Box office preview: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum’s ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ touches down

As has been the case most of the year, any weekend with a big movie tends to be followed by a lighter weekend with a bunch of odds and ends, and that’s the case this weekend as well. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.

As “Despicable Me 4” and “Inside Out 2” continue to dominate, we get a number of smaller movies, even though one of them has two major A-list stars working together in a genre that hasn’t been particularly well represented in theaters this summer … the comedy.

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in the historic rom-com “Fly Me to the Moon” with Johansson playing marketing expert Kelly Jones, who is called upon by the government – specifically by Woody Harrelson – to help get the country excited about the USA putting a man on the moon. Tatum plays launch director Cole Davis, who is quite serious about that mission but is not quite into Kelly’s ideas for marketing.

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Directed by Greg Berlanti (“Love, Simon”), the Apple Studios movie is being released by Sony Pictures with hopes of the success of Tatum’s “The Lost City” opposite Sandra Bullock, which made more than $100 million domestically. Sony is also hoping that the popularity of the Glen Powell–Sydney Sweeney rom-com “Anyone But You” could spill over into this movie, which offers something different from other movies currently in theaters.

This is Johansson’s first theatrical release since Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” and more importantly, Marvel’s “Black Widow,” which was delayed due to COVID but still opened with $80.3 million and made $379 million worldwide. Although Tatum’s box office career has been rather spotty, he’s had enough big hits like the “Magic Mike” movies, that he’s proven to be a draw, particularly toward women.

Maybe the biggest issue the film faces is that it’s somewhat schizophrenic. One imagines some younger people might be interested in “Fly Me to the Moon” due to Johansson and Tatum, but a movie set during the Space Race in the late ’60s seems more like something geared toward older moviegoers. 

Even so, Sony and Apple must figure they have a potential hit here, based on the fact that the movie received multiple early previews over 4th of July weekend, which could help drive word-of-mouth business this weekend. We probably should expect “Fly Me to the Moon” to open somewhere in the $12 to $14 million range, giving it a chance to open in third place, at best.

At one point, Oz Perkins’ suspense thriller “Longlegs,” starring Maika Monroe (“It Follows”) as an FBI agent chasing after a ruthless serial killer, played by Nicolas Cage, was only getting a limited release this weekend. General buzz and interest has convinced Neon to give the movie a nationwide release into an unknown number of theaters this Friday instead. While the premise involving a satanist cult might seem a little strange for mainstream America, Neon’s marketing has been on point trying to keep things a bit of a mystery, which may have worked since curiosity has been piqued. Getting a hearty release into 2,500 theaters, “Longlegs” should be able to open with between $7 and $9 million, which would be enough to knock “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” out of the Top 5 for the first time in five weeks.

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Also opening wide into just over a thousand theaters via new distributor Goldove Entertainment is Gino McKoy’s sci-fi thriller “Lumina,” one of three movies in which Eric Roberts appears this weekend. (No joke!)  It involves a group of young people whose friend goes missing, sending them on a search through the desert. A new distributor is unlikely to have the marketing clout to get the word out there, despite getting a fairly wide release, and this taking on “Longlegs” just doesn’t seem like death. I’d be shocked if this even makes a million this weekend, despite the hearty release it’s getting.

There are an absolute ton of limited releases this weekend, and as has been the case for the last few years, any one of these could end up getting a wider release this weekend, as we saw with “Longlegs.” 

Focus Features is releasing “Touch” from filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur (“Everest”) into select cities this weekend, starring Icelandic actor/singer Egill Ólafsson as restaurateur Kristófer, who is diagnosed with a chronic disease that sends him to London and then Japan looking for a lover from his younger days, played by Japanese model and singer Kôki. Essentially being a foreign language film, we’ll have to see how wide a release it gets.

Colman Domingo stars in the prison drama “Sing Sing,” which is currently in the lead in Gold Derby’s Oscar predictions to WIN Best Picture. It’s a movie that’s received buzz and stellar reviews, since premiering at the Toronto Film Festival last September, and it opens in New York and L.A. this weekend and then will slowly expand until its nationwide release on August 2, essentially building buzz while trying to avoid the big blockbusters like “Twisters” and “Deadpool and Wolverine.”

As far as other movies, Magnolia is giving Lee Tamahori’s (“Once Were Warriors”) historical drama “The Convert,” starring Guy Pearce, a limited release this weekend. Also, Charlie Plummer (“Lean on Pete”) stars in Luke Gilford’s “National Anthem,” as a young man from New Mexico who gets involved with a queer ranching community. 

So, there are a lot of movie options this weekend, even if none of them may seem to be on par with the upcoming “Twisters” or “Deadpool and Wolverine.” Either way, check back on Sunday to see how the new movies do against the returning summer blockbusters.

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