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Ten Summer 2014 Movie Releases Still Remaining that Prove The Studios Have Already Given Up This Year

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | June 19, 2014 |

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | June 19, 2014 |


We’re not even two months yet into the long summer blockbuster season, and with a few big exceptions (Transformers: Age of Extinction, Dawn of the Planet of the Rise of the Ape Downfall, Tammy, Guardians of the Galaxy), the rest of the summer seems almost bereft of potential hits. Apparently, after July 11th, the studios just decided, “F*ck it. Transformers, Apes, and Guardians of the Galaxy can have all your money. We are done.”

Here are ten wide releases coming out this summer that I — a movie blogger — barely know anything about, and have even less interest in seeing.

Get on Up — It’s a James Brown biopic, which is cool I guess, except it’s one of those sanitized, “He-Broke-All-the-Rules” Disney versions with Chadwick Boseman in the lead. Boseman was great as Jackie Robinson in 42 but that, too, was something of a Disney sanitized version of reality.

Box-Office Prediction: $52 million

The Hundred-Foot Journey — The Helen Mirren movie could carve out a niche similar to the one she carved out with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel a few years ago, and the premise certainly seems like it’s trying. Where Marigold Hotel saw Europeans going to find themselves in India, The Hundred-Foot Journey sees an Indian family moving to France to open an Indian restaurant across from a French one (run by Mirren). My guess? The Europeans will once again be the ones to learn the valuable lesson.

Box-Office Prediction: $35 million (domestic; $100 million internationally)

Step Up: All In — Jesus Christ, another one? I’ve seen them all now, and I barely remember a thing about any of them, except that Channing Tatum used to be part of this franchise. The star of the second Step Up movie, Briana Evigan, returns for this one, which I believe is the eleventy-billionth installment.

Box-Office Prediction: $32 million

And So It Goes — I will always love Rob Reiner for The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, and This is Spinal Tap …, but he also hasn’t made a decent film since 1995’s The American President. Likewise, Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton have unfortunately settled into a counterprogramming for blue-hairs niche, and I suspect that And So It Goes will fare about as well as their last two films, Last Vegas and The Big Wedding.

Box-Office Prediction: $28 million

The Fluffy Movie — A concert movie about Gabriel Iglesias, and based on the teaser trailer, I’m guessing it’s very broad comedy meant for the Vegas crowd. I mean, it’s called “The Fluffy Movie.”

Box-Office Prediction: $33 million

Planes: Fire & Rescue — Oh, f*ck off, Pixar. Yes, I know it’s technically a sequel to a Disney spin-off of Pixar’s Cars, but this is exactly the kind of thing we were afraid of when Disney and Pixar merged. Planes, which was originally designed to go straight-to-DVD, was deplorable, and this one doesn’t look any better, but it’s the kind of dumb movie that parents with kids will have to suffer through anyway. They will rob us of our money, and give us nothing but tedium in return.

Box-Office Prediction: $110 million (unfortunately)

Deliver Us from Evil — Scott Derrickson is a pretty good horror-movie director, Last Man on Earth notwithstanding, which is why he’s been tapped to direct Marvel’s Doctor Strange. it’s also possible that Deliver Us From Evil is a break-out horror movie hit like last summer’s The Conjuring, but it actually looks like it’s trying too hard to be The Conjuring. With only two weeks until its release, and minimal buzz, I doubt it will replicate that success.

Box-Office Prediction: $60 million

As Above, So Below — Another horror-movie entry, this one from John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine, the better than you thought it would be Devil), but this one looks like a bad copy of Descent set in catacombs instead of a cave. Come on, man: You’re not even trying to be original.

Box-Office Prediction: $45 million

Jersey Boys — Despite having Clint Eastwood behind the director’s chair, and Christopher Walken in front of the camera, the movie about the rise of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons looks interesting to only about 27 people, all of whom will end up seeing it when it comes out on Redbox. Also, shaven Vincent Piazza looks way too much like Joe from New Kids on the Block.

Box-Office Prediction — $27 million

The Loft — A late August release, The Loft — with James Marsden, Karl Urban, Rhona Mitra, Eric Stonestreet and Isabel Lucas — was originally supposed to be released in 2012. It’s been sitting on the shelves collecting dust, and I suspect once its release into theaters, it will continue to collect dust. The trailer below was originally released in 2012. It looks terrible.

Box-office Prediction: $6 million