Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week.  Pixar has arrived to unseat Wonder Woman, but it’s Cars 3 so…yay?  OR you can see Mandy Moore and sharks or a seemingly random Scarlett Johansson movie.

Readers will know I have been looking forward to Cars 3 with all the enthusiasm of a tetanus shot.  I love Pixar.  If Pixar has something coming out, I’m usually there opening weekend, but this film CANNOT be necessary.  Reviews are spare and at 67% at time of writing on Rotten Tomatoes, so it might not be the jaw-dropping turd that Cars 2 was, but I get it.  Lightning is old.  He’s gotta race faster.  Young punks say he can’t, but YES HE CAN!  Someone see it and tell me there’s more to it than that and I won’t wait until Blu Ray.  In extremely weird counter programming releasing, you can also either see a comedy Scarlett Johannson was somehow paid enough to do or the week’s best reviewed film, 47 Meters Down, which involves Mandy Moore and sharks.  It’s a weird weekend, folks.

47 Meters Down (Mandy Moore, PG-13, 1hr 29m)

Cars 3 (Owen Wilson, G, 1hr 49min)

Rough Night (Scarlett Johansson, R, 1hr 41min)

HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT picked Wonder Woman to easily repeat, and the wildly popular super hero film skunked Tom Cruise and The Mummy domestically $58.6 million to $31.7 million.  The Mummy still was the best international opening of Tom Cruise’s career, and should be enough to give Universal’s Dark Universe at least one more shot, but at 16%, the film is the worst-reviewed film of the summer so far.  Wonder Woman, on the other hand, dropped a paltry 49% from its opening weekend, and has made $221 million in the United States.  It should pass Fast 8 and Logan to move into the #3 for 2017 domestically over the weekend.
(2017 Prediction Record: 20-4; Lifetime prediction record 58-9).

WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
In week three, even with its popularity still strong (and I think it will still finish a strong #2), the kiddie wave of Lightning McQueen ankle biters will knock Diana off the box office throne.  You know how Disney is.  If it goes more than three weeks without them winning the box office, cracks begin to appear in Cinderella’s castle.