Theatrical Release Pace Picks Up As Curtain Falls On CinemaCon & Dour First Quarter – Specialty Preview

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The pace is picking up with studio wide release A Minecraft Movie booming and plenty of indie fare to fill out behind from Neon’s Hell of a Summer and IFC Films’ The Luckiest Man in America to Fathom’s next installment of The Chosen and expansions of The Friend from Bleecker Street and Gkids’ re-release of Princess Mononoke.

CinemaCon, the biggest annual gathering of theater owners and studios, wrapped last night in Las Vegas. Exhibitors’ tempers were strained by a sour first quarter at the box office, and there was an explosion of talk around longer theatrical windows, which for sure will remain an ongoing conversation.

That said, Q1 is behind us so here’s to hoping for a sustained period of more movies — many highlighted in Vegas — and higher-grossing movies to lift all boats.

Neon opens Hell of a Summer on 1,255 screens after Thursday previews and early shows took in $215k. The overnight camp-slasher horror comedy by Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard follows Jason Hochberg (Fred Hechinger), a 24-year-old counselor who arrives at Camp Pineway thinking his biggest problem is that he feels out of touch with his teenage co-workers.