Summertime sadness? Not at movie theaters

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Saturday, Aug. 31. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

• The summer box office provides a glimmer of hope for the film industry.
• An even more contagious COVID strain is “just getting started” amid California wave.
• A controversial Trump biopic will hit theaters before election day.
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

What does the summer box office mean for the future of Hollywood?

Labor Day weekend marks the end of a magical time of the year for pop culture — the summer movie season. And the last couple of months have provided a glimmer of hope for Hollywood, which has struggled as audiences have grown more accustomed to TV streaming devices since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bright spot? This summer’s gross box office receipts are projected to total about $3.6 billion through the Labor Day weekend, my colleagues Samantha Masunaga and Christi Carras report.

That’s down from last year’s “Barbenheimer” summer, which raked in $4 billion. But it’s still higher than summer totals in 2022, 2021 and 2020.

“I don’t like to spike the ball on the five-yard line, but I think we’re in the right direction,” said Rich Gelfond, chief executive of Imax Corp., the giant-screen technology company that operates out of Playa Vista. “We’re certainly on the road back.”

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, left, and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

(Jay Maidment / 20th Century Studios)

Animated movies and superheroes helped rescue the day

The summer box office initially looked bleak for theater owners and studio executives who weathered a disappointing winter and spring of limited and underperforming films. A sense of panic gripped the industry when Memorial Day weekend had its worst box office in almost three decades.

But people returned to theaters in larger numbers in June, a rebound charged in part by “Inside Out 2,” which became the top movie of the summer and the highest-grossing animated title of all time.

The success of the Pixar sequel, along with “Despicable Me 4,” surprised some industry observers. Animation was “one of the slowest genres to recover from the pandemic due to families’ wariness to return to theaters and the ease of watching movies on streaming platforms,” Samantha and Christi report.

Then came the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which amassed $1 billion in global revenue and became the second-highest grossing film of the summer.

A sense of optimism for an industry in turmoil

The success at the summer box office comes as the nation’s entertainment industry faces a brutal slump. As my colleague Christi has previously reported, Hollywood has suffered a major decline in film and TV shoots for nearly two years, resulting in mass unemployment and a mental health crisis among entertainment workers.

The summer box office has been welcome news in an otherwise dismal year. And a much-anticipated fall and winter slate of films — including “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Wicked” and “Moana 2” — has industry insiders sounding more upbeat for the end of the year and beyond.

“If we can carry this same momentum that we have this summer currently into the fall and then into the beginning of 2025, I think exhibition will be very pleased,” said Jim Orr, president of theatrical distribution at Universal Pictures. “We can truly say we’re back.”

The week’s biggest stories

Pharmacist Deep Patel, left, prepares flu and COVID-19 vaccines for Brandon Guerrero, 34, of Compton, at CVS in Huntington Park on Wednesday.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

An even more contagious COVID strain is ‘just getting started’ amid California wave

• Doctors and scientists are keeping an eye on yet another coronavirus subvariant — XEC — that could surpass the latest hyperinfectious strain, KP.3.1.1, now thought to be the most common nationwide.
• New COVID vaccines that just came out before the Labor Day weekend could still provide some good protection against XEC, said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente Southern California.

California’s ban on cellphones in schools, explained

• State lawmakers passed a milestone law requiring schools to create plans to restrict or ban student cellphone use on campus, aiming to squelch classroom distractions and harmful social media use.
• Schools throughout Los Angeles already have bans and restrictions but find it’s tough to enforce. Some students, for example, get around the rules by bringing multiple phones to school.

Stories from around the world

• A crippled oil tanker in the Red Sea raised fears of an environmental catastrophe.
• Germany’s far right is predicted to make its biggest gains since the Nazi era in key state elections.
• Are Mexican drug cartels as powerful as people think?

More big stories

• Federal prosecutors say former L.A. County sheriff’s employees helped a woman in China extort her former business partner for $100 million in disputed shares.
• California regulators said the Chiquita Canyon Landfill has made “no meaningful improvement” in reducing noxious odors.
• A suspect is accused of killing a Redlands couple who went missing from a nudist ranch.
• Will a Vietnamese American candidate help Democrats win a congressional seat in Little Saigon?
• Here’s a look at how an L.A. County city is trying to eradicate potholes.

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Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and longform journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

‘I don’t want him to go’: An autistic teen and his family face stark choices. An autistic child. The struggle for services. The 911 calls. This is the harrowing story of how one mom scrambled to get help for her son and keep her head above water.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Jeremy Strong, left, and Sebastian Stan in the movie “The Apprentice.”

(Festival de Cannes)

Going out

• 🍹 Looking for a good rooftop restaurant or bar to visit this holiday weekend in L.A.? Here are 52 places worth checking out.
• 🎞️ “The Apprentice,” a controversial biopic of former President Trump, will hit theaters on Oct. 11.
• ☕ Here’s how NFL Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez enjoys Sundays in L.A.
• 🎥 “Reagan,” a worshipful biopic of the 40th president, is historical hooey, writes critic Robert Abele.

Staying in

• 📚 Turning to essays, Edwidge Danticat makes shrewd use of the form.
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for shrimp, mushrooms and zucchini with poblano labneh sauce and corn salad.
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

(Times staff and wire photos)

SoCal restaurant chain Koo Koo Roo, which plans to relaunch next year after shuttering in 2014, was known for which food item? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team.

Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor

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