Summer 2022 Box Office Predictions

 

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is not on this list, but how could I not make this lil' guy the header image?!?

Boy, it feels weird to be doing this again.

For the first time in three years, I can do a proper Summer Box Office Predictions column. Knock on wood, we’re going to have a traditional summertime box office season that starts the first weekend of May and ends over Labor Day weekend. What a concept. The COVID-19 pandemic erased summer 2020 entirely and ensured that summer 2021 (save for A Quiet Place: Part II and Cruella) didn’t start until F9 arrived at the end of June 2021. Even then, a deluge of movies that offered up new theatrical titles simultaneously on big streaming services made things feel off-kilter.

So far, though, only Firestarter and Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul among this summer’s wide theatrical releases have announced simultaneous launches on the small screen. The rest of this summer’s titles are all theatrical exclusives. Granted, it’s not a totally normal summer still. For one thing, there’s a dearth of comedies. Even compared to the summer of 2019, which had Good Boys, Stuber, and Long Shot (among others) all premiering theatrically, there really aren’t any major comedies dropping in the summer of 2022. August 2022 is also looking shockingly barren now that The Man from Toronto has hightailed it out of the month. August is usually where R-rated comedies or sleeper hit horror movies can thrive, but Hollywood’s continued emphasis on tentpoles means that we won’t have any potential surprise hits in that month this year.

Still, the slate for summer 2022 does look promising overall and the resurgence of family and adult women moviegoers throughout spring 2022 (not to mention the extraordinary sleeper success of Everything Everywhere All at Once) confirms that it isn’t just superhero movies that can thrive on the big screen provided that Hollywood, y’know, provides those titles. It’s doubtful (thanks to that empty August) that summer 2022 can match the biggest summer box office hauls of all-time, but it should still do fine for itself.

With that, let’s look ahead at my predictions for the 10 biggest movies at the domestic box office this summer. As in years past, I’m delivering projections for opening weekend and final gross sums as well as accompanying analysis on why I think these titles will perform the way they do.

10. Elvis

The biggest advantage Elvis has going for it is that its distributor, Warner Bros., has no other movies dropping in the first two months of Summer 2022. The studio can solely concentrate on getting this title to a sizeable box office gross rather than splits its attention across multiple titles. The music biopic has a shaky track record to be sure (for every Bohemian Rhapsody, there’s a Respect), but Elvis Presley feels like a famous enough figure to attract moviegoers of all ages. Having Tom Hanks around in a showy supporting role should further sweeten the pot for general audiences.

Back in the summer of 2019, Rocketman opened to $24 million before legging it out to $97 million. I’d imagine Elvis can at least do a touch better than that since Presley is so ubiquitous and it’ll have the full might of the Warner Bros. marketing machine behind it. Let’s say this one narrowly cracks $30 million on opening weekend and then sticks around for a while. It won’t be the biggest Baz Luhrmann film ever in North America, but it’ll be a solid performer and just the kind of adult-skewing film that can take off once the middle of the summer arrives. That’s the point in the season where moviegoers begin to crave something that isn’t big and full of explosions. Elvis could fill that niche nicely.

Projected Opening Weekend: $30 million

Project Domestic Total: $115 million

9. Bullet Train

Since he burst onto people’s radars in May 1991 in Thelma & Louise, Brad Pitt has managed to appear in nine live-action movies that cracked $100 million domestically (not counting his brief cameo appearance in Deadpool 2). That’s not an expansive club of movies that cracked nine-digits in North America, but it’s wide enough to suggest it’s not impossible for a new blockbuster starring Pitt to crack $100 million in this territory. This is where the new Pitt movie Bullet Train comes into the equation, which seems poised to be a successful sleeper hit for Sony/Columbia.

Some movies are really complex in terms of the elements that suggest they’ll be hits. For Bullet Train, it’s quite simple. The early marketing, including an appealing trailer that debuted on The Batman, has been eye-catching, and this is the kind of movie people like to see Pitt in. Plus, it’s debuting the last weekend of July, which means it can play as the most recent action movie game in town during a surprisingly sparse August for new theatrical releases. As long as the film isn’t historically terrible (which could totally happen, of course), Bullet Train seems like it’s locked and loaded to be a hit despite not being based on source material that’s already a household name. Who knew appealing concepts and movie stars could get butts into movie theaters? Those factors should all combine to make Bullet Train the tenth live-action Brad Pitt film to exceed $100 million domestically.

Projected Opening Weekend: $39 million

Projected Domestic Total: $120 million

8. DC League of Super-Pets

Warner Bros. has a shockingly poor box office track record for animated movies considering it’s the studio behind Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. The LEGO Movie and Happy Feet were unquestionably hits, but then there’s The Ant Bully, Storks, Smallfoot, and the last two LEGO Movies. That erratic box office track record means that their newest family-friendly cartoons enter the marketplace with more skepticism in terms of box office prospects than, say, the newest Illumination feature. But if anything could manage to be a solid performer for the studio, it’d be DC’s League of Super-Pets.

Based in the world of DC Comics and even using characters like Superman and Batman in prominent supporting roles, Super-Pets focuses on a gaggle of misfit pets who get superpowers. A premise that probably got some Warner Bros. executive salivating at the thought of a cross between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Secret Life of Pets, this one also comes packed with the combined weight of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart in the lead roles. The popularity of DC properties, Johnson and Hart’s reliability in family-friendly fare, and a late summer release date where it won’t have to face much competition should give this one a solid boost and make it a welcome animated movie hit for Warner Bros.

Projected Opening Weekend: $34 million

Projected Domestic Total: $130 million

7. Nope

Jordan Peele’s first two directorial efforts each managed to exceed $160 million domestically, both incredible feats for original R-rated horror movies. Look for that streak to continue with Nope, a mysterious new horror film that’s already getting buzz thanks to a swam of eye-catching teasers and posters. We have a few horror films lined up for this summer, but none are even close to Nope in terms of how high-profile they are or the filmmaking pedigree they come saddled with.

Intriguingly, Nope was filmed with IMAX cameras and its marketing is emphasizing an even greater sense of scale than Us, which could make this even more of a must-see event for moviegoers. Unlike the last two Peele movies too, Nope will take advantage of summer weekdays to further juice its box office haul. If reviews turn out divisive or negative, a film like this without a big brand name to stand on could end up flaming out real quickly at the box office.  But if Nope resonates with people anywhere near at the level of Peele’s previous movies, then this auteur can expect his third consecutive box office hit, with there being a lot of potential here for Nope to go even higher.

Projected Opening Weekend: $75 million

Projected Domestic Total: $180 million

6. Minions: The Rise of Gru

Back in 2017, the Despicable Me franchise demonstrated its first instance of box office vulnerability with Despicable Me 3. That sounds weird to say for a movie that grossed $1 billion worldwide on an $80 million budget, but domestically, the films $264 million haul was a sharp 41% decline from the North American gross of Despicable Me 2. It was also down 28% from the domestic gross of Minions just two years earlier. This franchise appears to have peaked domestically in 2013, and even when The Rise of Gru was set to drop in July 2020, it was bound to experience further decline.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the film an additional two years, meaning it’ll now arrive a whopping five years since the last Despicable Me outing and seven years since the original Minions. The general public has doubtlessly cooled on these characters in that timespan and intense competition from other family movies like Lightyear and League of Super-Pets won’t help. The enduring appeal of those Minions will probably keep this one above the domestic gross of The Secret Life of Pets 2 and it may be able to just squeak past $200 million if Universal can deliver one of its no-holds-barred marketing campaigns. Minions: The Rise of Gru will be far from an unprofitable venture but it will be another sign that the Despicable Me saga is now what it was a decade ago.

