THE WEEKEND WARRIOR June 27, 2025
F1: THE MOVIE, M3GAN 2.0, SORRY, BABY, NOBU, HOT MILK, PONYBOI
Welp, for better or worse, June is ending, and we’re officially into summer, and it’s gotten really hot and humid out, so maybe that will help give a much-needed boost to the box office going into what is going to be a very busy July. The heat certainly didn’t help much this past weekend.
This weekend, we get Brad Pitt taking on (some might say “racing against,” but I won’t) the sequel to a huge 2023 horror hit. The two movies are likely to be targeting different audiences, so we’ll see how many of them turn out and how it affects any of the other non-family films in theaters. Both of the new movies are PG-13, which should be helpful to bring in a wide range of audiences, including teens and college-age kids who are done with school for the summer.
Oh, and I’m working the polls on Election Day Tuesday, so the fact that I’m able to crank out a column at all this week should be considered a massive achievement for me, so you’re welcome :) (Actually, I’ve decided to just run the column as it is, because I have too much other life stuff going on right now that takes precedence to this column.)
F1 THE MOVIE (Apple Studios/Warner Bros.)
Brad Pitt is back, and I legitimately had to go back to see that this was indeed Brad Pitt’s first theatrical release since Babylon in 2022. His last movie Wolfs, which reteamed him with George Clooney, went straight to Apple TV+ last year for some odd reason, but Apple is feeling better about this movie, directed by Joseph Kosinski of Top Gun: Maverick and Tron Legacy, getting a full national theatrical release.
Damien Chazelle’s Babylon bombed (no fault of Pitt’s) but mostly, Pitt has a strong history at the box office with 2013’s World War Z being a great example of him being a summer box office draw. That movie opened with $66 million in June 2013 and ended up grossing $202 million domestic and $531 million worldwide. That movie was based on a popular series of novels, but F1 The Movie is based on one of the most popular racing sports across the world with racing also being quite popular in the South and some of the flyover states, where F1 could do very well, particularly among older men.
Pitt is joined by Oscar nominee Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin), Oscar-winner Javier Bardem (Skyfall), and newcomer Damson Idris, all who do great work, but really, it will be about Pitt (who can draw more women than a racing movie might normally) and his teaming with Kosinski after the director had such huge success with Top Gun: Maverick.
So far, reviews are at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty darn good for a movie that could have been divisive, and those reviews will certainly help change some minds about whether to go see it in theaters this weeked.
This is likely to be Apple Studios’ biggest and widest release of all time, so it’s a good thing they’ve teamed with Warner Bros. for this one, who got it into over 3,800 theaters across the country. That’s the power of Brad Pitt for you, and it will likely pay off with an opening over $50 million for an easy #1 this weekend.
M3GAN 2.0 (Universal)
And if there could be better counter-programming for a macho racing movie, other than maybe a family film, I couldn’t think what that might be, because even though there’s already been some successful horror sequels this summer, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for one more.
Produced by Blumhouse and James Wan, the original high-concept M3gan opened in the States the first weekend of 2023 and had a fantastic $30.4 million opening, becoming a bit of an internet sensation. It ultimately led to $95.1 million domestic and another $86.6 million overseas for $181.8 million worldwide, hugely profitable for a $12 million budget.
Obviously, a sequel was going to happen, and the sequel seems very different, almost like an action movie compared to the horror of the first movie. This time, M3gan faces another killer robot, so it’s very much like Aliens compared to Alien, and honestly, I’m not sure why it wasn’t just called M3gans. The trailers have not been received that well, and though this is likely to appeal to teen and older women, it’s going to fail to get much very much oa male audience against F1. Probably the best comparison would be the 2022 horror movie, Smile, and its 2024 sequel, which opened with $22.6 million and $23 million respectively, but the original Smile ended up making way more both domestically ($105.9 million) and worldwide ($217 million), compared to the sequel. Still, with a $28 million production budget for Smile 2, that was still profitable, and M3gan cost just $12 million, so one presumes there’ll be more money invested into the sequel, for better or worse.
There aren’t a ton of other comparisons worth mentioning, unless we want to go back to the “Saw” or “Insidious” movies,but I’m not sure either of those created quite the social media phenomenon that M3gan did. Even so, the internet tends to move on, and one has to wonder whether two years later, anyone cares about the character/concept nearly as much.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch this before release day, so no review, but I do hope to catch it maybe early next week and will post my thoughts on Letterboxd. Reviews for the first movie were incredible, and it’s hard to imagine that the sequel will receive similar reviews, since so many critics are probably already cynical about them making this sequel. In fact, the reviews are mixed at best, at the time of this writing.
It’s hard to tell how reaction among the real M3gan fans are vs. the far more vocal complainers, mostly male, who probably had no interest in a sequel anyway. Maybe there just isn’t as much interest in this sequel as there was for Smile 2, and because of that, I can’t imagine M3gan 2.0 making more than $25 million this weekend, even if it could get enough walk-up business based on the title to do slightly better than expected.
