Unlike last year’s super-sized summer with “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” generating a massive box-office resurgence, Hollywood’s Summer 2024 is most notable for its bleak start.
Now, midway to Labor Day and the season’s official end, one question looms: Could next week’s “Fly Me to the Moon” rom-com help save Hollywood’s summer?
This season was blighted from the start with last year’s lengthy actors’ and writers’ strikes. That means the number of releases are slimmer than usual.
Worse, several summer films were disappointing and/or disastrous. From Day One it became quickly apparent, moviegoers had specific ideas about what they would pay to see.
Most notably, the $100 million-plus action sequel “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” tanked despite laudatory reviews. As did another action film “The Fall Guy,” set behind-the-scenes and focused on a stuntman – played by “Barbie” star Ryan Gosling.
May’s hit list was topped by a movie with virtually no humans: “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.” This fourth edition of the rebooted franchise is also its lowest grossing film.
The family-oriented “IF” about a child’s Imaginary Friend starring Ryan Reynolds was another disappointment. “Apes” and the animated cat who stars in “The Garfield Movie” became May winners.
Really welcome was the resounding support for Will Smith’s comeback with the June release of the years-later sequel (and reunion with costar Martin Lawrence) “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the fourth entry in the franchise.
With its billion dollar global gross, easily summer’s brightest light is the family friendly Pixar Disney delight “Inside Out 2.” A real blockbuster and a real comeback for the animation studio.
Now comes “Fly Me to the Moon,” a classic rom-com teaming two veterans Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum who are aces at the kind of comical sparring that in movies like these must end in a cozy clinch.
“Moon” is set in Florida during the Sixties’ space race and tracks the up and down relationship between Tatum’s NASA director who is to supervise the first-ever landing of a man on the moon and Johansson’s marketing specialist.
She must, in a plot twist perfect for our paranoid, conspiracy addicted time, also stage a fake moon landing as backup in case something goes really wrong with the Apollo mission.
“Moon” can only hope to repeat last winter’s bright spot, another rom-com: “Anyone But You” which teamed two rising stars, Sydney Sweeney from TV hits “White Lotus” and “Euphoria” and the frequently shirtless Glen Powell of “Top Gun: Maverick.”
While “Anyone” opened softly, word of mouth and its emphasis on a sizzling sexual attraction between its stars saw it become a sleeper hit, with a $220 million global gross.
That kind of sizzle Hollywood’s current summer sorely needs.
“Fly Me to the Moon” is in theaters July 12