Projected Opening Weekend: $65 million
Projected Domestic Total: $205 million

5. Top Gun: Maverick

Did you know Tom Cruise has never starred in a movie that made over $235 million domestically? It’s true. The 2005 blockbuster War of the Worlds is still the man’s highest-grossing feature with $234 million while none of the Mission: Impossible titles have exceeded $220 million in North America. This means there’s a ceiling in terms of how high Tom Cruise features can go. That having been said, there’s more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic, at least at this juncture, about the box office prospects of Top Gun: Maverick, the latest Cruise vehicle.

For starters, it’s a legacy sequel, an incredibly popular mold of the blockbuster right now. For another, it see’s Cruise returning to one of his most iconic roles. Top Gun isn’t Star Wars, but it’s still a popular movie, and the nostalgia associated with this feature should give it some solid rocket fuel. The lack of big blockbusters beyond Jurassic World in June should also allow it hold better than your average Memorial Day blockbuster. Plus, Paramount Pictures has been on a hot streak this year successfully launching everything from Scream to The Lost City to Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Maverick seems poised to keep the good times rolling. It won’t dethrone War of the Worlds to become the biggest Cruise movie ever domestically but expect this long-awaited Top Gun follow-up to still be a sizeable box office winner.

Projected Opening Weekend: $79 million

Projected Domestic Total: $225 million

4. Lightyear

Believe it or not, it’s been three years since a PIXAR movie had a conventional theatrical release uninterrupted by the pandemic. Onward got its theatrical run cut abruptly short by the pandemic, while Soul, Luca, and Turning Red all went straight to Disney+. But now PIXAR has a sequel starring a white guy on its slate, so I guess it can’t be dumped to streaming. Lightyear comes courtesy of the Toy Story franchise, which has achieved the remarkable feat of constantly improving on its predecessor in terms of domestic and worldwide grosses. Each Toy Story has been bigger than the last, though Lightyear will probably put an end to that. That’s less because Lightyear is guaranteed to be a cataclysmically “bad” movie and more that it’s a spin-off, those tend to always do weaker box office than their predecessors.

Carrying over only one character from the Toy Story franchise, not to mention feeling less like an organic extension of the story of Buzz and Woody, will keep Lightyear a bit grounded in terms of box office. However, otherwise, the movie appears good to go in terms of box office prowess. 8 of the last 10 PIXAR movie to open in the summer ended up grossing over $235 million domestically, with the only two exceptions being Cars sequels. Something connected to the Toy Story saga that also serves as the first big-animated kids movie of summer 2022 is bound to keep that box office hot streak alive. This won’t be the next Toy Story 4 at the box office, but Lightyear should have no problem being another summertime hit for PIXAR.

Projected Opening Weekend: $95 million

Projected Domestic Total: $325 million

3. Thor: Love and Thunder

Moviegoers have finally gotten their first glimpse at Thor: Love and Thunder and it looks like a lot of fun. It also looks like just the kind of teaser that’s bound to draw the attention of moviegoers. The visuals look stunning and there’s a good balance between the old and the new here. Thor, Valkyrie, and Korg are all back, but there’s also lots of new locations to explore while the Guardians of the Galaxy are showing up for the first time in a solo Thor film. Then there’s the big final moment of the teaser depicting Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster returning with a hammer as the new version of Thor.

This teaser is all people have to go on regarding Thor: Love and Thunder right now, but it’s easy to see why Disney/Marvel marketers think that’ll be enough to get people into the theater. By far the biggest title set to launch in July 2022, Thor: Love and Thunder looks poised to have a strong box office run, especially given the positive reception to Thor: Ragnarok and Thor’s increased exposure after being a lead character in the last two Avengers movies. The latter appearances will doubtlessly help this score an even bigger box office haul than Ragnarok, though how high it goes will depend on the rest of its marketing campaign and its eventual critical reception. For now, though, it looks pretty easy to determine that Thor: Love and Thunder will be another big box office hit for the God of Thunder.

Projected Opening Weekend: $165 million

Projected Domestic Total: $465 million

2. Jurassic World: Dominion

Though it didn’t inspire a massive impact on pop culture, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom proved to be a remarkably powerful beast at the box office. A dropoff from the box office of 2015’s Jurassic World was inevitable, which meant Fallen Kingdom fell 36% from its predecessors North American box office haul. However, a $417 million domestic total was still nothing to sneeze at and made it the second-biggest title ever for Universal in this territory. Expect Jurassic World: Dominion to improve on the domestic box office performance, if only narrowly, primarily thanks to the presence of key Jurassic Park cast members and the promise of this being a “finale” to the Jurassic World saga.

The importance of the presence of actors like Sam Neill and Laura Dern in leading roles to Dominion’s box office prowess can’t be underestimated. That defines the film in the eyes of moviegoers as being right in line with lucrative legacy sequels like The Force Awakens. Plus, a mid-June date worked out like gangbusters for the last two Jurassic World movies. Much like with those other two installment, opening here allows Dominion to exploit Father’s Day weekend and function as the only big blockbuster for a whole month. Expect that craft piece of scheduling to help Dominion score one of the biggest box office hauls of the year, though it’s doubtful it comes close to the domestic box office heights of Jurassic World from 2015.

Projected Opening Weekend: $160 million 

Projected Domestic Total: $450 million

1. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

First of all, can you believe Disney has only released one new theatrical release (Death on The Nile) in the first four months of 2022? Right now, A24 has put out more wide releases in this year than Disney. That’s bonkers. The COVID-19 cinematic landscape is full of unexpected wonders.

Anyway, Disney’s getting back into the blockbuster game with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is only the fourth theatrical-exclusive title (exempting the Fox movies) to be released by the Mouse House since the pandemic began. Multiverse of Madness already looks poised to be a triumphant box office performer thanks to strong advanced ticket sales and a rampant marketing campaign that’s put the movie on the forefront of the pop culture landscape. The only question now is how high it goes.

Hitting the $260 million debut of Spider-Man: No Way Home will be impossible since that film was a unique Avengers sized crossover event. Seeing Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch work together is not at the same level of the prospect of watching Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock duke it out with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. However, the sky is otherwise the limit here. The last few summer kickoff Marvel Studios movies all opened above $150 million save for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (and that barely missed it with a $147 million debut), so that’s the basement here. Getting above the $179 million debut if Captain America: Civil War looks likely at this juncture, and even the $191 million bow of Avengers: Age of Ultron looks like it could get toppled.

Here’s the question I’ll wonder aloud here; could Multiverse of Madness score the biggest May opening weekend ever? That record still belongs to the $207 million bow of The Avengers from 2012 (it’s currently the oldest movie to hold a monthly opening weekend record). It’s not hard to imagine Multiverse of Madness going higher than that, but it doesn’t need to hit such extraordinary numbers to be a hit. Let’s for now say it’ll open in the same range as Age of Ultron and, per usual for an early May Marvel Studios project, a domestic total that’s about 2.35-2.5 times its opening weekend. That would be one heck of a way to kick off the summer 2022 box office, no question.

