'The Wretched': Will this be the first new film to hit UAE cinemas this summer?

The low-budget horror has been a runaway success

Kevin Bigley in 'The Wretched'

Drive-in cinemas are a thing again and some movie theatres have reopened in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, but one thing that's still lacking is new movies.

Films released earlier in the year and in 2019 such as Bloodshot, Bad Boys for Life, 1917, Joker and Parasite are all playing on repeat on the big screen.

So when will we start to see new releases again?

It looks like it won't be until the end of the month and even then, there is likely to be a drip-feeding of new movies rather than many new options every week. Most companies are clearly wanting to wait until cinemas are full again before distributing new work.

So what will be the first new film?

Both Vox and Roxy, two major UAE cinema chains, are listing low-budget horror film The Wretched as the first new release to hit cinemas since the pandemic shut screens down. The planned UAE release date is Thursday, June 25.

The Wretched is one of the few films to have potentially benefited from cinema closures, becoming a sleeper hit in drive-in cinemas across the United States after it was released widely there at the start of May (it premiered at festivals last year).

The movie follows a teenager who takes on a millennia-old witch, who is posing as his next-door neighbour.

Most film companies have decided to hold releases and wait until cinemas are back in action, but indie company IFC films decided to release The Wretched anyway, and let it fill the void.

Turns out, that was a smart move: the film has now made more than $1 million (Dh3.67 million) at the box office, with a huge portion of that via drive-in cinemas.

A low-budget movie like The Wretched would have been unlikely to get much screen time in normal circumstances. But, in a mark of how successful it has been, it has become one of just five films in more than 20 years to top the US box office for five weeks. The other four are Titanic, Avatar, The Sixth Sense and Black Panther.

The movie has been well received by critics as well, getting a 73 per cent approval rating from 86 critics on Rotten Tomatoes. However, perhaps they are a little starved of new releases and so happy to see anything, as the audience rating for the film on Rotten Tomatoes is only 48 per cent (from 149 reviews).

What movies will hit UAE screens in July? 'Tenet' and 'Mulan' are the big releases

The Wretched is the only new release set for June in the UAE: we will have to wait until July at least to see Christopher Nolan's much-awaited spy, sci-fi thriller Tenet (which is currently scheduled to hit UAE screens on Thursday, July 16).

Also being released in July is Niki Caro's delayed live-action Disney remake Mulan (Thursday, July 23) and crime novel adaptation The Postcard Killings (Thursday, July 9). Two 2019 movies will hit UAE screens in July, too: Dev Patel's The Personal History of David Copperfield (Thursday, July 16) and British-Indian period drama The Warrior Queen of Jhansi (Thursday, July 9).