After a brief pause after Memorial Day, it's now June, and the blockbusters are rolling off the line again. We're also beginning to hit the Disney spot, the mid-June weekend when, since the mid-90s, Disney usually debuts a major animated feature, which (usually) dominates the box office for at least that week.
One Year Ago--June 5, 2020:
#1 Movie:
Trolls World Tour (unofficial)/Becky (official)
New Theatrical Releases:
Becky--$1 million/70/72%/54--In this violent thriller, a teenage girl (Lulu Wilson) is the only person who can save her father (Joel McHale), his fiancée (Amanda Brugel), and her young son (Isaiah Rockcliffe) from a vicious gang of escaped criminals led by neo-Nazi Kevin James (yes, that Kevin James). Even with the good reviews, critics still thought it was somewhat over the top, but it did relatively good business at the drive-ins that showed it.
Director: Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion
Sex and the Future--$0.006 million/295/NA/NA--A nerdy inventor (Chris Markle) and his more attractive friend (Phillip Crum) design a sex robot while a middle eastern prince (Fahad Olayan) decides to try to become a movie star. Silly, low-budget comedy didn't attract much notice during its brief release.
Director: Luis Carlos Hueck and Ethan Zvi Kaplan
The Fox Hunter--$0.002 million/318/NA/NA--And this comedy, about a Southern family of media moguls that falls on hard times, got even less notice, despite having familiar faces like Madison Iseman and Beth Broderick in the cast.
Director: Patrick Shanahan
Five Years Ago--June 3, 2016:
New Wide Releases:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows--1/$35.3 million/$82.1 million/37/38/40--Another week, another underperforming sequel. A follow-up to the unexpected smash 2014 reboot of the franchise, this one has the Turtles (voiced by Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, and Noel Fisher) having to battle not only the Shredder (Brian Tee) but also a robotic alien (voiced by Brad Garrett) with designs on taking over the world. Megan Fox and Will Arnett return from the first film, with newcomers including Stephen Amell, Tyler Perry, and Laura Linney. The failure of this film led to a third entry being scrapped, though yet another reboot is due in 2023.
Director: Dave Green
Me Before You--3/$18.7 million/$56.3 million/58/54%/51--In this sleeper, Emilia Clarke is hired to care for tetraplegic Sam Claflin, who has already decided to end it all rather than endure his new life. Janet McTeer, Charles Dance, Matthew Lewis, Jenna Coleman, Vanessa Kirby, and Joanna Lumley co-star. Despite mixed reviews, this proved to be an unexpected box office success.
Director: Thea Sharrock
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping--8/$4.7 million/$9.6 million/138/79%/68--Andy Samberg's second star vehicle with his Lonely Island crew got better reviews out of the gate than eventual 2007 cult hit Hot Rod, but somehow managed to make even less money. In this mockumentary, Samberg played a fast-fading former boy band member on a disastrous tour to promote his new album. Co-directors Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer play his former bandmates and Imogen Poots plays his girlfriend. In addition, former SNL cast members Sarah Silverman, Tim Meadows, Maya Rudolph, Joan Cusack, Will Forte, Kevin Nealon, and Bill Hader, and future SNLer Chris Redd play supporting roles, and there are a raft of celebrity cameos. None of this was enough to get many people into theaters showing the film, though, like Hot Rod, it has become a cult hit.
Director: Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone
New Limited Releases:
A Aa--$2.3 million/196/NA/NA--This Indian-produced romantic drama, which seems to have clinched the top entry in any alphabetical list of movies, stars Nithiin and Samantha Akkineni as twentysomethings whose road to romance is incredibly bumpy--starting with the fact that Nithiin already had a fiancée (Anupama Parameswaran). Like many Indian movies released in America, it had a strong opening weekend, before fading fast.
Director: Trivikram Srinivas
The Fits--$0.2 million/348/96%/90--A pre-teen girl (Royalty Hightower) joins a dance troupe, just as the older members begin having seemingly random, inexplicable violent seizures, in this highly acclaimed drama from first-time narrative filmmaker Anna Rose Holmer. Reviews were strong.