Projected Opening Weekend: $190 million

Projected Domestic Total: $465 million

In Laman's Terms: Why was the 94th Academy Awards such a calamity?

 

We're not talking about "that slap" here.

Yes, it's all anyone's talking about, but that's why I'm not bringing it up yet again here. What would be the point? Plus, as a white person, I have no business dropping a "hot take" on a public altercation between two Black people.

As for the rest of the ceremony, though? Oh boy.

The 94th Academy Awards seem to have been cursed from the get-go. The decision to shuffle off eight categories to before the proper live ceremony already put a bad taste in people's mouths. But oh, if only we knew what the actual ceremony would deliver. For starters, lots of bad jokes mocking movies. If there's ever a place for that, it's the Academy Awards, a ceremony, in an ideal world, dedicated to loving this artform. Nobody's saying some good ribbing should be off-limits, but Amy Schumer making an unoriginal gag about how "The Power of the Dog is so loooong" (ironically, that Jane Campion meditation on how cycles of toxic masculinity are perpetuated has the exact same runtime as Schumer's Trainwreck) or nobody seeing The Last Duel just rang hollow and mean-spirited.

Why can't the Oscars show affection for movies? Why are they so self-conscious? Justin Chang just wrote a great Los Angeles Times piece about how baffling it is to see Academy Award voters recognizing an eclectic group of motion pictures that include Drive My Car yet producers of the same show keep doing everything to undercut recognizing those same films. That sentiment ran through my head all throughout the night. Ryusuke Hamaguchi got rudely hurried off-stage during his acceptance speech for Best International Film, but don't worry, there was still time for BTS to show up and shill for Disney movies.

But the inexplicable parts of the night were what really proved to be the unforgettably miscalculated aspects of the whole ceremony. Pushing all those technical awards to before the show, much to the derision of everyone in Hollywood, was supposed to guarantee this event wouldn't run long. However, the 94th Academy Awards still ran well over 30 minutes over its three-hour runtime. Meanwhile, the video montages to both James Bond and The Godfather may have had their hearts in the right places, but they ended up coming up short, especially the latter presentation. The Godfather was a subversion of consequence-free fantasies of gangster life, not an indulgence of it like this montage suggested! 

Then there was the fact that only half the Encanto cast could come out to perform "We Don't Talk About Bruno"? Much love to Megan Thee Stallion, but I was excited to see what the performers of the shape-shifting and super-hearing Madrigal family members looked like! Worst of all, though, was an initially promising decision to have a big choir come out and performer a tune for the In Memoriam segment. What started as a welcome departure from the norm because a baffling exercise once the tunes got upbeat and jovial. Plus, singling out a handful of deceased celebrities to get special tributes sounded nice on paper, but just seemed to elevate individuals like Betty White and Sidney Poiter as "important" against everyone else. 

Are the Academy producers so desperate to cram entertainment into every second of this show that even the In Memoriam segment isn't off-limits? Miscalculation seemed to be the name of the game here for the 94th Academy Awards as one comedic segment after another kept misfiring. It all seems to stem from one issue: the Academy Awards want to be loved. Really really loved. In the process, they're just alienating everyone. Bilge Ebiri wrote a great Vulture piece last month talking about how "self-loathing will kill the Oscars" and he's right, including on how the supposed "ratings woes" of the ceremony are not that bad. 

All live TV shows are down in ratings, this is just the name of the game in 2022. We're never going back to 2008 and that's OK. Stop sabotaging the show to make it 2008 again. It's not working for anyone. Viewers who previously never had an interest in the Oscars aren't tuning in by the droves to check out this clustercuss and movie lovers (who were supposed to be united by this event) are rightfully treating this ceremony as the mess it was. When we can't even count on competent camerawork for an Academy Awards ceremony, what're we even doing here?

There's value in the Academy Awards. They can help shed a light on little-seen movies, such as Drive My Car, which more than doubled its domestic box office haul once it scored a quartet of Oscar nods. A montage from the 90th Academy Awards ceremony is something I return to every month or so to feel good and cry over the magic of this medium. Plus, having spent the last two Oscars watching them with a bunch of other people, it's wonderful to watch the spectacle with a bunch of other passionate people. The Oscars, like movies themselves, have the ability to bond people. If only they were confident in that gift instead of constantly scrambling to be "entertaining" or "appealing" or promoting Disney properties. 

This years Academy Awards was a calamity. The producers of this show have been open for some time about the need to tweak this ceremony, and that's true, just not in the way they think. Rather than kick categories to the curb or eat up time with pointless comic sketches, it's time for the Oscars to look inward and start prioritizing movies and the artists that make them. 

And also maybe don't let Kevin Costner drone on for three hours.

Douglas Laman's 94th Academy Awards Predictions

Here we are again, another Academy Awards ceremony. And even with everything being super busy in my life, I couldn't resist the chance to ramble about my predictions for who will win in each of the 23 categories tomorrow night. Below, I've listed out each category and predicted who will win among the nominees, a runner-up, as well as who, among the five nominated films I wish would win. For a full list of the nominees, please click here.

On with the show!

In Laman's Terms: A eulogy for Entertainment Weekly

The 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly and one of the first issues I ever devoured of the publication

In Laman's Terms is an editorial editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas. Sometimes, it's all about serious subjects, other times it's just some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know Doug's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

For a 12-year-old growing up in the suburban landscape of Allen, Texas, far from the glitzy lights of Hollywood or New York City, it was hard to feel connected to the world of pop culture. Movies provided me so much escape, but what about the world that produced or commented on those films? That all felt so far away. But then I’d go to my uncle’s house and see a stack of Entertainment Weekly magazines, usually featuring a recognizable movie star or TV show on the front cover. Flipping through the pages of these issues, suddenly, everything that once seemed out of my gasp was between my fingers.

My obsession with this publication grew so fervent that it wasn’t long before my uncle bestowed me with an annual subscription to Entertainment Weekly. So begin a love affair that stretched on for more than a decade. My love for pop culture an especially cinema was bolstered by this outlet, with so many fond memories getting attached to individual issues that I refused to throw them out! Clearly, Dotdash Meredith, the company that owns Entertainment Weekly doesn’t quite have the same connection to this publication. This past Wednesday, Dotdash Meredith announced that the magazine iteration of Entertainment Weekly would cease publication. The brand name will live on for the foreseeable future as a website.

While a magazine dedicated to pop culture news people can access on Twitter may seem anachronistic in the modern era, those of us with a fondness for Entertainment Weekly will know why it’s hard to say goodbye to this magazine.

For starters, Entertainment Weekly was shockingly eclectic in the topics they covered. Sure, they loved putting Twilight characters or superheroes on their covers. But look within the issues themselves and one will find a pleasantly surprising assortment of different types of pop culture. Everything from books to music to video games to even stage productions were covered by the dutiful writers of this outlet. Even within the individual media sections of a single issue, a wide variety of projects would get covered. The movie review section, for example, is where I first got exposed to the existence of movies like Synecdoche, New York or filmmakers like Guy Maddin.

