Tranny Tackles the Cinema: The Films of 5/10

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The summer 2024 season is officially upon us and Hollywood better hope that the first weekend wasn't a sign of what's to come over the next four months.

Universal's The Fall Guy-which moved from its original March date to this prime slot on the calendar following the SAG strike-induced delay of Deadpool and Wolverine-came in a bit below its already modest tracking figure of $30 mil with a $27.7 mil debut. It's an extremely discouraging start for a movie that got great reviews dating all the way back to its debut at SXSW in mid-March, terrific exit polling scores and was led by a pair of well-known actors who are still riding high off their Oscar-nominated performances in two of the biggest cinematic cultural events of the 2020's so far. All hope isn't quite lost yet as the WOM could prove to be strong enough for it to hold well in the coming weeks, but after last weekend, it's hard to be optimistic that this fall guy will be able to get back up.

The weekend's other wide release, Tarot, had a similar ho-hum result-the only difference is that the expectations were considerably lower. In fact, a $6.3 mil start for this cheap teen horror flick (the budget was $8 mil) with no stars and a cheap digital marketing campaign puts it well on the path to profitability already. Sony will take this small victory as it now turns its attention to the bigger fish they're about to release (The Garfield Movie, Bad Boys: Ride or Die) in the summer pond in the coming weeks.

About the only sincere victories that occurred on this inaugural May weekend came with the limited releases. As expected, A24's acclaimed psychological horror flick I Saw the TV Glow led the charge by earning an impressive $116,340 from 4 theaters ($29,085 PTA-which is just behind Love Lies Bleeding for the top debut of 2024 so far). Jane Schoenbrun's surrealist trans allegory starts to expand this weekend before going wide-ish next weekend, which will likely put a cap on how many more PTA points it racks up.

In what constitutes an upset, Wildcat edged out Evil Does Not Exist for the PTA silver medal. Despite receiving considerably weaker reviews and opening in the exact same number of theaters (3), Ethan Hawke's Flannery O'Connor biopic starring his daughter Maya as the celebrated Southern Gothic writer outdueled Ryusuke Hamaguchi's slow burn drama to the tune of $19,380 to $14,251. Evil Does Not Exist appears to be expanding faster than Wildcat will be, so it looks like the Hawkes and Oscilloscope are going to win this battle.

Lastly, it needs to be noted that the Phantom Meance re-release-which was not in the game-fared well enough ($8.7 mil) to beat out the reigning box office champion Challengers ($7.6 mil, a -49% drop from its OW) for the #2 spot. The pendulum should shift back in the other direction with Mother's Day falling on this weekend, but it's a pretty impressive showing for a polarizing 25-year old film nonetheless.

Wide Release:
7 years after Matt Reeves wrapped up the trilogy he inherited from Rupert Wyatt, Wes Ball is hoping he can launch his own with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century). Kingdom is actually set in the same universe as the previous 3 films, but it takes place a full 300 years after the end of Caesar's story in War for the Planet of the Apes. The primate hero this time around is a young ape named Noa (voiced by Owen Teague), who teams up with a human girl (Freya Allan) to take down a tyrannical ape king (voiced by Kevin Durand) who aims to discover old human technologies to help him achieve his goal of enslaving as many ape clans as possible.

Disney will be betting big on this one as it's the first live action blockbuster they've released since The Marvels and remarkably, only the second film they've released at all this year. While it likely won't even come close to challenging the heights of their 2023 summer kickoff movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, it should do fine business for a company that can't really afford another black eye right following their brutal back half of 2023. Tracking is currently sitting at $50 mil, which feels like a realistic number considering how War fared ($56.3 mil OW). Is it in danger of going lower? Definitely, the drop-off between the total grosses of Dawn and War was pretty significant-especially for a well-received franchise that hasn't been consistently flooding the marketplace with new entries over the past four decades or so and the 7-year wait time between films is more than enough time to see that interest level further decline. Ultimately, I think it will do somewhere between $40-50 million in this soft marketplace and have enough staying power to provide Disney with a path to let Ball see his proposed trilogy through by the end of its run.
Price: $33 ULT/$35 BO
Predictions: $40-55 mil OW/6-11 PTA/11-17 Top 5/high 6 to low 7 IMD/$100-165 mil total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: It's a high floor pick in either format, which is ideal for a season that appears unlikely to produce a guaranteed blockbuster sensation.