Director: Anna Rose Holmer
Ten Years Ago--June 10, 2011:
New Wide Releases:
Super 8--1/$35.5 million/$127 million/18/81%/72--In 1978, a group of teens (Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills) making a zombie movie witness--and film--a train derailment that leads to a large, unknown creature escaping. They have to figure out what is going on as the military, led by a ruthless colonel (Noah Emmerich) moves in. Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard, AJ Michalka, Joel McKinnon Miller, Michael Giacchino (who also composed the film's score) Michael Hitchcock, Richard T. Jones, Bruce Greenwood, David Gallagher, Dan Castellaneta, Dale Dickey, and Glynn Turman co-star. Director J.J. Abrams shot the film as a homage to Steven Spielberg (who executive produced), and critics were impressed. The film was also a solid box office hit.
Director: J.J. Abrams
Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer--8/$6.1 million/$15 million/134/21%/37--It was indeed a bummer summer for this kids-lit adaption, as the titular Judy (Jordana Beatty) is determined to have the most awesome summer ever, despite being stuck with her free-spirited aunt (Heather Graham) and her obnoxious little brother (Parris Mosteller). Jaleel White, and Robert Costanzo co-star. Critics found the film as obnoxious as the brother, and family audiences largely avoided it. This film ended up with somewhat of a tragic coda, as two of the young supporting actors, Jackson Odell and Cameron Boyce, would both pass away a few years after the film's release.
Director: John Schultz
Fifteen Years Ago--June 9, 2006:
New Wide Releases:
Cars--1/$60.1 million/$244.1 million/3/74%/73--Pixar's first critical misfire (at least in comparison to everything that they'd released previously), this comedy, set in a world of living, andromorphic cars, stars Owen Wilson as a hotshot rookie race car driver who gets stuck in a small desert town after accidentally damaging the local road. While eager to head for the next big race, and under the watchful eye of the local judge (Paul Newman, in his final film), he finds himself beginning to fall for the town and the local lawyer (Bonnie Hunt). Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond, Jermey Piven, Edie McClurg, and Pixar regular John Ratzenberger co-star, along with cameos from racing/cars/sports figures like Richard Petty, Bob Costas, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Mario Andretti. The film proved to be about as popular with audiences as previous Pixar movies, though even critics who liked it noticed the plot was awfully similar to that of the 1991 comedy Doc Hollywood. The film would be nominated for two Oscars, for Animated Feature and Original Song for "Our Town". It would be followed by two sequels. It would also be the final project for longtime Pixar screenwriter, voice actor, and animator Joe Ranft, who had died the year before.
Director: John Lasseter
The Omen--4/$16 million/$54.6 million/59/26%/43--This remake of the 1976 horror flick stars Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles as an American diplomat in Europe and his wife whose young son Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) seems to be responsible for a series of gruesome deaths. Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, and Michael Gambon co-star. The film ensured a surprisingly busy first day by opening on June 6 (6/6/06), but business fell off quickly, and by the end of its first weekend, it had already grossed 2/3rd of its final total. Despite being profitable, no sequel was forthcoming.
Director: John Moore
A Prairie Home Companion--7/$4.6 million/$20.3 million/116/81%/75--The final film of Robert Altman was set, ironically enough, behind the scenes of the (fictitious) final episode of the titular, long-running radio show (in reality, the program ran another decade). The film focused on the various performers and employees (including Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, L.Q. Jones, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Maya Rudolph, and the show's real-life creator and host Garrison Keillor, playing himself) during the last broadcast, along with two interlopers (Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen). Reviews were good, and the film did decently by the standards of Altman (who would pass on that November).
Director: Robert Altman
Twenty Years Ago--June 8, 2001:
New Wide Releases:
Swordfish--1/$18.2 million/$69.8 million/35/25%/32--An expert hacker (Hugh Jackman) is coerced by John Travolta, who may or may not be a top secret government agent, into working for him, to create a worm to steal billions from the government. Of course, like in all movies like this, Things Are Not As They Seem. Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Sam Shepard, Vinnie Jones, and Drea de Matteo co-star. This one got a lot of notoriety after it was revealed that Berry got paid half a million dollars just for a brief topless scene. That and the star power probably helped it become a moderate hit (and a nice, if short-lived bounce-back for Travolta after the disastrous Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers), even if critics were largely critical of the film.