This comprehensive approach to different mediums of artistic expression made for enjoyable reading and served as a weekly reminder of just how much art is out there to experience and appreciate. Sure, the internet allows you to access movie reviews at the click of a button, but it doesn’t feel the same. The modern age of Twitter can let you access more information than a single Entertainment Weekly, but algorithms for major social media sites box you in and only regurgitate what you already like or things similar to what you’ve previously enjoyed. By contrast, issues of Entertainment Weekly wasn’t cultivated on a user-by-user basis. They gave readers a comprehensive look at all forms of popular media, in the process exposing them to new things they may have never even known about otherwise.

Just as influential was how Entertainment Weekly made the behind-the-scenes process of Hollywood moviemaking digestible. The language used in pieces from this magazine was designed to appeal to a broad range of readers and not just people who were already knowledgeable about every part of the filmmaking experience. For teenage me, these magazines were a reliable way to understand how the films I liked or disliked came to be. It wasn’t even like I was the only person to be impacted by Entertainment Weekly in this manner. In an interview for the magazine for his 2008 movie Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller commented that Entertainment Weekly made enough people conscious of the behind-the-scenes world of Hollywood that a movie like Tropic Thunder could resonate with mainstream audiences.

Something else Entertainment Weekly exposed me to? Writers. Lots of great writers. I’m not even just talking about the immensely talented collection of regular reviewers for the outlet, like Lisa Schwarzbaum. When I was growing up, Entertainment Weekly had an editorial in each issue penned by a famous face, with these writers ranging from Stephen King to Diablo Cody. This was my first exposure to King’s writing, not through a horror novel but his declaration that Junior Mints eaten with toothpicks were the quintessential movie theater snack. Getting to digest so many types of writing styles from such distinctive writers opened my eyes to a whole new style of writing.

The benefits of Entertainment Weekly magazines aren’t just limited to what was within the pages of individual issues. One of the greatest parts of this publication was the human being I associated with them. My Uncle Doug turned me onto Entertainment Weekly, a publication that ended up playing a pivotal part in me pursuing a career as a film critic. Even more importantly, receiving these magazines has been a great way to be reminded of his presence even after he passed away in July 2017. Hard to believe he’s been gone for almost five years. Even harder to believe that yet another way of me connecting with him is gone.

But the memories I have of bonding with him over articles, covers, reviews, and everything else in Entertainment Weekly, those aren’t going anywhere.

In talking about the demise of Entertainment Weekly, Mark Harris, a former writer for the publication, wisely said he’d learned long ago “not to be sentimental about businesses, brands, titles.” It’s a good lesson and one that’s guided me in processing my sadness over the Entertainment Weekly magazine being no more. What I’ll really miss here isn’t so much the brand name or even physical magazine of Entertainment Weekly, but the voices of talented writers, the artists these issues exposed me to, the career field this magazine pushed me towards pursuing, and especially the people this magazine brought me even closer to. Like the fond memories I have with my uncle, those positive aftereffects of the Entertainment Weekly magazine won't be vanishing anytime soon.  

In Laman's Terms: How Nine Days became an accidental, but poignant, tale about living through the COVID-19 pandemic

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

SPOILERS FOR NINE DAYS AHEAD

Nine Days premiered at the 2020 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. The fact that it was able to premiere exclusively in a theatrical capacity, with the idea of a virtual premiere a laughable notion, is an indicator that it took place in some of the final weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic forever altered the American movie landscape. Like any of us, none of the artists behind Nine Days could’ve predicted what was about to come and how everyone’s lives would be upended.

However, the film feels all the more relevant when viewed through the lens of how COVID-19 has affected everyday life. It’s a testament to how much authentic emotion and human experiences Nine Days channels that it could accomplish a feat it could’ve never imagined. A parable about the virtues of existence that would’ve been emotionally resonant under any circumstances has only garnered extra layers of depth and relevancy.

Nine Days focuses on Will (Winston Duke), a figure who helps figure out which prospective souls go on to actually inhabit planet Earth. Having previously been a living person himself, his only exposure to what’s going on among everyday humans is through videotapes told through the eyes of people growing up. These glimpses into existence have given him a bleak view of humanity as he refers to the very act of living as being akin to going to war.

When Will isn’t watching these videos, he spends his time toiling away in the isolated house that he never leaves. Sometimes he’s making small experiences for souls that don’t get to Earth, other times he’s fixating on the sudden death of a woman named Amanda. Whatever the case, Will keeps his distance from the people around him both physically and emotionally.

Will’s detached nature was never meant to evoke the experiences of living during the COVID-19 pandemic. Writer/director Edson Oda‘a primary intent with these withdrawn qualities of Will was to provide a contrast to characters like Kyo (Benedict Wong) and Emma (Zazie Beetz), who carry more optimistic perspectives on the world of the living.

However, in the process of portraying Will like this, Edo also crafted a perfect stand-in for an average spectator in the COVID-19 pandemic. An isolated human being whose keenly aware of the fragile mortality of other people and whose only way of connecting with “real life” is through what he see’s once screens? How can one not get flashbacks to being stuck in lockdown during the pandemic? Edo’s depiction of Will is as prophetic as it is thoughtful.

Something else Edo perfectly captures in Will’s disposition is the inevitable cynicism about humanity that can emerge during this ongoing health crisis. How can one not look at a crowd of people protesting any measures taken to curb the pandemic or politicians instituting bans on mask and not develop a glib outlook? So many times during this pandemic, it feels like humans haven’t squandered opportunities to rise to the occasion so much as they’ve lit them on fire.

The disparity between this kind of outlook and more glass-half-full visions of humanity are constantly being pitted against one another in Edo’s screenplay. Taking a cue from the sparse dialogue-driven works of Samuel Beckett among others, Edo both challenges and deeply understands the kind of bleak mindset that can emerge in the wake of a tragedy akin to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the most thoughtful demonstrations of these conflicting mindsets clashing comes during a dinner where Kane (Bill Skarsgard) remarks that the most disgusting thing he’s seen in his time viewing humanity is a pedophile who murdered two little girls. He remarks that this is the norm for behavior on Earth, which Emma rebukes with her contrary perception of humanity that’s much more hopeful.

“Why are you focusing on this” Emma inquires to Kane, to which he responds “How’re you not?”

Nine Days understands how bleak perceptions of humanity can manifest, hence why it doesn’t demonize either Kane or Will. It understands how easy and logical it can seem to see only the worst parts of the human race as a condemnation of the entire planet. How can one turn on the news in the pandemic to discover the latest anti-vaccine nonsense and not feel some frustration with the wider world?

But Nine Days also takes the time to show the quiet wonderful things of existence, the sort of details that we all may have taken for granted before the pandemic. These are initially represented solely by Kyo, who lingers on the video screens in Will’s living room that show humorous or romantically touching sights rather than the ones that feature horrific sights. Soon, though, this perception is manifested by Emma, particularly in a closing scene where she reveals to Will that she’s left writing across his house of all the happy memories she’s had in this domicile.

