With Memorial Day weekend in the rearview mirror, we’re fully into the summer movie season with June being the month when schools start letting out across the country. And yet, the month ahead only offers four movies getting significantly wide releases, and like with May, there’s a pretty big divide between two or three of them and the others, allowing a few opportunities for indies to break out. Read on for Gold Derby’s June 2022 box office preview.

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“Jurassic World: Dominion” (Universal) – June 10

The big movie of the month and the only movie that might outdo the summer’s two Marvel movies is the finale of the second trilogy in a franchise that began all the way back in 1993 when Steven Spielberg adapted Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park.” Just 18 years after Spielberg defined the term “blockbuster” with “Jaws” and 11 years after the equally successful “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” he made yet another defining summer must-see movie.

Colin Trevorrow took over the directorial reins for the “Jurassic World” revival in 2015, which introduced characters played by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, both of whom return for the sixth movie, again directed by Trevorrow.

Both “Jurassic World” and its 2018 sequel “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide, but there was a pretty big drop in terms of domestic opening between the former and latter. A pretty major selling point for “Dominion,” besides concluding the story, is that it brings back three of the most popular characters/actors from the early movies in the franchise: Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler and Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm.

Going by the previous two movies, “Dominion” seems good for a minimum opening of $150 million, but it’s probably going to be closer to $175 million, which means it will be giving “Doctor Strange” a run for the top opening of 2022.

Either way, expect “Jurassic World: Dominion” to be the biggest movie of the month, although it has some big-time second week competition from…

“Lightyear” (Disney/Pixar) – June 17

The first Pixar Animation movie to be released only in theaters in more than two years is this prequel (of sorts) to the “Toy Story” movies with Chris Evans voicing astronaut Buzz Lightyear, a science fiction hero who would be turned into an action figure… like Andy’s toy in the “Toy Story” movies (as voiced by Tim Allen).

Pixar’s return to theaters has been a long time coming, and in the “before times” a June Pixar release could range from the $60 million opening for “Cars” in June 2006 to the $182 million opening for “The Incredibles 2” in 2018. We should also look at the success of “Toy Story 3” and “Toy Story 4” in 2010 and 2019, respectively – both opened over $110 million – although “Lightyear” isn’t a sequel with the beloved characters as much as a new take on just one of the characters.

More importantly, this is the first family film in well over a month, and that’s going to give “Lightyear” a distinct advantage to make $80 million or more opening weekend, although we’ll have to see if it crosses the $400 million made by those previous two “Toy Story” movies.

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“Elvis” (Warner Bros.) – June 24

Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann is back making movies with his first feature since 2013’s “The Great Gatsby.” For “Elvis,” he has ventured into the world of biopics with a movie about the world’s very first rock ‘n’ roll idol, Elvis Presley. Austin Butler, formally of Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana” series, plays Elvis over the course of his career, while Tom Hanks plays Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’ Dutch-born manager. Reviews just came out of the Cannes Film Festival last week, and they were mixed positive at best, which is a little disconcerting. Fortunately, there are a lot of Elvis fans in America who don’t necessarily know what a “Cannes” is, and the combination of Luhrmann, Elvis and Hanks should give “Elvis” an opening in the $40 to $50 million range, similar to “Gatsby.”

“The Black Phone” (Universal) – June 24

The latest Blumhouse horror movie reunites director Scott Derrickson (“Doctor Strange”) with his “Sinister” star, Ethan Hawke, for a horror film that’s been playing at a number of film festivals going back to Fantastic Fest last September. Hawke plays the antagonist this time, a child murderer known as “The Grabber,” whose latest victim is a 13-year-old boy who starts to receive mysterious calls from a phone within his cell. Horror films have done fairly well in the summer, most notably James Wan’s “Conjuring” movies and various spin-offs, and “The Black Phone” could make upwards of $15 to 20 million by offering something different from the other major June releases.