Director: Dominic Sena
Evolution--4/$13.4 million/$38.4 million/63/44%/40--Ivan Reitman hoped to top his own Ghostbusters with this sci-fi comedy, in which a pair of community college professors (David Duchovny and Orlando Jones), a fire fighting cadet (Seann William Scott) and a CDC scientist (Julianne Moore) discover that a crashed meteor is carrying alien life, which began evolving at the rate of hundreds of millions of years per day, which might just spell doom for the previously existing life on the planet. Ted Levine, Ethan Suplee, Ty Burrell, Kyle Gass, Sarah Silverman, John Cho, and Dan Ackroyd co-star. The film proved underwhelming to both critics and audiences, making only a fraction of what Ghostbusters had done a decade and a half before.
Director: Ivan Reitman
New Limited Releases:
Atlantis: The Lost Empire--$84.1 million/26/49%/52--Disney's hopes that the disappointing grosses for The Emperor's New Groove six months earlier had been a fluke were dashed when this epic animated adventure opening in the studio's usual summer slot managed to do even worse. Michael J. Fox voiced a linguist recruited by an eccentric millionaire (John Mahoney) to go on an expedition to find Atlantis, led by James Garner. When they arrived, they found the place to be more wonderous--and more dangerous--than they could have imagined. Cree Summer, Don Novello, Phil Morris, Florence Stanley, David Ogden Stiers, Jim Varney (in one of his final roles), and Leonard Nimoy provided additional voices. Not only was the film a financial flop, it got easily the worst reviews of any of the studio's major animated features since the Disney Renaissance began.
Director: Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise
The Anniversary Party--$4.1 million/158/60%/56--Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in this drama, which co-stars many of their real life friends. The party is for Cumming and Leigh, playing a couple celebrating their sixth anniversary despite some--or a lot--of simmering tension between them, which the introduction of Ecstacy does nothing to suppress. Among the duo's real life friends and/or former co-stars are Phoebe Cates, coming briefly out of retirement (she has yet to appear on screen again), her real-life husband Kevin Kline, along with their two real children Owen and Greta (both of whom would appear in Leigh's then-future husband Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale), John Benjamin Hickey, Parker Posey, Denis O'Hare, Mina Badie (Leigh's real-life sister), Jane Adams, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Beals, Mary-Lynn Rajskub, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Despite the star power, critics were rather cool toward it, though it did well on the art-house circuit. To date, this is Leigh's only directorial credit, and Cumming has directed only one other, barely released film.
Director: Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh
Divided We Fall--$1.3 million/186/90%/69--During World War II, a Czech couple (Bolek Polívka and Anna Šišková) decide to hide a Jewish man (Csongor Kassai) who has escaped from a concentration camp. To divert suspicion, Polívka agrees to work for the occupying Nazis, causing his neighbors to turn against him. This critically acclaimed comedy-drama from the Czech Republic had been nominated for Foreign Language Film at the Oscars a few months prior.
Director: Jan Hrebejk
Twenty-Five Years Ago--June 7, 1996:
New Wide Releases:
The Rock--1/$25.1 million/$134.1 million/7/68%/58--Michael Bay followed up his hit Bad Boys with this even bigger smash (in both senses of the word). A group of rogue Marines, led by Ed Harris, invade Alcatraz with stolen nerve gas, which they intend to launch over San Francisco unless their demands are met. The FBI sends in a SEAL team, along with a nerdy chemical expert (Nicolas Cage, in his first film since his Oscar win) and a mysterious, very old British agent (Sean Connery) who is the only person to ever successfully escape the prison to take out the teams and neutralize the gas. Of course, things go wildly, explosively wrong (it's a Michael Bay movie, there are lots of explosions), and it's up to the nerd and the agent to save the day. John Spencer, David Morse, William Forsythe, Michael Biehn, John C. McGinley, Tony Todd, Bokeem Woodbine, Steve Harris, Danny Nucci, Claire Forlani, Stuart Wilson, David Marshall Grant, Xander Berkeley, Philip Baker Hall, Anthony Clark, and Raymond Cruz made up the stacked (and extremely masculine) supporting cast. Critics scoffed, though a lot of them admitted to having a good time, and audiences made it one of the biggest hits of the year. It also officially launched the Nicolas Cage Action Star era. It would be Oscar nominated for Sound. This would be the final film of producer Don Simpson, who died during production.