Her notes, sketched on the floor, walls, and fenceposts, don’t refer to anything huge. Small things, like walking barefoot or sharing laughs with Kyo, are what she’s scribbled down and are at the forefront of her memory. These are the kind of throwaway aspects of existence that one grows to appreciate after spending so much time indoors. Who needs to have exorbitant riches, wings, or anything fantastical? After a few months in lockdown, all I wanted was to share a meal with my friends or feel the breeze against my face while walking to a class at my college.

These are the things Will and all of us pre-pandemic either never really appreciated or even outright avoided. After all, appreciating those intimate qualities of other people can put us in places of extreme vulnerability. As Will learns while grappling with the sudden departure of Amanda, that kind of connection can hurt just as much as it fills up the soul. It can be easy for Will, and those us just trying to make it through another day in the pandemic, to decide the right course of action is to remain distant from the world.

But a character like Emma doesn’t just point Will towards the glorious things hiding in plain sight, she also chips away at the pandemic-induced cynicism of the viewer. Connecting with others or appreciating those minute qualities can lead to heartbreak, but they can also lead to unspeakable amounts of joy. The thought of a worldwide pandemic shutting everything down and reorienting everyone’s worldview was never even close to being on the mind of Nine Days and its creators. And yet, thanks to the intimate storytelling approach and the richly human performances, the film itself is a perfect reminder of the joys of everyday life and bonding with other people.

In Laman's Terms: Five Biggest Takeaways from Black Widow's Box Office

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

This past weekend, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in two years opened in theaters around the world. Black Widow finally hit the big screen and the film managed to generate solid box office results. But as with everything happening in the world of COVID-19, this debut now begs the question of what its larger significance is for the world of theatrical exhibition as a whole? Well, there are plenty of significant things one can examine from this opening, including how it reflects the world of domestic cinema as well as what Disney's investment in the future of theatrical-exclusive releases could be.

Theatrical cinema still packs a wallop

Watching opening weekend grosses constantly go up over the last seven weeks has been quite impressive. Before May 2021, no domestic title released after the pandemic began opened to over $35 million. Then, A Quiet Place: Part II debuted to $48 million, F9 zoomed to $70 million, and now Black Widow has opened to $80.4 million. Those last two numbers are particularly impressive since they're on par with pre-pandemic opening weekend numbers for summer blockbusters. The significant increases across these bows, along with the fact that all combined titles grossed over $100 million this past weekend, demonstrate that theatrical cinema is still valuable and packs a mighty financial wallop.

Even better, it looks like this ongoing recovery won't be just limited to the last seven weeks. The near future slate of releases is full of further blockbusters from a variety of genres that could totally attract moviegoers. The big screen has always had a significant presence in the entertainment landscape and the strong opening weekend numbers from titles like Black Widow showcase that this is just as true as ever. 

We're still in recovery mode and that's ok

Black Widow's opening was behind the debuts of all other Marvel Cinematic Universe features since July 2015 save for Ant-Man and the Wasp. That would normally be a DEFCON-5 level problem, but under the circumstances, it doesn't look like there's anything to worry about. None of those other MCU titles from the last six years had to deal with a simultaneous premium-video-on-demand release or the lingering effects of COVID-19 or the majority of movie theaters being closed in Canada. With all these factors at play, it's apparent that Black Widow's debut is totally fine. 

It's also an indicator that the domestic box office is in an ongoing recovery mode. Luckily, this is still allowing films like F9 and Black Widow to open to over $70 million, but it does mean we'll have to wait two or three months for domestic titles to crack $100 million. Once more films engage in theatrical-only releases, like A Quiet Place: Part II and F9, and audiences become re-engaged with the idea of new theatrical titles debuting on a weekly basis, something resemble normalcy at the domestic box office will re-emerge. Until then, we're in recovery mode basically until the end of August (Candyman will kick off the norm then of major tentpoles largely getting theatrical-exclusive titles).

Reliable franchises are emerging unscathed...but what about the smaller films?

Fast & Furious and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are emerging from this pandemic largely on par with their pre-pandemic box office performances. That's cool to see given how much of a boost both of their most recent entries have given to the worldwide box office. However, everyone largely assumed beloved big-screen franchises would emerge from the pandemic largely unchanged. After all, those are the kind of films Hollywood and general moviegoers alike have been shifting more and more of their focus to in recent years. That's a welcome but certainly expected turn of events.

Where the uncertainty comes in is in how smaller titles will fare on the big screen. So far, no major indie titles released in the last three months have managed to take off. However, that's partially because these films have gone way too wide right away and have also covered more niche material (like the band Sparks) rather than more mainstream storytelling material that's been the backdrop of the biggest pre-pandemic indie hits. Plus, certain movies have left an impact financially without a Marvel Studios logo, such as the solid numbers drummed up by the documentary Summer of Soul or the enduring appeal of The Truffle Hunters, which will soon crack $500,000 domestically despite never playing in more than 105 locations.

PVOD makes films extra frontloaded

The individual Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have been remarkably consistent in terms of how well they play from day to day, with the most frontloaded non-Avengers title (in terms of how much Thursday night box office plays into overall weekend grosses) previously being Ant-Man and the Wasp. That title has now gone to Black Widow, which made nearly half of its opening weekend from just its opening day. Given that metrics from moviegoers don't indicate any drastically different word-of-mouth than your typical entry in the franchise, what gives?

Partially, this is likely due to many general moviegoers still being hesitant to venture out into a movie theater, leaving die-hard MCU fans and those comfortable with that environment as the primary audience for Black Widow. That's a sizeable demographic, clearly, but it also explains why Black Widow opened to $80 million instead of the $90-92 million debut its opening day would've suggested had it played like a normal MCU movie. An even greater culprit, though, is probably that premium video-on-demand debut on Disney+. People who wanted to see Black Widow in theaters saw it right away while a chunk of general moviegoers who would've seen it on Saturday and Sunday watched it at home.

The good news is that Black Widow still scored a sizeable, even by pre-pandemic standards debut, so this is basically splitting hairs. Unless you cost over $300 million like Justice League, a $70+ million bow under any circumstances is great. But if Hollywood wants to go even higher in the next few months, it'll have to commit to theatrical exclusivity. As a sidenote, this would also explain why only one Warner Bros. 2021 release has cracked $30 million on opening weekend. Poor In the Heights got boondoggled in its theatrical run by its distributor refusing to commit to a big-screen experience.

20th Century Fox may prevent Premier Access from catching on

Let's not beat around the bush: Disney announced, for the first time ever, exact revenue from one of their Disney+ Premier Access titles. Black Widow made $60 million for Disney through PVOD sales on Disney+. With the norm established of Disney blockbusters getting simultaneous theatrical and streaming debuts, the question hovering around the entertainment industry the last two days is whether or not this becomes the new normal for Disney. The company has not announced further updates on the matter in the days since Black Widow's box office got reported. Meanwhile, advertising for Disney's next two blockbusters, Free Guy and Shang-Chi, have utilized "only in theaters" in their respective marketing materials.

The former title might be part of a detail that keeps Disney sticking to theatrical-only titles, at least for now. Free Guy, like all 20th Century Studios titles until the end of 2022, has a pay-TV deal with HBO. They cannot be put on Disney+ or Hulu, if Disney forgoes a theatrical release, the revenue will go to HBO instead. Thus, Disney's sort of forced to give these movies a theatrical-exclusive release for the time being. It's why Disney hasn't given any 20th Century Studios titles* theatrical releases in 2021. Disney projects like Cruella and Jungle Cruise can make up for any lost theatrical revenue through PVOD releases. 20th Century Studios films like The King's Man cannot.