Limited Release:
After a lot of sizzle on the menu last weekend, the specialty marketplace is back to being really quiet this weekend with only Gasoline Rainbow (MUBI) set to make its way into the game. And the kicker is that this indie coming-of-age adventure about a group of five teenagers from rural Oregon who decided to celebrate their high school graduation by embarking on a road trip down the Pacific Coastline before they start the next chapter of their lives may not even end up reporting since it's set to debut on MUBI 3 weeks from now. With that possibility in mind, it's not worth taking a chance on at this stage of the season where there's still plenty of other titles with major PTA potential on the board.
Price: $3 ULT/$1 BO
Predictions: $15-35k OW/0-2 PTA/0 Top 5/low to mid 6 IMDb/$30-75k total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: No.


Weekend Predictions:
1.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $47 mil
2.The Fall Guy $13.5 mil
3.Challengers $5 mil
4/5.Tarot/Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire $3 mil

PTA: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I Saw the TV Glow, Wildcat, Evil Does Not Exist, Gasoline Rainbow

Tune in next week when six previews a slate that includes John Krasinski's return to original filmmaking, Pamela Adlon's directorial debut and the first chapter of a new trilogy that our own Walleye may or may secretly have a financial stake in.

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The Fall Guy's struggles come two-fold. First, movies about filmmaking rarely take off. Unless it's making fun of the process like Tropic Thunder or manages to have a second hook like The Artist, the general public doesn't really care to watch something about celebrity. We already have TMZ. Second, was anyone younger than 40 familiar with the source material? Yes, Universal went out of their way to not mention it was based on a TV show but it was an odd choice to adapt into a feature. It's not even the first Lee Majors show that would lend itself to a major motion picture (that would be the perpetually in development hell The Six Million Dollar Man).

As for the new openers, Kingdom is going to be dependent on audience reception. Early reviews are serviceable but not great, well below the last two installments, while the dystopian genre has been extremely oversaturated lately. It should open higher than The Fall Guy but it might struggle in later weeks as yet another dystopian film opens two weeks later in Furiosa.

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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes did $6.6 mil in previews ($1.6 of which came from Wednesday night's IMAX/Dolby Fan Screenings).

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The audience response at my showing on Thursday was rather muted. I'm expecting a Cinemascore in the B range, below the three previous films' A- scores.

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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' Cinemascore was a B, exactly what I expected.

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Weekend Estimates:
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $56.5 mil
The Fall Guy $13.7 mil
Challengers $4.7 mil
Tarot $3.5 mil
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire $2.5 mil
Unsung Hero $2.3 mil
Kung Fu Panda 4 $2 mil
Civil War $1.8 mil
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Re-Release $1.5 mil
Abigail $1.1 mil

PTA:
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $13.9k
Wildcat $12k
I Saw the TV Glow $9.3k
The Fall Guy $3.4k
Evil Does Not Exist $3k

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Weekend Actuals:
1.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $58.4 mil
2.The Fall Guy $13.7 mil
3.Challengers $4.4 mil
4.Tarot $3.4 mil
5.Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire $2.6 mil
6.Unsung Hero $2.5 mil
7.Kung Fu Panda 4 $1.82 mil
8.Civil War $1.80 mil
9.Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Re-Release $1.4 mil
10.Abigail $1.1 mil

-Gasoline Rainbow $6,241

PTA:
1.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes $14,331
2.Wildcat $11,880 (6 theaters)
3.I Saw the TV Glow $9,291 (21 theaters)
4.Gasoline Rainbow $6,241
5.The Fall Guy $3,418

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Assuming the legs are decent enough, it looks like this franchise has plenty of gas left in the tank.

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I think it fails to hit $150 million domestic. Kingdom had the worst Cinemascore of the current series and fatigue over dystopian films has started to set in. Once Furiosa opens, Kingdom will be moved into the smaller auditoriums of your local multiplexes.