June is upon us and with it comes three new wide releases looking to make a name for themselves after the disappointing returns across the board over this past Memorial Day weekend. Paramount will debut yet another sequel in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows as they try to build momentum on their successful 2014 reboot of everyone’s favourite amniote action heroes. Warner Bros. offers up Me Before You and will attempt to snag movie goers looking for a change with its romantic dramedy while Universal will try the R-Rated comedic genre for the second time in two weeks with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

PROS:

2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles surprised many with its very strong $65 million opening in late summer despite lukewarm reviews at best, the sequel will look to build on that momentum.

The franchise it is based on reached huge levels of popularity in the 90s thanks to their three feature films, TV shows and merchandising. Those same kids who were enamoured with the characters now have families of their own which greatly expands it demographic potential.

CONS:

Social media has been very muted for the release, coming in at less than half the Twitter buzz over the last week than its predecessor. With Twitter numbers in general increasing across the board this all but assures it will open well below 2014’s offering.

Sequelitis is possibly in effect with the last month having five sequels being released (including this one), all with significant overlap in target audiences.

The first sequel in the original film franchise opened to 20% less than the original and grossed less than 60% of its overall number.

Reviews have been largely unfavourable with its mark of 17% (and falling) on Rotten Tomatoes being even worse than the 22% 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles achieved.

Me Before You

PROS:

The female demographic has been under-served of late at the box office with nothing falling squarely in their wheelhouse since Mother’s Day at the end of April.

Social media has been abuzz about the film for much of the year. It has more likes than Mother’s Day and The Boss combined and its Twitter numbers have been by far the most on the year so far for female skewing offerings.

With Game Of Thrones going great guns on HBO at the moment in its 6th season with Emilia Clarke’s character Daenerys Targaryen featuring prominently it can only help the film’s appeal.

CONS:

Though Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin are recognizable stars thanks to past roles they are hardly bona fide box office draws in their own right.

The younger female demographic boost social media numbers significantly as one of its most prominent and prolific users which could lead to a much high ratio of tweets/likes to box office (basically inflating the social media numbers).

Last Summer’s Paper Towns had a lot of similar markers, great online buzz, no starpower to speak of and a marketplace seemingly ready for it but only opened to $12 million.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

PROS:

Reviews have been surprisingly strong, having above 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment.

The film should play well with Saturday Night Live (SNL) fans thanks to alum Andy Samberg and much of its cast being involved in some capacity in front and behind the scenes of SNL (Samberg and his two costars make up The Lonely Island, a comedy trio with some serious SNL credentials).

As a mockumentary, the film tries hard to not take itself seriously which is perhaps one of its biggest selling points sandwiched between the summer big action blockbusters.

CONS:

Buzz is very muted for the film, with less than 150,000 likes on Facebook, and on Twitter it possesses one of the lowest tweet numbers of any feature release on the year coupled with largely negative sentiment.

Samberg is not a bankable star with neither of his last two non-animated roles reaching $4 million in domestic box office.

SNL films have not performed well in recent years with both The Ladies Man and MacGruber failing to find success. To further the link, the latter was also directed by Jorma Taccone who is one of the co-directors here for Popstar.

Top 10 Forecast

Boxoffice forecasts this weekend’s top ten films will generate around $115.4 million over the weekend. That would mark a 6 percent drop from last year’s $122.8 million when Spy led the box office with a $29.1 million start*

*Edited to correct chart errors (Omission of Jungle Book and X-Men: Apocalypse domestic total error)

Check out our complete weekend forecast below.

Title Distributor Weekend Domestic Total through

Sunday, June 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Paramount $27,000,000 $27,000,000 X-Men: Apocalypse Fox $21,700,000 $116,850,000 Me Before You Warner Bros. $18,500,000 $18,500,000 Alice Through The Looking Glass Disney $13,250,000 $53,200,000 The Angry Birds Movie Sony / Columbia $10,000,000 $87,100,000 Captain America: Civil War Disney $7,500,000 $388,500,000 Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Universal $5,500,000 $5,500,000 Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising Universal $4,200,000 $48,100,000 The Jungle Book (2016) Disney $4,000,000 $347,100,000 The Nice Guys Warner Bros. $3,750,000 $29,300,000

Shawn Robbins, Jesse Rifkin and Alex Edghill contributed to this report.