While this column has mostly been focusing on theatrical releases, it’s such a quiet month that I’m going to throw in a few higher-profile streaming releases as well. But first, we have two movies hitting about 500 or so theaters this Friday.

“Crimes of the Future” (NEON) – June 3

David Cronenberg’s first feature film in eight years stars Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux as futuristic performance artists working in a medium of physical surgery in a world where pain and infection no longer exist. This is Mortensen’s fifth movie with Cronenberg, and it has the added benefit of Kristen Stewart as a woman intrigued by the work of his character but who also has a thing for him.

“Watcher” (IFC Midnight) – June 3

Opening the same weekend as the new Cronenberg, “Watcher” is the directorial debut thriller by Chloe Okuno, starring Maika Monroe (“It Follows”) as a young woman who has moved to Romania with her husband (Karl Glusman) and thinks she’s being watched and/or followed by the creepy man across the street, as played by Burn Gorman.

“Hustle” (Netflix) – June 3

Adam Sandler stars in this new sports dramedy from Jeremiah Zagar (“We the Animals”), playing a washed-up basketball scout who discovers an amazing street ball player while in Spain and sees the potential for him to succeed in the NBA. It will get a small theatrical release before hitting Netflix on June 8.

“Eiffel” (Blue Fox) – June 3

This French historic drama from director Martin Bourboulon stars Romain Duris as Gustave Eiffel who is being pressured by the French government to design something for the 1889 Paris World Fair, but it’s his encounter with a woman (Emma Mackey) that inspires his greatest achievement.

“Fire Island” (Hulu) – June 3

Television actor and producer Joel Kim Booster wrote and stars in this hilarious and poignant rom-com about a group of gay friends who gather on Fire Island each year to party and hook up, but his character Noah’s only concern is to help his best friend Howie (Bowen Yang from “Saturday Night Live”) get laid. This will be streaming on Hulu this Friday.

“The Phantom of the Open” (Sony Pictures Classics) – June 3

Oscar winner Mark Rylance stars in this true story about Maurice Flitcroft, a British dockworker who decides to enter himself in the British Open, despite having never played golf before recently. Directed by Craig Roberts (“Submarine”), the movie co-stars Sally Hawkins as his wife, Jean.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” (Apple) – June 17

One of the biggest sales out of this year’s Sundance was for Cooper Raiff’s sophomore feature, in which he plays Andrew, a hapless Bar Mitzvah party host who strikes up a friendship with a single mother (Dakota Johnson) and her autistic daughter.

“Brian and Charles” (Focus Features) – June 17

Jim Archer’s feature debut, and the first of two movies this month expanded from a short film, premiered at Sundance back in January. It follows Welsh inventor Brian (David Earl), who uses a washing machine and other spare parts to build an intelligent robot named Charles, who learns English and becomes his best friend.

“Official Competition” (IFC) – June 17

Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas reunite for the first time since 2013’s I’m So Excited – they didn’t have any scenes together in 2019’s “Pain and Glory,” because Cruz played Banderas’ mother in flashback – for Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s dark comedy, in which Cruz plays a film director who has to contend with the machismo of her two feuding stars in Banderas and Oscar Martínez.

“Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (A24) – June 24

Possibly one of the most adorable movies of the summer is this rare PG movie from A24, filmmaker Dean Fleischer-Camp and actress Jenny Slate, who voices the titular shell who is trying to find his family. This may eventually go nationwide in July, but at first, it will be testing out the waters with a few select cities where audiences will begin their love affair with the adorable talking shell.

“Beba” (NEON) – June 24

Rebecca Huntt’s memoir-slash-documentary is a self-portrait in which the filmmaker explores the psychic wounds she’s inherited from her family’s legacy.

“Flux Gourmet” (IFC) – June 24

The new film from Peter Strickland (“In Fabric”) takes place in an institute “devoted to culinary and alimentary performance,” so it might make for a good book-end for the month with the Cronenberg movie.

We won’t have the usual weekend preview this week on Wednesday, but check back a week from tomorrow for more on “Jurassic World: Dominion.”