With this studio being forced to stay theatrical-only due to contractual issues, it's likely Disney will be keeping its other major theatrical features exclusive to the big screen for the time being too. It's not impossible to imagine Disney just making Premier Access the norm for non-20th Century Studios titles (the studios lack of commitment to theatrical releases in the first pieces of marketing for Encanto and Turning Red is certainly worrisome). But it's also hard to imagine Disney executives explaining to Kevin Feige that Death on the Nile is more fitting for a theatrical exclusive release than Eternals. At the moment, it looks like 20th Century Studios could get Disney to return to theaters, but the success of Black Widow on PVOD means that it's unlikely the studio will permanently abandon this method of release.

* A pair of movies (Nomadland and Summer of Soul) have gotten 2021 theatrical runs from the companies sister studio, Searchlight Pictures.

In Laman's Terms: 5 Biggest Takeaways from F9's Opening Weekend

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

After months of uncertainty for the domestic theatrical exhibition market, F9 delivered the kind of opening weekend many thought wouldn't be possible after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.  Opening to $70 million domestically, it was a debut that seemed like a blast from the past, if the past was 2019. The biggest domestic box office debut in 18 months, it was a solid sign, coming hot off the similarly noteworthy domestic debut of A Quiet Place: Part II, that domestic movie theaters can still thrive even after a long health crisis keeping them closed.

But we're not out of the woods yet when it comes to bringing theatrical moviegoing to anything resembling a new level of normalcy. The debut of F9 is full of good news but also full of interesting developments that aren't inherently good or bad, they're just reflections of the volatile state theatrical moviegoing is in currently. These aren't restricted to just the domestic marketplace either, F9 is a film released all across the globe and its box office performance also functions as a reflection of how international box office territories are also faring in revving up theatrical moviegoing again.

Theatrical-only openings rule

So far, the two biggest opening weekends of 2021, and the two that feel like they belong to the box office landscape before a pandemic shook everything up, are A Quiet Place: Part II and F9. What do the two titles have in common? Opening exclusively in theaters. Forgoing a simultaneous streaming/PVOD debut doesn't automatically make your movie a hit (oh hi The Hitman's Wife Bodyguard) but it clearly doesn't hurt. Keeping things confined to the big screen emphasizes your movie as an event and shows a commitment to the artform of theatrical exhibition.

What'll be interesting to see now is the performance of Black Widow, which is apparently tracking for an $80+ million opening, even bigger than the debut of F9. That would be in spite of the film getting a simultaneous PVOD debut on Disney+. Still, Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are a rare breed, audiences have been conditioned to head out to movie theaters to watch these films for over a decade now. It'll be different for Jungle Cruise, which will likely get its domestic box office heavily impacted by a simultaneous PVOD launch if Cruella coming in way behind other live-action Disney remakes is any indicaiton.

The international box office is still recovering

 While the domestic box office is showing signs of returning to pre-COVID-19 levels, several international territories have a long way to go. Case in point, the United Kingdom. Whereas F9 only dipped 29% from the opening of The Fate of the Furious domestically, in the case of the United Kingdom, the film opened to $8.4 million, a 52% decline from the opening of Fate. What's intriguing, though, is that this F9 opening still provided a boost for the territory. According to Deadline, F9 set three single-day records for a movie released during the pandemic in the U.K. Similarly, openings in Mexico and Brazil were also down from Fast of the Furious but set records for titles released during the pandemic.

This indicates a hard truth movie studios will just have to swallow; things are gonna be smaller for a little while. Not minuscule (wouldn't you like to wake up with $8.4 million in your bank account?) but down from pre-pandemic times. What's important is putting stuff out there in movie theaters that get people into seats and recovering from there. Oh, and most important of all is keeping people safe, that goes without saying, so if people are staying home out of fear of catching COVID-19, well, I say that's a net positive. Clearly, the theatrical exhibition isn't going anywhere after nearly a year-and-a-half of uncertainty. It can hold on a little longer as the international box office continues to recover.

Patience pays off

Right from the start of the pandemic, Universal announced that F9 would be delayed a whole year to the summer of 2021. It was an anomaly among the major American movie studios, who largely delayed titles like Mulan or Wonder Woman 1984 to just three or four months after their initial release date. However, Universal understood better than anyone just how long-lasting the consequences of this pandemic would be. Whereas other movies had to keep bumping their release dates time and time again to accommodate just how all-consuming the pandemic was, F9 was able to stay cozily in the summer 2021 spot, without wasting a lot of marketing dollars in the process.

In the process, F9 has proven the value of patience. Studios that are quick to dump titles to streamers or plop them in too early of a release date are only doing a disservice to themselves and moviegoers. Universal showed that the way forward in the pandemic isn't to panic but to exhibit restraint. Whereas Warner Bros. took drastic moves like that simultaneous HBO Max release plan that alienated filmmakers, Universal had faith in the big screen and their titles and just let things simmer. They may have had to wait for a big box office hit, but the majorly impressive opening weekend of F9 indicates that the wait was worth it.

Moviegoing has returned to being countrywide

During the pandemic, movies that did get a theatrical release, like The War with Grandpa, generally made most of their business in Southern states, namely Texas. In the last three months, with California and New York City reopening their multiplexes, those locations have proven fruitful but they haven't been rampantly popular for all titles. This is a contrast to pre-COVID-19 times, when business for movies that topped the domestic box office tended to have appeal all across the individual parts of North America.

That status quo got reignited with F9, which had its most lucrative theaters from all across the domestic marketplace. Southern states like Texas still contributed a large sum to the movies gross (Texas was one of the five highest-grossing states for F9) but the wealth was spread across a multitude of indoor theaters across the nation rather than just concentrated in a handful of areas. This is how you get $70+ million openers again in the domestic theatrical space.

Tentpole blockbusters are back (for now)

In the summer of 2020, Entertainment Weekly published a piece proclaiming that the blockbuster as audiences previously knew it was dead. This was due to the difficulties of filming large-scale movies under the conditions of COVID-19 as well as the uncertainty of those costly endeavors managing to make their budgets back through a potentially slimmed-down theatrical exhibition sphere. The long-term prospects of these films is uncertainty, but F9 makes a pretty good argument that blockbusters aren't going anywhere. 

Thanks to these kind of films being attached to franchises being have an attachment to as well as positive memories of watching in a movie theater, it shoudln't be a surprise blockbusters like F9 are thriving domestically. It also bodes well for titles like Black Widow and The Suicide Squad opening in the next month or so, which are also attache to long-running franchises. While the blockbuster seems to be on better than ever legs domestically, it should be noted that these are not the only kind of movies that have or should be playing in movie theaters. 

The recent strong box office of foreign-language titles like Dad I'm Sorry and even this weekend's strong opening weekend of I Carry You With Me show that audiences will also turn out for smaller-scale works if they look appealing. Right now, though, the spotlight is on big-budget project F9 and it's opening weekend reinforcing the faincnial viability of blockbuster projects.

