June 2018 Box Office Predictions

By Dustin Rowles

The summer 2018 box office got off to massive start in May with Avengers: Infinity War ($257 million opening weekend) and Deadpool 2 ($125 million opening) before Star Wars fatigue seemed to set in, stranding Solo: A Star Wars Story with a relatively weak $84 million opening weekend (or slightly more than half of the $155 million earned by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in its opening weekend). While that may not bode well for future Star Wars stand-alone offerings, it does leave some breathing room at the box office for early June offerings to blossom.

Among those releases with low-key potential for a break-out is Johnny Knoxville's June 1st opener, Action Point, which merges the stunt-work of “Jackass” with a more traditional low-brow but hilarious comedy. Audiences may be starving for summer laughs, but the film -- based on an actual unsafe, poorly-designed theme park responsible for six fatalities -- is “only” opening on 2000 screens, so it's not likely to do as well as the last movie from Dickhouse Productions, Bad Grandpa, which opened with $32 million on 3300 screens against relatively little competition in late October 2013. Expect an opening weekend in the $18 to $20 million range, with some sleeper potential throughout June, ending its run with around $60 million.

Likewise, Adrift has some sleeper potential, too. Four years ago, Shailene Woodley's A Fault in Our Stars opened with $48 million in a similar early June slot on its way to $124 million. And then, two years ago, Sam Claflin starred opposite Emilia Clarke in the tear-jerker Me Before You, which also opened in the first week of June and quietly earned $56 million. Adrift mixes and matches Woodley and Claflin with a similar romantically tragic premise (based on a true story) and will probably earn $12-$15 million in its opening weekend but should coast to $45 million as the only weeper offering of the summer, at least until the August release of Christopher Robin.

The film to beat in the front half of June, however, is Ocean’s 8, a female-led entry into the “Ocean’s” franchise starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, and Anne Hathaway. It should run away with its June 8 opening weekend, opening in the $40-$45 million range on its way to $140 million domestic, or similar to how the 2016 gender-reversed Ghostbusters performed, only with half the budget of that film. However, don't sleep on A24's Hereditary opening on the same June 8th weekend. It's sporting stellar reviews that suggest it could be the scariest movie of 2018 and although it should open with around only $10 million, word of mouth similar to A Quiet Place or Get Out could have Hereditary taking a run at Lady Bird ($48 million) as the biggest A24 release ever. Director Drew Pearce's quirky action-comedy Hotel Artemis - starring Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Charlie Day, and Jeff Goldblum - will probably be the unfortunate audience afterthought, opening in the $6 to $8 million range despite the super-cool cast.

The much anticipated Incredibles 2 will dominate the weekend of June 15th. Expect the sequel to double the original's $70 million opening weekend, scoring around $140 million to surpass Finding Dory with the biggest opening weekend ever for an animated film. Assuming stellar reviews and word of mouth on par with other Pixar offerings, Incredibles 2 could end its run with numbers comparable to Inside Out’s $350 million domestic gross. It should nevertheless leave some room for the high-concept comedy Tag - yet another film based on a true story - to open similarly to another game-based comedy, Game Night, which cleared $17 million in its first three days on its way to a $63 million gross earlier this year. Tag, starring Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, and Jake Johnson, should bank $20 million in its opening weekend and $65 million overall before it is ushered out of theaters. Meanwhile, Superfly, a remake of the 1972 blaxploitation film Super Fly, opens on June 13th to get a two-day head start on the competition. It will be the odd-man out on that weekend, scoring $8 to $10 million.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom appropriately gets the June 22nd weekend all to itself. Its predecessor Jurassic World went on to become the fifth biggest film of all time, both domestic and international, scoring $652 million domestic (and $1.67 billion globally). The novelty, however, has worn off to some degree. So we are expecting Fallen Kingdom to play more like Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($220 million opening weekend) did after The Force Awakens ($247 million), opening with similarly lower numbers. It should earn around $150 million on its opening weekend, or about $60 million less than the last dinosaur outing's opening weekend, on its way to a $325 million domestic run.

As is typically the case, studios use the weekend before the Fourth of July holiday to, instead of releasing huge tentpoles, put out smaller, more targeted films in the hopes of either counterprogramming the blockbusters (like Fallen Kingdom) or capitalizing on moviegoers who go to theaters more than once during the holiday. That's the case again in 2018 as studios offer the basketball comedy, Uncle Drew, and a specialty action pic, Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Uncle Drew will endeavor to capitalize on the surging popularity of Tiffany Haddish as well as the likability of Shaquille O'Neal, but it's not likely to break $10 million in its opening weekend. Sicario: Day of the Soldado will hope for the same $8-$10 million opening. While neither film is poised to break any records, both films are low-budget fare happy to come in at $10 million and leave with $30 million while padding profits with global box office in the case of Day of the Soldado and digital home release in the case of Uncle Drew.

Finally, it's not likely to compete with Ocean’s 8 or Incredibles 2, but the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor will open in a handful of theaters on June 8th and expand throughout the month. It should dominate the small, specialty box office. There are a lot of older moviegoers who have a strong nostalgic affection for Fred Rogers, and the documentary is getting incredible reviews on the film festival circuit, so it should fetch $10-$12 million during its theatrical run for Focus Features.

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