Director: Michael Bay
The Phantom--6/$5.1 million/$17.3 million/93/43%/NA--This adaption of a long-running adventure comic strip was probably a good decade and a half early to catch the comic adaption craze, though even then, it might not have had much of a chance. Billy Zane plays the titular, seemingly immortal superhero who finds himself going up against a ruthless businessman (Treat Williams) who is after magic skulls. Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar, Patrick McGoohan, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Casey Siemaszko, Jon Tenney, and Samantha Eggar co-star. This might have done better in less competitive time of the year
Director: Simon Wincer
Thirty Years Ago--June 7, 1991:
New Wide Releases:
City Slickers--1/$13 million/$124 million/5/90%/70--New Yorker Billy Crystal, on the precipice of a mid-life crisis, decides to head west with best friends Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby to participate in a cattle drive, where he meets crusty trail boss Jack Palance and has to take over when the tourist-friendly drive suddenly becomes very real. Patricia Wettig, Helen Slater, Noble Willingham, Tracey Walter, Jeffrey Tambour, Josh Mostel, David Paymer, Phill Lewis, Yeardley Smith, Robert Costanzo, Danielle Harris, and 10-year-old Jake Gyllenhaal, making his film debut, co-star. The year's biggest hit comedy, and the most successful live-action film of Crystal's career, this also earned across-the-board raves from critics. Palance would win the Supporting Actor Oscar for the film. A sequel would follow in 1994.
Director: Ron Underwood
Jungle Fever--3/$5.3 million/$32.5 million/44/81%/78--A successful African-American man (Wesley Snipes) begins an affair with his Italian-American secretary (Annabella Sciorra) which sets off shockwaves that eventually affects his wife (Loretta McKee) and parents (Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee), and her family (Sciorra's eventual Sopranos co-stars Frank Vincent and Michael Imperioli) and fiancé (John Turturro). Director Spike Lee, who also co-starred, attracted a very strong cast, including Anthony Quinn, Halle Berry (in her film debut), Tyra Ferrell, Veronica Webb, Nicholas Turturro, Michael Badalucco, Debi Mazar, Tim Robbins, Brad Dourif, Theresa Randle, Charlie Murphy, Doug E. Doug, Queen Latifah (also making her film debut), and Samuel L. Jackson, in what would be his breakthrough role. Lee's provocative drama got strong reviews, and would pass Do the Right Thing to become his highest-grossing film to that point.
Director: Spike Lee
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead--6/$4.2 million/$25.2 million/51/36%/35--In the first of two summer comedy vehicles for Married...With Children stars, Christina Applegate plays a teenager who, along with her siblings (Keith Coogan, Christopher Pettiet, Danielle Harris, who also had a small part in City Slickers, and Robert Hy Gorman) expect a summer of freedom when their mom (Concetta Tomei) head to Australia, at least until the mean elderly babysitter (Eda Reiss Merin) shows up. When she, as the title promises, promptly dies, Applegate discovers that a summer without money doesn't lead to much freedom, so she rather improbably lands a job working for fashion designer Joanna Cassidy. Hijinks ensue. Josh Charles, Jayne Brook, and a pre-X-Files David Duchovny co-star. The film got predictably bad reviews and failed to break out beyond the teenagers the film was aimed at, but did show that Applegate was capable of more than playing Kelly Bundy.