In Laman's Terms: The curious case of watching The Fast and the Furious in 2021

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

Now that I'm writing Features columns for Collider, my In Laman's Terms pieces have slowed down to a crawl over the last three months. Writing those essays on this website for four years helped to prepare me for my exciting Collider gig and I'm so grateful for that. That doesn't mean In Laman's Terms is dead, though. It's been revived to talk about, on the heels of F9 zooming into movie theaters, about that movie that started that whole automobile-centric franchise, The Fast and the Furious. 

Turning 20 years old this month, The Fast and the Furious is a curious relic of the early 2000s in many respects, and not just because much of the plot revolves around stolen Panasonic DVD players. The whole thing is a clear riff on the 1990s action movie Point Break while the editing, music cues, and even title card practically scream out that this is something from the dawn of the 21st-century. Oh, and then there's the fact that one of the first lines of dialogue in the film involves supporting character Vince calling Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) a "faggot." Whereas Point Break embraced homoerotic tension, The Fast and the Furious immediately sprinkles in some homophobia in the car race action movie.

That's not the only area where this 2001 feature deviates from the Kathryn Bigelow movie it's so clearly imitating. The key difference between the two films is that Point Break is a lot of fun to watch whereas The Fast and the Furious takes until its last half-hour to really generate a pulse. Once Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and company try to pull off "one last job" against a trucker who's wielding a shotgun, The Fast and the Furious teases the kind of high-octane action that would define subsequent sequels. It's a fun set piece that gets a lot of mileage out of the tension surrounding whether or not Toretto and O'Connor and pals can save Vince, whose trapped on the side of a truck.

These characters work just fine as chess pieces to be moved around during car-centered action scenes. When they're not doing that in The Fast and the Furious, though, they're just not that engaging. Director Justin Lin would inject a sincere sense of affection between Toretto and his ramshackle "family". Meanwhile, the constant rivalry between Toretto and O'Connor is a bunch of insufferable macho posturing. From the seeds this movie plants, a more loving relationship would form, but until it does, there's just not much between this duo. Toretto's companions in the world of street racing are pretty forgettable save for one guy apparently having ADD. 

Most amusingly, the women in The Fast and the Furious are quintessential examples of toxic ways for men to write women. Every woman in this universe hates every lady that crosses her path, with one of Letty's (Michelle Rodriguez) earliest lines centering around dubbing two women fawning over Toretto as "skanks." Even later entries in this franchise have serious problems with how they handle women, specifically in how often Fast & Furious movies resort to slaughtering women to generate tension. But something like Furious 7 practically looks like Born in Flames when compared with the treatment of lady characters in The Fast and the Furious.

Interestingly, the dire writing of these kinds of characters stems directly from the lack of imagination that weighs down the whole project. The Fast and the Furious is still stuck in a lane too anchored to Earth and the molds of other blockbusters to establish its own personality. Interestingly, the only time it comes to life before its finale is a scene where Toretto offers up a big monologue about how his father died. It's the one instance of emotional vulnerability in the whole film and at least tries to approach these characters as something other vehicles for generic edgy quips. Future Fast & Furious movies would refine the humanity and cynicism-free poignancy that, 20 years ago, The Fast and the Furious only briefly flirted with.

In Laman's Terms: Predicting the ten biggest movies of Summer 2021!

An image from Peter Rabbit 2, a movie that isn't on this list. 

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

Boy, it feels good to do this again.

Yes, with Guy Ritchie's Wrath of Man opening in wide theatrical release on Friday, the Summer 2021 moviegoing season is actually going to happen! The first big tentpole releases will only come three weeks later than usual (A Quiet Place: Part II and Cruella are dropping over Memorial Day rather than the first weekend of May), but otherwise, we've got a slew of theatrical features on the way! Yay!

With that in mind, it's time do something I love to do but wasn't able to do last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic; a column predicting the biggest movies at the summer domestic box office! As I've done in year's past, I'll be predicting the ten biggest movies of the season. Unlike in year's past, I'm not gonna predict opening weekend and domestic grosses. We still have so little data what theatrical moviegoing will look like, it doesn't seem to fair to try to attach specific figures to these titles. Predicting what films will end up being the biggest of the summer, though, that feels totally fair! 

So why don't we begin with the predictions by looking at my projections for the tenth-biggest movie of the season?

Easy A (2010)

10) Cruella

Here's a movie that probably would have done significantly better in pre-COVID-19 times. Live-action Disney remakes have been largely successful (save for the occasional Dumbo) and combining Oscar-winner Emma Stone with an iconic figure like Cruella DeVill probably would have been enough to print money. The fact that it was set to open over the Memorial Day holiday weekend where Aladdin worked like gangbusters in 2019 once looked like an extra dash of gravy on a juicy pile of mashed potatoes. 

However, the pandemic has changed everything and that includes Cruella's box office prospects. Now, the film looks a little riskier. Will audiences turn out for this when A Quiet Place: Part II is an option? Horror movies and family movies usually don't compete with one another but given that both Quiet and Cruella are PG-13, it looks like they may overlap more moviegoers than expected. The marketing for Cruella has also been more subdued compared to past live-action Disney remakes and it's even unclear how many movie theaters will even play the picture. It's easy to imagine Cruella doing strong numbers under many circumstances, but right now, this looks poised to be one of the lower-grossing Disney remakes. 

Remember when we were getting a Jungle Cruise movie starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen?

9) Jungle Cruise

I'm not sure there's really much demand for Jungle Cruise, a movie that looks like a hodgepodge of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and The Mummy with some African Queen tossed in. However, this is just the kind of movie audiences do like seeing Dwayne Johnson in, family-friendly titles heavy on laughs and explosions. Having Emily Blunt as his co-lead straight after her turns in A Quiet Place and previous Disney title Mary Poppins Returns also sweetens the pot. 

It also doesn't hurt that its late July release means it'll be the last family-friendly movie of the summer (except for the Paw Patrol movie) and that it'll be Disney's first movie since Onward in March 2020 to debut exclusively in theaters. I'm still not sure there's enough uniqueness in either the marketing for this movie or room in the summer 2021 family movie marketplace for Jungle Cruise to become the next Pirates of the Caribbean. Still, it does have some strong ingredients in place to suggest it can reach enough audiences to become a decent performer for the Mouse House.

8) In the Heights

If there's any movie that looks poised to be a big sleeper hit, it's In the Heights. A film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical, In the Heights already looked to poised for box office glory last year thanks to the increased pop culture presence of its writer, Lin Manuel-Miranda. But now, in summer 2021, it feels like the quintessential movie people will wanna see on the big screen. A peppy tone? Check. Lots of spectacle? Also check. A hopeful aesthetic? Triple-check. The fact that early word-of-mouth from those who've seen In the Heights is that the movie delivers the good could give it killer advanced buzz too.

Even the mid-June 2021 date feels absolutely perfect for the title, since it'll give it two weeks of space between both A Quiet Place: Part II and F9. And, yes, having post-Hamilton Manuel-Miranda around as a prominent part of the marketing should only be extra helpful to this movie standing out in the marketplace. The stage is set for In the Heights to dance its way to a triumphant box office run. Basically, expect this one to sell far more than 96,000 tickets in its domestic run. 