THE BOX OFFICE CHART
1. F1: The Movie (Apple/Warner Bros.) - $52.3 million N/A
2. M3gan 2.0 (Universal) - $22.1 million N/A
3. How to Train Your Dragon (Universal) - $20 million -53%
4. 28 Years Later (Sony) - $13.5 million -55%
5. Elio (Disney/Pixar) - $11.5 million -45%
6. Lilo & Stitch (Disney) - $6.3 million -35%
7. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (Paramount) - $3.4 million -47%
8. Materialists (A24) - $3 million -48%
9. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina (Lionsgate) - $2.2 million -51%
10. Karate Kid: Legends (Sony) - $1.2 million -50%
SORRY, BABY (A24)
Eva Victor makes her directorial debut with this dramedy that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and received almost unanimous rave reviews… except from me. I had a lot of problems with it, but I would have given it another shot to see if maybe I was wrong, but just didn’t have time for a rewatch. Essentially, Eva Victor plays a woman dealing with trauma… just what the box office needs right now. Victor’s movie will open in New York and L.A. on Friday, so clearly, distributor A24 doesn’t feel as bullish about this as they do some of their other recent films. Maybe I’ll try to see it again once it goes wide enough for me to be able to use my Regal Unlimited to see it at a theater near me.
NOBU (Vertical)
Another movie that premiered at Tribeca a few weeks back (actually, it debuted at Telluride last year) is Matt Tyrnauer’s doc about legendary Japanese celebrity chef and restauranteur Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, whose empire includes restaurants and hotels across the globe. Tyrnauer has made a number of terrific docs, including Where’s My Roy Cohn?, and there were definitely aspects to this one that I found interesting, such as when one of Nobu’s closest friends commits suicide, but other than that, it just seemed like a movie that lavishes praise on a guy who mainly caters to wealthy celebrities, and that’s a tough sell to someone who can barely afford to eat right now.
HOT MILK (IFC Films)
Fiona Shaw, Emma Mackey, and Vicky Krieps star in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s adaptation of the book by Deborah Levy, which will get a limited release on Friday. Shaw plays Rose, who travels to the seaside town of Almeria with her daughter Sofia (Mackey) to consult a healer (Vincent Perez) about her mysterious illness who has put her in a wheelchair. Sofia, who has been spending most of her time dealing with her mother’s illness becomes drawn to the charm of Krieps’ Ingrid. Another movie that sounds interesting, and I wish I had time to watch it.
PONYBOI (Fox Entertainment Studios/Gathr)
River Gallo wrote and stars in this drama, directed by Esteban Arango, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, co-starring Dylan O’Brien and Murray Bartlett from “The White Lotus.” Gallo stars as a young intersex sex worker named Ponyboi, who goes on the lam from the mob after a drug deal goes wrong.O’Brien plays a pimp (really?) and Bartlett is Ponyboi’s cowboy love interest. Sounds like a perfect way to end Pride Month, and I need to make some time to watch this.
INSIDE (Quiver Distribution)
Fresh from its Tribeca Film Festival debut is Charlie Williams’ Australian prison-set drama, which actually opened theatrically last Friday but is now on VOD. It stars Vincent Miller as young Mel, who has graduated from juvenile detention to adult prison where he’s taken under the wing of Cosmo Jarvis’ Mark Shepard and Guy Pearce’s Warren, who is soon to be paroled. Although this movie has the most unoriginal and overused title for a movie EVER, it was pretty decent for its performances, but I also have seen far better prison movies like Starred Up and Ric Roman Waugh’s Felon and Shot Caller.
Other movies out this week…
ICE ROAD: VENGEANCE (Vertical) (I really want to see this!!!)
THE SOUND (Blue Harbor Entertainment)
THE G (Dark Sky Films)
OFF THE GRID (Lionsgate)
REPERTORY (Lite Edition)
Due to multiple time constraints this week, I’ll only be sharing a couple of the downtown repertory theaters and then links for the rest.
We have one more week of the older series before Metrograph launches its new series for July and August, and from what I’ve seen, there’s going to be some great stuff ahead!
“Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us” will wrap up this weekend with a ton of great films from the Japanese master, including Mother, Scattered Clouds, Summer Clouds, Daughters Wives and a Mother, and many more.
This weekend, “Mumblecore, What Are We Even Saying?” wraps up with the late, great Lynn Shelton’s breakout feature Humpday, starring Mark Duplas and Josh Leonard, and Kentucker Audley’s Team Picture (2007), which I’ve never heard of.
“Shanghai Dreams” continues with screenings of Tsui Hark’s great Shanghai Blues (1984), with the last screenings on Thursday night; as well as Josef von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express (1932), starring Marlene Dietrich; Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage (1991), starring Maggie Cheung; and Zhang Yimou’s SHanghai Triad (1995) on Monday and then again on Wednesday.
“The Show Must Go On” offers a ton of stuff this weekend, including The Pirate, Francois Ozon’s 8 Women (a bit like Knives Out if it was a musical), Death Becomes Her, Phantom of the Paradise, and Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom. What a great series!
“Volver A Carmen” is also winding down with Almodovar’s Volver on Friday, Sunday, and next Tuesday, more screenings of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and one last screening of Almodovar’s crazy debut, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom from 1980 on Saturday night.
“Guided by Animals” wraps up on Monday with one final screening of Miyaki’s Princess Mononoke (1997), while Mahjong and WongKar-wai’s Happy Together will both screen into next week as part of “Scenes from the ‘End of History’.”
The new 4k restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) will continue to run through July 3, and Masayuki Suo’s Shall We Dance? Will also continue through that date. Sunday’s “Film Forum Jr.” is a Stan & Ollie collection of silent shorts with piano accompaniment.
You can see what else is playing elsewhere at the links below…
NITEHAWK CINEMA PROSPECT PARK & WILLIAMSBURG
BAM (BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC)
Next week, it’s Jurassic World Rebirth, and I’ll do my best to get this column back on track, but there’s a lot going on in my life right now that’s more important than movies. I still hope to have a review and an inteview with Gareth Edwards over at Cinema Daily US if nothing else.
"M3gans" would've been perfect! Good call, Ed.