With the June box office proving more lackluster than hoped, and the failure of several key films to net the grosses initially hoped for, there’s an immense pressure of July to perform. While the latest Mission:Impossible, Barbie, and Oppenheimer should all do well, it does pay not to count your chickens before they hatch- especially for some who seem to be expecting velociraptors from those chicken eggs, too! Brandon Blake, entertainment attorney with Blake & Wang P.A, takes a realistic look at the most promising of July’s slate.
Mission: Possible, But Be Realistic
The latest Mission: Impossible certainly has the potential to be a top-scorer for the year. It has strong reviews, lingering goodwill for Tom Cruise after Top Gun last year, and tons of action. International markets should be receptive enough to the genre that domestic performance won’t be all. And Paramount are really milking every way to maximize that gross with the film’s extended previews.
With two films unexpectedly pulling in upwards of $400M (Spider-Man) and $550M (Super Mario Bros) this year, and an utterly enormous marketing budget for this film, however (triple the two preceding movies), it’s easy to start setting unrealistic expectations. This summer has been a lesson in how franchise titles can fall short when too much high-end expectation is placed on them. Mission Impossible will also have second-week competition from ‘Barbenheimer’, as the duo are being called, and this has been a year of quick falloffs.
‘Barbenheimer’: Too Much or Not?
Then we have the two major non-franchise titles that have managed to stir up immense interest and surprising pre-release appeal. Especially as the cultural zeitgeist has pinned them together on the basis of…well, nothing much but their joint release date and amusingly antithetical subject matter. As marketing success stories go, it’s been great.
But both have challenges. Each lacks the ‘four quadrants’ (total demographic appeal). Comedy is a tricky sell to balance. Oppenheimer’s long run time and artistic direction could be challenging. Yet both have fantastic directing teams, and offer some novelty in a market getting resistant to regurgitated IPs. Currently, Barbie is expected to double Oppenheimer’s takings- and that would actually be a solid performance from both, especially if we do see the $100M vs $50M opening as expected.
So let’s be real- these are 3 solid films which will undoubtedly perform well. The projected $300M (Mission Impossible) and $200M for the others would be a great box office contribution. Overperformance would be even better, but even if it doesn’t happen, these will not be ‘failures’ for not topping Super Mario Bros’ unprecedented climb up the charts this year. Hope and optimism is great, but let’s also stay centered and realistic. The box office will get a nice boost from a solid slate of films people have actually gotten excited about- and even if that isn’t quite the coveted 2019 summer benchmark, it’s still great news overall for the theatrical recovery.
Film and Television 