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.  Can The Mummy surprise and delight as Wonder Woman did last week?  It doesn’t look like it.

The “shared universe” concept is something that’s being copied as Hollywood copies everything that works in the wake of the Marvel Cinematic Universe becoming the most financially successful franchise in the history of cinema.  Of all the ideas outside of comic book universes, the one that has been most intriguing to me is Universal Dark: a shared universe that puts together all the classic Universal monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, etc. into a shared world.  Unfortunately, the first entry in this experiment, The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe which had looked very promising, is getting slammed by reviews (22% on Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing).  By contrast, two smaller films are getting very good reviews: the horror film It Comes at Night and Kate Mara’s war drama Megan Leavey.  With Cars 3, Transformers 5, and Despicable Me 3 the next three weeks of openers, I’m ambivalent toward running to the theater until Spider-Man: Homecoming opens in four weeks.

It Comes at Night (Joel Edgerton, PG, 1hr 31m)

Megan Leavey (Kate Mara, Bradley Whitford, PG-13, 1hr 54min)

The Mummy (Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, PG-13, 2hr 0min)

 

HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT picked Wonder Woman to win the weekend, and win it did.  The critically-acclaimed film opened domestically with $103.3 million, far outdistancing #2 Captain Underpants, which made $23.9.  Wonder Woman was the largest opening for any female directed film in history, and is the third best-reviewed super hero movie in Rotten Tomatoes history.  Two weeks ago, Wonder Woman was tracking at $65 million and nearly doubled that.
(2017 Prediction Record: 19-4; Lifetime prediction record 57-9).

WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
With the negative reviews for The Mummy, coupled with hugely positive word-of-mouth for Wonder Woman, I think the DCEU is going to trump the debut of Universal Dark.  I would look for a lower drop-off than normal (much lower) for a blockbuster in its second week with Wonder Woman, and The Mummy isn’t going to be able to overcome the $50 million or so I expect WW to gross in its second week as Queen of the Box Office.