August Box Office Will Cool Off, but Don’t Expect Another Slump

After a hot streak of films from “Inside Out 2” to “Deadpool & Wolverine” jolted the box office out of a two-month slump, August should see a cooling down period for movie theaters. But it’s more likely the industry will see business similar to last year’s post-“Barbenheimer” performance rather than the deep slump seen earlier this year.

In place of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” is set to be the month’s big moneymaker. It won’t match the combined domestic grosses of those two titans, but it will be a tour de force in its own right. It has already grossed $261 million domestically and is likely to have at least another $350 million in the tank thanks to its strong word-of-mouth and second viewings from hardcore Marvel fans.

What about the rest of the August release slate? Upcoming films are more likely to have the smaller runs that April films like “Civil War” had in theaters, with a possible chance of stretching just past $100 million in North America if word-of-mouth is strong. Last August, the top grossing film released during the month was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” with $118.6 million domestic.

The film most likely to reach that total is 20th Century’s “Alien: Romulus,” the first installment of Ridley Scott’s 45-year-old horror series released by Disney. Expected by exhibitors to open in the 35-$45 million range, Disney is hoping that director Fede Alvarez’s devotion to physical sets and to the elements that longtime “Alien” fans love will help the film put up a “Quiet Place”-esque run when it hits theaters Aug. 16.

A dark horse for breakout success is Sony’s “It Ends With Us,” a romantic drama from Justin Baldoni and producer Reese Witherspoon coming out next week. While the wild success of “Barbie” was proof enough, smaller hits like Witherspoon’s “Where the Crawdads Sing” show there’s a healthy appetite for lower-budget films that appeal primarily to women. Sony has found success targeting audience subsets that may be largely ignored by other studios, and they are banking on “It Ends With Us” being such a film.

Theaters cannot afford to not lose momentum beyond the usual end-of-summer lull that is customary in the last week of August. The films on tap in the weeks ahead, combined with “Deadpool 3” holdovers, should be enough to keep the month’s grosses from falling to the lows seen in May.

From there, a September slate that includes Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Universal/DreamWorks “The Wild Robot,” and Paramount’s “Transformers One” should ramp up to a robust Q4, fulfilling the expectations of studios and distributors that the second half of 2024 will bring a sustained box office rebound.

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