month kicks off, however, on the Fourth of July holiday with The First Purge, a prequel to the hugely successful Blumhouse Productions franchise. The first three films have earned $320 million worldwide on a combined budget of $22 million and, despite that, the budget for the prequel is not likely to top $12 to $15 million. The film, which opens on a Wednesday and gets the benefit of essentially a 5-day holiday weekend is likely to take in around $35 million from audiences starved for horror films but too afraid to watch Hereditary.
On the 6th, Marvel returns with Ant Man and Wasp, the second Ant Man movie and 20th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first Ant Man scored a $57 million opening weekend on its way to $180 million. Ant-Man may have been one of the least successful MCU movies but the sequel has the benefit of being only one of two movies (along with Captain Marvel) to fall in between the two-part Avengers series and it's said to offer some answers about the fates of the
The weekend of July 13th brings one-man franchise Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson back into theaters with a rare original movie in the summer season. Skyscraper comes from Johnson's directing partner on Central Intelligence, Rawson Marshall Thurber, who will also direct Johnson in Summer 2020's Red Notice. Even with The Rock, however, the box-office prospects of a movie that's not based on existing IP can swing wildly based on reviews and word of mouth. Poor reviews and Skyscraper opens with $40 million, although it can go as high as $60 million if critics and influencers turn out big for it. In either respect, it probably has a $150 million ceiling in the United States, but it can earn as much as double that overseas, thanks to the star wattage of Johnson.
Skyscraper will have to go up against the third entry in the surprisingly healthy Hotel Transylvania franchise. This installment, Summer Vacation, arrives just as Incredibles 2 should be waning at the box office, leaving room for the Adam Sandler animated film to rack up around $45 million in its opening weekend, halfway between the $42 million of the original and the $48 million of the first sequel. Its ceiling, however, is around $150 million.
The weekend of July 20th will see the first sequel in the long and storied career of the greatest American actor of his generation, Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr., better known to audiences as simply Denzel. Denzel is a relatively safe bet at the box office, although he's only made 5 films (out of 46) that have crossed the $100 million mark, including the original Equalizer which just eeked it over that line with $101 million. Denzel, however, doesn't often need to put up huge box-office numbers because the budgets on his movies are relatively modest. Equalizer 2 should open in the same range as most of Denzel's action fare, about $30 million or so on its way to $100 million.
Equalizer 2 will be going up against Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, the sequel to the unexpectedly huge 2008 musical ($144 million). It's hard to imagine that audiences will show up in numbers that big for more Abba songs, but I didn't expect them to turn out for the original, either. It should earn around $30 million in its opening weekend. Whether it can climb to the heights of the original will depend on word of mouth (I suspect it will come up short, crossing the $100 million mark, but barely). Meryl and Denzel also face another Jason Blum movie on that weekend, Unfriended: The Dark Web, a horror flick like its predecessor that takes place entirely on computer screens. It will probably open in the range of $10-$15 million, which is robust for a film that only cost $3-5 million to produce. Thirty million dollars is likely the ceiling for the horror flick.
If there is one film that can break $100 million between now and November, it's Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible - Fallout. These movies are much bigger hits overseas than they are in the United States, where the franchise usually opens in the $55 million range on the way to about $200 million total. However, there's a lot of heat on Fallout and these movies have accrued a fairly passionate audience over the years. I wouldn't expect more than a $65 to $70 million opening weekend, but that could climb if younger audiences start to flock to the movie, the sixth in the franchise. It will face off against Teen Titans Go! To The Movies and expectations are modest for the 2D animated film. Anticipate a $12-$15 million opening weekend and $40 million overall.
July doesn't hold out a lot of potential for arthouse fare, although there is one breakout possibility in Blindspotting, starring Daveed Diggs. It fetched stellar reviews in the film-festival circuit and it could catch some heat and earn $15 million and potentially some Oscars consideration. I'd be remiss, too, if I didn't mention Puzzle, a movie opening in Los Angeles and New York in late July. It probably won't earn more than $3-5 million over its entire run, but we may find out that there are a lot of passionate puzzlers out there who come out of the woodwork to see a movie set in the high-stakes world of a puzzle tournament.
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