After a slower July at the movies, it’s “DC League of Super-Pets” to the rescue.
It’s possible that the animated superhero comedy from Warner Bros. may not end the month with a bang, but at least it will manage to top the domestic box office charts. Over the weekend, “DC League of Super-Pets” is targeting $25 million to $30 million when it opens in 4,300 U.S. theaters, which should be enough to dethrone Jordan Peele’s “No” as the #1 film in the country. Peele’s UFO thriller, which opened last weekend to $41 million, is expected to drop roughly 60% with $15 million to $16 million in its sophomore outing.
Movies aimed at family audiences have been a mixed bag at the box office in the pandemic era, with Universal’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru” taking in $300 million domestic so far and “Paws of Fury” from Paramount with $14 million domestically. In terms of brand awareness, “DC League of Super-Pets” is among those films; it’s not a sequel to a mega-popular franchise like “Minions,” but it’s rooted in DC lore, so it’s not entirely new to audiences. The film cost $90 million to produce, so it will need to resonate with young kids (and comic book fans) to be profitable.
Directed by Jared Stern, “DC League of Super-Pets” features the voices of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Kate McKinnon as the four-legged friends of the members of the Justice League. The film has garnered positive reviews, with Owen Gleiberman of Variety writing “The plot is… a plot. Busy and frantic and contrived. But there are enough wildcard moments along the way, like those involving a kitten with baby voice coughing up hairball grenades.”
In far fewer theaters, Focus Features is releasing “Vengeance,” a true-crime dark comedy from “The Office” alum BJ Novak. Since the R-rated film is playing in fewer than 1,000 locations, it’s aiming for a low-single digits (around $2 million) in its box office debut.
Novak, who also wrote the screenplay, portrays a reporter and podcaster from New York City who travels to Texas to investigate the death of a girl he was only casually dating. Boyd Holbrook, Dove Cameron, Issa Rae and Ashton Kutcher round out the cast.
Reviews of “Revenge” have been mostly complimentary, with critics praising the fish-out-of-water humor. Gleiberman called the film a “fantastic directorial debut,” adding “‘Vengeance’ is an irresistible original: an intoxicating, joyous and witty story that’s grounded enough in the real world to bring you there”.