Summer should be salvaged with more movies like ‘Bad Boys 4’

The action-comedy fourquel “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” provided the box office with much-needed boost, but it isn’t enough to save the summer on its own.

With $56 million in domestic ticket sales, the latest “Bad Boys,” which reunited Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as Miami cops, exceeded initial estimates, but the year-to-date deficit actually widened. Comscore reports that overall revenues are already behind by 26%, with ticket sales trailing 2023 by 24% going into the weekend.

Analysts feel that the lack of enthusiasm for other titles in the market is the reason for the fall, not “Bad Boys 4.” The Warner Bros. supernatural thriller and fellow newcomer “The Watchers” ($7.4 million), the Sony animated “The Garfield Movie” ($10 million), Paramount’s fantasy comedy “IF” ($8 million), and Disney and 20th Century’s sequel “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” ($5.4 million) were the other four of the top five releases that brought in scraps. “IF” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” two of those movies, have been showing in theaters for four and five weekends, respectively.

In demand on Variety

Therefore, it is difficult to compare this weekend’s box office results to those of the same weekend in summer 2023 because multiple films were actively selling tickets: “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” brought in the most money at $61 million, followed by “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” with $55.5 million from its second outing and “The Little Mermaid” from Disney with $23.1 million in its third weekend of release. The other two films in the top five, “The Boogeyman” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” each took in about $7 million.

Senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian states, “There was just not enough collective box office horsepower to move the needle versus the very tough comparisons a year ago.”

Big-budget blockbusters like Warner Bros.’ sci-fi prequel “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” ($58 million domestically; $144.4 million worldwide) and Universal’s action comedy “The Fall Guy” ($85 million domestically; $165 million worldwide) have fallen short overall, making for an unsettlingly slow summer. Analysts, however, are optimistic that “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” will finally bring some sustained heat to popcorn season because there’s a saying that moviegoing breeds moviegoing. While Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” (June 14) and “A Quiet Place: Day One” (June 28) are set to release in June, momentum will be critical as “Despicable Me 4” (July 3), “Twisters” (19), and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” (July 28) prepare to release in July.

This year’s hot weather can be partly linked to the two worker strikes from the previous year. That’s because Hollywood essentially stopped down for months, pushing many of the big films till 2025 and beyond. According to David A. Gross of the film consulting company Franchise Entertainment Research, “We haven’t refilled the release schedule yet.””It will require some time.”

Numbers do not always equal to power. Despite a decrease from pre-pandemic summers, the number of new releases from May through June 9 is unchanged from the previous year’s harvesting. At this stage in 2019, there were 18 new offers, compared to twelve in 2023 and 2024. However, Comscore indicates that this summer season is 35% behind last year’s.

According to Dergarabedian, “Quality is more important than quantity.” “2023 was a lot stronger since the crop of titles was very strong.”