Director: Stephen Herek
Thirty-Five Years Ago--June 6, 1986:
#1 Movie:
Top Gun--$8.2 million
New Wide Releases:
Raw Deal--2/$5.4 million/$16.2 million/54/29%/44--Arnold Schwarzenegger had a bit of a setback with this poorly-received vehicle, in which he plays a former FBI agent who is recruited by an old colleague (Darren McGavin) for an off-the-books mission to go undercover in the organization of a mobster (Sam Wanamaker) to root out a mole. Kathryn Harrold, Steven Hill, Ed Lauter, Joe Regalbuto, and Robert Davi co-star. With Cobra having already sated the desire for moviegoers to see a muscular actor play a vigilante cop who wracks up a huge body count, this ended up making less than half of what Commando had done the previous fall.
Director: John Irvin
SpaceCamp--6/$2.9 million/$9.7 million/74/42%/40--A group of teenagers attending the titular, NASA-run camp (Lea Thompson, Tate Donovan, Larry B. Scott, Kelly Preston, and 10-year-old Joaquin Phoenix, billed as Leaf Phoenix and making his film debut) manage to get themselves launched into space for real, and have to overcome their bickering and self-doubt to get back to Earth alive. Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt (also in Top Gun) co-star. This family-friendly sci-fi flick had been filmed the summer before (while Phoenix's brother River was co-starring in his own space-themed flop, Explorers), but became a hot potato when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lift-off a mere five months before the film's release. With poor reviews, this would have been unlikely to be a hit anyway (even with Thompson, who was coming off Back to the Future), but that tragedy ensured that the film would attract little in the way of audiences.
Director: Harry Winer
Invaders From Mars--7/$2.1 million/$4.9 million/107/38%/56--Another sci-fi flop, this low-budgeted remake of the low-budgeted 1953 film that was a Saturday afternoon staple on independent TV stations nationwide starred Hunter Carson as a pre-teen who witnesses an alien ship landing and soon realizes that nearly everyone in town, including his parents (Timothy Bottoms and Laraine Newman) are under the control of the invaders, with only the school's nurse (Karen Black, Carson's real-life mother) outside of their influence. Together, they have to convince the general at the local military base (James Karen) that the threat is real. Bud Cort, Louise Fletcher, and Jimmy Hunt, who played Carson's role in the original, co-star.
Director: Tobe Hooper
My Little Pony: The Movie--10/$0.4 million/$6 million/97/NA/NA--The latest in the mid-80s glut of feature-length animated toy commercials that forced parents to pay for their kids to watch them, this one at least featured an all-star voice cast well before animation producers begin to hire well-known actors on a regular basis. An evil witch (voiced by Cloris Leachman), determined to ruin the Ponies and their happiness, creates a sentient purple ooze (Jon Bauman) to cover the land, and it's up to the Ponies and their human friends to stop it. Other well-known actors in the cast include Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Madeline Kahn, and Tony Randall, with other voices provided by voice actors Charlie Adler, Russi Taylor, Nancy Cartwright, Peter Cullen, and Frank Welker. After the surprising success of The Care Bears Movie the year before, parents apparently had enough, as this one joined Rainbow Bright and the Star-Stealer, He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword, and The Care Bears Movie II in failing to crack $10 million.
Director: Michael Joens
Forty Years Ago--June 5, 1981:
New Wide Releases:
Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams--NA/NA/43%/54--Another year, another marijuana-themed hit for stoner comedians Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, who this time play pot dealers who get rich by selling a special strain, who have to pursue the mental patient (Paul Reubens) who stole their money, while being pursued by a cop (Stacy Keach) who has become a stoner himself thanks to their product. Sandra Bernhard, Tony Cox, Michael Winslow, Cheryl Smith, Linnea Quigley, and Timothy Leary as himself co-star. Reviews were mixed, but the film did well, making enough to finish in the year's Top 20 films.
Director: Tommy Chong
New Limited Releases:
The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia--$14.9 million/48/NA/54--Taking its title and pretty much nothing else from the 1972 song, this drama starred Kristie McNichol and Dennis Quaid as siblings who are trying to make their way to Nashville to break into the country music scene, but get waylaid in a small town after Quaid gets arrested for public drunkenness. Mark Hamill, as a state trooper who takes a shine to McNichol, and Barry Corbin co-star. Critics weren't particularly impressed by the melodrama, but thanks to the star power of Hamill and McNichol, it did decent business, particularly in smaller towns.
Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
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