The 2019 summer box office is destined to end with a whimper.
There won’t be one new major Hollywood studio release over Labor Day weekend. Instead, Lionsgate and Millennium’s Angel Has Fallen is expected to top the chart in its second weekend with a projected $15 million, followed by fellow holdovers Good Boys and The Lion King.
New nationwide offerings include Don’t Let Go, the Storm Reid and David Oyelowo-starring supernatural thriller that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival as Relive. The indie film is projected to gross a muted $3 million, becoming the latest Sundance title to disappoint. Blumhouse Tilt, Universal’s OTL Releasing and Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff Entertainment are distributing the pic, which was directed by Jacob Aaron Estes.
The only other new movie daring to brave the final weekend of summer is the indie drama Bennett’s War, which may have trouble earning north of $1 million in its nationwide launch.
It’s no surprise that the major Hollywood studios are ignoring the Labor Day weekend, which is historically one of the slowest frames of the year in terms of box office traffic.
Yet not all is lost. Thanks to carryover titles, revenue from the upcoming Labor Day weekend should zoom past the paltry $96 million earned in combined ticket sales over the period last year.
To date, this summer’s revenue at the domestic box office is running 2 percent behind last year, while the year-to-date deficit is around 6 percent, according to Comscore.
