July 2023 box office preview: ‘Mission Impossible 7,’ ‘Barbie,’ ‘Oppenheimer’ hope to blow up the summer

The summer movie season explodes this July with three hugely anticipated movies and several others hoping to make any sort of splash. Will “Mission Impossible 7,” “Barbie” or “Oppenheimer” become the next money-making behemoth? Read on for Gold Derby’s July 2023 box office preview.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” – July 12

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Tom Cruise returns to theaters after a much-deserved victory lap for “saving movie theaters” with last year’s mega-blockbuster hit, “Top Gun: Maverick.” That movie returned him to one of his biggest early roles from the ’80s, but “Mission Impossible” has been one of Cruise’s most reliable franchises in the time since he first played Ethan Hunt in 1996. The 2018 installment, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” also directed by Christopher McQuarrie, was well received, opening with $61 million and grossing $786.6 million worldwide, a franchise high. Opening on Wednesday may impact this chapter’s three-day opening weekend, but it should still be good for $60 to 70 million that weekend, before being taken down by the unstoppable force that is “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” the following week.

“Barbie” (Warner Bros.) – July 21

What might end up being the oddest hits of the summer is this long-awaited movie from filmmaker Greta Gerwig, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Mattel’s beloved dolls, Barbie and Ken. They are only two versions of those characters, as the movie also stars Simu Liu (“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”), Kingsley Ben-Adair (“One Night in Miami…”) and John Cena playing alternate Kens, and Kate McKinnon, Hari Nef (“The Idol”), Emma Mackey (“Emily”) and others playing Barbies. Helen Mirren narrates, and Will Ferrell plays the Mattel CEO. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie.

Some might presume this is a film that only will appeal to teen and older girls, women and gay men, but there’s a ton of buzz about it on social media, which has pushed interest more towards this being oddly four-quadrant. Even debuting against Christopher Nolan’s latest, “Barbie” should be good to open in the $75 to 80 million range, maybe even more if reviews are positive.

“Oppenheimer” (Universal) – July 21

Christopher Nolan’s last movie, “Tenet,” may have been sidelined by the COVID pandemic (or the fact that it was almost impossible to comprehend), but he’s switched studios for his latest, a biopic about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (as played by Nolan regular Cillian Murphy), who helped invent the atomic bomb. As with any Nolan movie, the cast is fairly stacked with the likes of Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Gary Oldman and many more. That cast is very likely to put the movie into the Oscar conversation just as much as helping to entice moviegoers into theaters. Seeing the movie in IMAX will be the preferred viewing experience, and the enhanced ticket prices will help the movie’s box office, though it’s not clear whether a movie about a scientist will have as much mainstream appeal as a Barbie movie. Probably not, and because of that, “Oppenheimer” is likely to open more in the $45 to 50 million range for second place that weekend.

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“Haunted Mansion” (Disney) – July 28

Director Justin Simien (“Dear White People”) helms this attempt by Disney to capitalize on one of its most popular theme park rides, nearly 20 years after the last attempt at the “Haunted Mansion” movie starring Eddie Murphy. That movie opened with $24.2 million and grossed just $155 million worldwide, though that also had Murphy, as opposed to this rag-tag cast which is made up of Owen Wilson, Oscar nominee Lakeith Stanfield (“Judas and the Black Messiah”), Rosario Dawson, recent Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, Tiffany Haddish, Danny De Vito, Jared Leto and more. The movie could potentially still be a draw by the nature of its title and its comedic sensibilities, allowing it to open somewhere north of $30 million, despite having to take on the second weekend of the “Barbie”/”Oppenheimer” juggernaut.

“Insidious: The Red Door” (Sony) – July 7

Actor Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut for the fifth installment of this horror franchise created by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, this one reuniting Wilson with Ty Simpkins and Rose Byrne from the earlier movies. The previous movie, “Insidious: The Last Key,” opened with just $29.6 million in January 2018, which was up from the third movie (directed by Whannell), but lower than the $40.3 million opening for the Wan-directed, “Insidious Chapter 2” in 2013. With long-running horror franchises, it’s often hard to determine how a fifth or later movie might do, but this one probably will open in the same $20 to 30 million range as the last two movies. Check next week’s weekend preview to see whether that projection sticks.

