While Superman will quite easily remain at #1 heading into its second weekend in theaters, the DCU movie is set to face competition from new releases, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Smurfs.
All three movies will attract vastly different audiences, and Jurassic World Rebirth should continue to pose a problem for all of the above. Still, helping Superman is the largely negative critical reception to I Know What You Did Last Summer and Smurfs.
Despite glowing social media reactions, the horror reboot has arrived on Rotten Tomatoes with a "Rotten" 46% score. The reviews are all over the place; Deadline, for example, writes, "A vapid, utterly hollow husk of revival. And when it isn’t copy-pasting lines straight out of Hewitt’s mouth it resorts to an almost impressively high level of pandering to its Gen Z audience."
Nerdist countered that with, "I Know What You Did Last Summer carves up laughs, jump scares, and some eerie deaths, even if its third act goes off the rails." So, this could be a love/hate movie depending on how much you liked the original.
Smurfs has an abysmal 20% "Rotten" score, and in its review, IndieWire stated, "Somehow, in a movie about finding your niche, the Smurfs are more generic and indistinguishable than ever." Empire had nothing good to say, sharing, "It’s a tedious entry in a tedious series, with more than a whiff of corporate mandate about it."
It's a shame to see two big summer titles arrive with primarily negative reviews, so here's hoping The Fantastic Four: First Steps has more in common with Superman than these.
In I Know What You Did Last Summer, when five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. A year later, their past comes back to haunt them and they’re forced to confront a horrifying truth: someone knows what they did last summer...and is hell-bent on revenge.
As one by one the friends are stalked by a killer, they discover this has happened before, and they turn to two survivors of the massacre of 1997 for help. The movie stars Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Jennifer Love Hewitt.
In Smurfs, when Papa Smurf (John Goodman) is mysteriously taken by evil wizards, Razamel and Gargamel, Smurfette (Rihanna) leads the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him. With the help of new friends, the Smurfs must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe.
The all-star voice cast also includes James Corden, Nick Offerman, JP Karliak, Daniel Levy, Amy Sedaris, Natasha Lyonne, Sandra Oh, Jimmy Kimmel, Octavia Spencer, Nick Kroll, Hannah Waddingham, Alex Winter, Maya Erskine, Billie Lourd, Xolo Maridueña, Marshmello, and Kurt Russell.
What will you be watching in theaters this weekend?