Halfway Mark Box Office (Pt 1: The Mainstream)

As part of our midway through the year report (we've already seen fun halfway top fives from the team and favourite male performances) here's a look at the box office year thus far. Tomorrow we'll get a bit more niche, okay? Figures here are estimates as of Sunday June 30th for films released in the first six months of the year.

BOX OFFICE TOP TENS IN SIX CATEGORIES
🔺= the movie is still in over 100 theaters.

1. TOP GROSSING FILMS WITH A FEMALE LEAD
(Excluding films where a male lead is just as prominent as his female co-star)

Captain Marvel

01 Captain Marvel (Disney/Marvel) $426.7 starring Brie Larson. March 8th
02 Us (Universal) $175 starring Lupita Nyong'o. March 22nd
03 Alita Battle Angel (Fox) $85.7 starring Rosa Salazar. Feb 14th...

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Linkgame

• IndieWire Avengers Endgame, which is still in wide release (985 theaters) at this writing will be "rereleased" on Friday. LOL. That just means it's adding more theaters again and this time it will have a deleted scene. It's fitting that the special poster for it is Thanos' fist since they're still trying to pummel Avatar's #1 status. 
• Variety on Wes Studi's landmark Honorary Oscar

After the jump news on Bond 25, The Irishman, a new take on Flash Gordon, animation awards, and a movie you probably forgot all about (I did!) finally getting released years after people wrote it off...

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What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office Estimates June 21st-23rd (UPDATED WITH ACTUALS) 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Highly Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Toy Story 4	Last Black Man in San Francisco
1 🔺 Toy Story 4  $120.9 *NEW* on 4575 screens	1🔺 The Dead Don't Die $1.1 (cum. $4.7) on 690 screens REVIEW
2 🔺 Child's Play $14 *NEW* on 3007 screens REVIEW	2 🔺  Pavarotti $431k (cum. $1) on 135 screens
3  Aladdin  $13.2 (cum. $288.5) on 3435 screens REVIEW, 1992 RETROSPECTIVE	3 🔺 The Last Black Man in San Francisco $410k (cum. $1.3) on 72 screens REVIEW ★
4 Men in Black International  $10.7 (cum. $52.6) on 4224 screens REVIEW	4 🔺  Echo in the Canyon $225k (cum. 1.1) on 81 screens
5 Secret Life of Pets 2 $10.2 (cum. $117.5) on 3804 screens REVIEW	5  Biggest Little Farm $164k (cum. $3.2) on 134 screens
6 Rocketman $5.6 (cum. $77.2) on 2414 screens  REVIEW ★	6 🔺 Wild Rose $52k *NEW* on 4 screens

What did you see this week? 

• True to the overstated but possibly real 'franchise fatigue' of summer 2019, Toy Story 4 opened lower than both studio and analyst's expectations though $118 million is still a hefty opening tally, and the third best of the year (Disney has the top four openings all to themselves). Meanwhile Child's Play also fell short of expectations continuing the trend. If only some original film would break out we could view it as people being tired of sequels and franchises, but it's probably not that as they're not seeking out anything new instead. Speaking of franchise fatigue, Godzilla: King of Monsters managed to inch over the $100 million mark this weekend. But with a budget of $170 million (not including P&A) that's still rough waters for the iconic kaiju to swim in.

• In platform releases, The Last Black Man in San Francisco and the music docs Echo in the Canyon and Pavarotti continued to do well all three crossing the $1 million mark this weekend. 

• The new titles not listed above included Anna, earning $3.6 million its opening weekend, the documentaries Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, A Bigger Splash (a rerelease of the art doc classic) and The Quiet One earning $48k, $18k, and $10k respectively.

Men in Black Don't Die in San Francisco

Since this weekend's box office was all over the place we have an expanded list today. We're taking all wide releases into account and the corresponding top 12 in limited release.

Weekend Box Office June 14th-16th (Actuals) 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Men in Black Int'l $30 on 4224 screens *new*  REVIEW	1 🔺 The Dead Don't Die $2.5 on 613 screens *new*  REVIEW, JARMUSCH

2 Secret Life of Pets $24.4 on 4563 screens (cum. $92.6) REVIEW	2 🔺  Last Black Man in San Francisco $380k on 36 screens (cum. $733k) REVIEW  ★

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Weak Sequels & Promising Platform Titles

Weekend Box Office Estimates June 7th-9th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Secret Life of Pets 2	Last Black Man in San Francisco
1 🔺 Secret Life of Pets 2  $47.1 on 4561 screens *NEW*  REVIEW	1🔺 Biggest Little Farm $347k on 285 screens (cum. $2.4)
2 🔺 Dark Phoenix $33 on 3721 screens *NEW*  REVIEW	2 🔺 Late Night $249k on 4 screens *NEW* REVIEW ★
3  Aladdin  $24.5 on 3805 screens (cum. $232.3) 1992 RETROSPECTIVE	3 🔺  All is True $237k on 328 screens (cum. $752k) POSTERIZED: DAME JUDI
4 Godzilla: King of Monsters  $15.5 on 4108  screens (cum. $78.5) POSTERIZED	4 🔺  Last Black Man in...  $230k on 7 screens *NEW*  REVIEW ★
5 Rocketman $14 on 3610 screens (cum. $50.4) REVIEW ★	5 🔺 Echo in Canyon $205k on 43 screens (cum. $501k)
6 Ma $7.8 on 2816 screens (cum. $32.7) REVIEW	6 🔺 The Souvenir $169k on 145 screens (cum. $696k) REVIEW ★

What did you see this week? 

• Secret Life of Pets 2 and Dark Phoenix both had dismal openings when compared to their predecessors. Dark Phoenix is likely to become the first X-film not to gross $100 million domestically. But that's okay, since Disney acquired Fox and this franchise can now go dormant until the MCU has their way with it. (We don't really understand why Disney is still going to dump money into The New Mutants reshoot. Just release it on Disney+ and be done with the bad Fox X-Men titles!) 

• Late Night had the weekend's best per screen average with $62k per theater and will go nationwide next weekend. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, also had a solid opening and the film will hopefully be able to capitalize on its strong reviews as it expands during the summer as counterprogramming for adult audiences. Late Night is hoping for a bigger box office splash than Booksmart and we assume they'll get it with more recognizable stars headlining. 

• Other limited openings this week lower on the charts were the music doc Pavarotti (with $142k), stripper doc This One's for the Ladies ($16k), and the Matt Bomer starring Papi Chulo with $7k from 2 theaters. 

• Rocketman crossed $50 million dollar in its 2nd weekend, holding the best of last week's wide releases down only 45% from its opening weekend (by contrast Ma was down 56% and Godzilla a steep drop of 67%) 

ENJOY THE TONY AWARDS AND BIG LITTLE LIES TONIGHT. WE'LL HAVE COVERAGE OF BOTH ON MONDAY AND TUESDAY.