7) Hotel Tranylsvania: Transformmania

The newest (apparently last?) Hotel Transylvania movie, Hotel Transylvania: Transformmania, is about to be a very big fish in a very small pond. With PIXAR and Illumination moving their Summer 2021 titles out of the season, that leaves this new Sony Pictures Animation title as, by default, the biggest fully-animated kids movie of the season. Given that the Hotel Transylvania movies have been remarkably consistent in their domestic box office performance up to this point, there was always little chance this one suddenly took the series to Ice Age: Collision Course levels of disastrous domestic box office.

Still, with no other fully animated titles to compete with, this new film can be assured to maintain the majority of its predecessor's domestic gross even with COVID-19 still impacting the theatrical landscape. The marketing on this one hasn't started yet, so it's hard to tell if it'll have as distinct of a hook as its predecessor's cruise line storyline.  At the moment, though, the Drac Pack look poised to be one of the biggest movies of the summer and fill an animated kids movies void in the Summer 2021 marketplace. 

6) A Quiet Place: Part II

Keep that noise down! A Quiet Place: Part II is almost here! The first Quiet Place was already a gigantic smash hit in its 2018 box office run. Just before the pandemic shut everything down, A Quiet Place: Part II looked poised to do the same thanks to impressive box office tracking figures. 14 months later, it looks like A Quiet Place: Part II is still set to be a hit, even if nobody's expecting it to live up to either the first movie or that initial box office tracking from March 2020.

Even prior to the health crisis, the ads for this sequel smartly made sure to emphasize fresh story details like the presence of Cillian Murphy's new character and flashbacks to when the monster-informed apocalypse first began. Those ingredients plus goodwill from the first movie made A Quiet Place: Part II pretty much a financial slamdunk from the get-go. Now, though, the film could be extra appealing to audiences not only as a long-awaited feature but also as something you have to see in the theater. The original Quiet Place was a lot of fun to see with a crowd on the big screen. A Quiet Place: Part II could get a lot of mileage out of those fond memories in its domestic box office run.

5) Space Jam: A New Legacy

Everybody get up now, it's time to predict how Space Jam: A New Legacy will do at the box office. Really, though, if there's any slam-dunk (no pun intended) at this summer's box office, it's Space Jam: A New Legacy. LeBron James is a beloved sports stars. Space Jam is a seminal movie for a certain generation. Plus, the trailers for the sequel haven't just promoted a new Space Jam movie, they've also taken a cue from Ready Player One in simultaneously promoting a whole slew of other familiar pieces of WB IP.

All these qualities, plus the fact that 2021 Warner Bros. movies are overperforming like crazy, all point to Space Jam: A New Legacy being a massive hit. Could it crack $200 million domestically? Under normal circumstances, I'd say heck yeah. The first one, adjusted for inflation, made $162 million domestically and that one didn't have 25 years' worth of hype behind it. Crossing that threshold is more of a question mark in a theatrical landscape rocked by COVID-19. If any movie could do it, though, it'd be a Space Jam sequel. Moviegoers are ready to slam and jam, it seems, and that desire will result in one of the biggest movies of the season.

4) Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Up to this point, the biggest movies of all-time that have opened over the Labor Day weekend frame are Halloween and Final Destination movies. That all changes this year as a big-budget superhero movie calls the holiday weekend home for the first time. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will debut on September 3 and there's no question it'll help redefine what a successful Labor Day weekend release looks like. True, no Labor Day movie has ever crossed $100 million domestically before but none of those previous releases were massive Marvel Studios blockbusters.

The first trailer for Shang-Chi already generated lots of hype and it feels like a guarantee that, even by early September, the glow of returning to theaters will have enough pull to lend an extra layer of specialness to Shang-Chi. The lack of direct connections to Avengers sequels like Black Panther and Captain Marvel had will keep it hitting from the box office highs of those two inaugural solo Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Even a domestic total closer to Doctor Strange than Guardians of the Galaxy, though, would make Shang-Chi one of the biggest movies of summer 2021. Take THAT, Rob Zombie's Halloween! 

A shark! 

3) The Suicide Squad

Nobody liked the 2016 Suicide Squad but it still made over $320 million domestically. That made it a big hit but that negative reception meant an inevitable sequel would have to do more than just say "the Suicide Squad are back!" So far, the marketing for The Suicide Squad has dedicated itself to doing just that by emphasizing the presence of new director James Gunn, a radically different tone, and a slew of new characters, including King Shark. So far, responses to the trailer have been widely positive, the red-band trailer broke viewership records, and IMDB users have declared the feature their most anticipated movie for 2021.

There is the fact that, unlike its predecessor, The Suicide Squad is simultaneously debuting on HBO Max, but that doesn't seem to be impacting the box office of Godzilla vs. Kong and Mortal Kombat, why should it hinder a DC Comics juggernaut? Lingering COVID-19 concerns and negative associates with that first movie make it likely this one opens below the first Suicide Squad but don't be surprised if this legs it out to a slightly higher overall domestic gross. Those Nathan Fillion fans are gonna come out in droves, that's gonna make all the difference at the box office.

An image from a crossover between The Nanny Diaries and Midsommar

2) Black Widow

The Marvel Cinematic Universe returns to the big screen for the first time in two whole years in July, the longest gap of time between installments of this franchise since the MCU began. The film that kicks things back off is one audiences have been demanding for years, a Black Widow solo movie. Being the lone female Avenger for so long made Black Widow a highly-recognizable figure and that only got even more true in the wake of her memorable sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. Now, this highly-publicized feature is offering moviegoers a chance to explore the origins of this character.

Prequels tend to make less than sequels that just continue a story on in a linear fashion, but the MCU's always breaking box office norms, so don't expect that to be too much of an issue here. More pressing, though, is whether or not releasing Black Widow on Disney+ as a PVOD title will hurt its domestic box office run. Those simultaneous HBO Max launches haven't hurt Warner Bros. titles in 2021, but again, we're in uncharted territory. Who knows how this will shake up. Still, never bet against Marvel, whose incredibly successful Disney+ programs like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have proven that audiences haven't forgotten the franchise in its big-screen absence. The consistent box office track record of MCU films plus the long-awaited nature of Black Widow means it'll probably beat out all other summer 2021 titles...except for one!

1) F9

The first big-budget blockbuster to exclusively hit domestic theaters in nearly a year and one of the rare Summer 2021 titles to not have a simultaneous streaming run? F9 is already much like Stacy's Mom in how it has got it going on. However, Universal isn't just resting on the laurels of a post-COVID-19 theatrical landscape to carry this newest Fast & Furious adventure. The presence of John Cena as the new villain is already a great new gimmick as are memorable set pieces involving magnets and rockets. There's also the fact that this is the movie where fan-favorite character Han (Sung Kang) returns from the dead and the final trailer indicates that Dominic Toretto's family is finally headed to space.

All of these qualities mean that F9 has a lot more going for it in its marketing than the previous series installment, The Fate of the Furious, ever had. Still, will that all be enough to get it the top spot at the summer 2021 box office domestically? I think it could, especially since, again it'll have more exclusivity playing in theaters, and its release date times it to the 4th of July holiday. All those extra days of being the only blockbuster in town when people are off work should give it an extra boost to its box office engine. Watch out for F9, this one could end up surpassing Furious 7 to become the highest-grossing entry in the franchise domestically.