“Joy Ride” (Lionsgate) – July 7

Adele Lim helms this raunchy R-rated comedy, which could be seen as an Asian-American version of the 2017 comedy hit, “Girls Trip.” The movie stars Ashley Park (“Beef,” “Emily in Paris”) as Audrey, a successful lawyer who goes to China on a business trip, and is convinced by her friends, Kat (Stephanie Hsu from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Lolo (Sherry Cola from the upcoming “Shortcomings”), to seek out her birth mother. The movie is hilarious and appropriately R-rated, so it should get some serious word-of-mouth after opening with between $11 and 14 million. (More on this in next week’s weekend preview, as well.)

“Talk to Me” (A24) – July 28

Australian filmmaking brothers, Danny and Michael Philippou – best known for their outrageous “RackaRacka” YouTube channel (NSFW!) – make their directorial debut with this horrifying film that played well at Sundance in January. We’ll have to see if that buzz can carry over until this summer release, but it stars Sophie Wilde as a high school student who gets roped into playing a viral party game that involves bringing the dead back to life. Having a three-week buffer after “Insidious” should help this find an avid audience of horror lovers, even with a lesser-known and younger Australian cast. Expect an opening in the $8 to 10 million range, though word-of-mouth should be solid, ala A24’s “Hereditary.”

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“Sound of Freedom” (Angel Studios) – July 4

Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s hit “The Passion of the Christ,” returns to the faith-based realm with this very different historic thriller about a former government agent who takes on the dangerous mission of rescuing children from sex traffickers. It opens on July 4, and hopefully we’ll have more about it in next week’s weekend preview.

SEE Grab the popcorn and sound off in our movie forums

Although that doesn’t look like a ton of wide releases for July, there are quite a few limited releases of note. Here are a few of those movies to look out for.

“Biosphere” (IFC Films) – July 7

Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown star in Mel Eslyn’s two-handed indie sci-fi comedy, playing two friends, supposedly the last two men on earth, trapped in a biosphere together after a global catastrophe.

“Earth Mama” (A24) – July 7

Savanna Leaf’s coming-of-age drama is yet another Sundance fave, this one about a pregnant single mother who turns to her Bay Area community to insure her family’s survival.

“The Lesson” (Bleecker Street) – July 7

Alice Troughton’s thriller is about a young author (Daryl McCormack) who becomes a tutor at the estate of a legendary writer, played by Oscar nominee Richard E. Grant, his wife played by another Oscar nominee in Julie Delpy.

“Theater Camp” (Searchlight) – July 14

Another huge hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival is Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s comedy, which is exactly what the title implies, a cross between “Wet Hot American Summer” and the 2003 movie, “Camp,” with key roles played by Ben Platt (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and Ayo Edebiri from Hulu’s “The Bear.”

“Final Cut” (Kino Lorber) – July 14

Oscar-winning filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) returns with this French remake of the Japanese zombie horror-comedy “One Cut of the Dead,” this one starring Romain Duris as the director of a zombie movie infiltrated by actual zombies. Oscar nominee Bérénice Bejo (also from “The Artist”) plays his over-emoting actress wife.

“Afire” (Sideshow) – July 14

Acclaimed German filmmaker Christian Petzold (“Phoenix,” “Undine”) returns with a timely drama about three friends sharing a vacation house near the Baltic Sea that’s put in danger by a nearby forest fire.

“The League” (Magnolia) – July 14

Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard directs this brilliantly informative film about the history and evolution of the Negro baseball leagues, leading up to the likes of Jackie Robinson and others being integrated into the white baseball teams in the mid-40s.

“Black Ice” (Roadside Attractions) – July 14

That same weekend, Hubert Davis’ doc looks at the history of racism in hockey from the viewpoint of Black hockey players playing in a mostly white sport.

“Sympathy for the Devil” (RLJEfilms) – July 28

Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman star in Yuval Adler’s thriller about a high-stakes cat and mouse game as a man is forced at gunpoint to drive a mysterious passenger to an unknown locale.

“The Beasts” (Greenwich Entertainment) – July 28

The winner of nine Goyas (Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars), Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s true-crime noir thriller follows a French couple played by Denis Ménochet (“Inglorious Basterds”) and Marina Foïs (“Polisse”), as they settle down in a community of poor Spanish farmers who don’t trust their intentions as potential foreign interests.

That’s about it for July other than a bunch of prominent anniversary re-releases including D.A. Pennebaker’s iconic concert film, “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” (its 50th anniversary), and the 40th anniversary of “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

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