Movie Preview: November 2017

It's been a rough few months at the box office. Granted, August through October are always the low point at the yearly box office, but this year seemed especially bad over this time frame as August produced the lowest grossing August total since 1997 with $657.8 million (August 2016 scored $1.02 billion for comparison) while October's $555.8 million total is the lowest grossing October since 2007. September was only boosted by the phenomenal performance of "IT." Take away that it September was as equally as pathetic as the other two months. Specifically looking at October, not helping things were the major flops of two high-priced films as "Blade Runner 2049" shockingly has only managed $83 million at this point on a $150 million price tag, despite incredibly positive reviews across the board, while "Geostorm" did even worse, albeit less surprisingly, with only $26 million in the bank so far on a $120 million price tag. Evidence that people just aren't going to the movies as much anymore? No. There were just a lack of movies audiences were interested in over this span. Perhaps due to the fact that studios have been saving the best for the last. So let's dive into this month's releases to see what the first month of the holiday season has to offer.

November 3rd - 5th-

Out of all the Avengers characters that Marvel has introduced in the last 10 years, the major character that people have arguably cared the least about has been Thor. Yet Kevin Feige, Taika Waititi and company are doing their best to change that with Thor: Ragnarok, and it seems to be working as the movie is headed towards an opening weekend around the $115 million range, which is a significant improvement over the $85.7 million that "Thor: The Dark World" opened up to on this same weekend in November 2013. A highly effective marketing campaign is what caught people's attention here with its "Guardians of the Galaxy" feel, mixed in with the popular "Planet Hulk" story arc and the additions of actors such as Cate Blanchett and Jeff Goldblum to the mix of already popular returning characters. Tap on the 93 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, second only to the 94 percent of  "Iron Man" in the MCU and this was a huge recipe for success. But how well can it hold on? In just two weekends, "Ragnarok" will be competing with DC's "Justice League" with "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" looming not too far after that. Recent history has told us that too many blockbusters at once isn't a good thing for movies' financial totals, so we'll see how "Ragnarok" holds up.

Getting the early jump on the weekend by opening on Wednesday, Nov. 1 was A Bad Moms Christmas. Just last year, STX surprised big time with its release of "Bad Moms," which went onto make $113.3 million after opening to $23.8 million in July 2016. Given that "Bad Moms" was easily STX's biggest movie ever by a whopping $70 million, they immediately ordered up another slice of the pie without waiting one second. This time they made it Christmas themed, which theoretically should give it an even bigger boost. This seems like it would be a great movie to bet on going into the holidays. However, with its first two days of release already in the rear-view mirror, it's looking like it will instead by a movie that falls into the category of comedy sequels that underperform when compared to the original as it got a meager $2.5 million on opening day Wednesday and an estimated $5.5 million on Friday, meaning it's headed towards a $15 million 3-day and a $20 million 5-day opening. While "Bad Moms" proved critic proof with just 58 percent on Rotten Tomatoes despite its success, the 31 percent score of this sequel might not be as lucky. With no additional adult-targeted comedies in over a month, this still has the chance for some decent legs.

Sneaking into just 659 theaters this weekend will be the political drama LBJ, which has Woody Harrelson playing President Lyndon B. Johnson, who of course was thrust into the presidential office following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Initially released at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, "LBJ" was thought to be a major Oscar contender with Harrelson potentially getting love for best actor, but sub-par reviews, currently standing at 51 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, will more than likely squash all hope on that front, meaning this might disappear rather quickly.

On a more positive note when it comes to the Oscar contenders this weekend, Lady Bird will hit four theaters this weekend after getting a standing ovation at this year's Toronto International Film Festival last month. It currently stands at a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with 79 reviews counted. The movie has acclaimed actress Greta Gerwig stepping into the director's chair this time around and has a rather large cast, led by two-time Oscar nominated actress Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement," "Brooklyn") who plays a bit of a free-living adolescent. Critics are claiming the movie delivers fresh insights about the turmoil of adolescence. It seems like a movie gaining momentum heading into the awards race.

Perhaps with a bit less momentum than "Lady Bird," but still worth mentioning real quick will be the release of Last Flag Flying into four theaters as it hopes to gain Oscar love on some level. It stars Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne as three veterans who re-unite after the death of one of their sons in the Iraq war. This is Richard Linklater trying to get back into the race after his 2014 film "Boyhood" barely missed out on the best picture award.

November 10th - 12th-

There are two wide releases on this schedule that have pegged themselves in between our two major superhero movies this weekend, hoping to provide some counter-programming for those not interested in superhero affairs. The first of these two is the 2017 adaptation of Agatha Christie's popular mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express. Christie's novel was initially released in the U.K. in 1934 and has stood the test of time as the Queen of Crime's most well-loved novels. It was previously adapted to film in 1974 and was also adapted into a poorly received TV movie in 2001. Kenneth Branagh is on board to direct this modern adaptation and it has quite the cast as the list of suspects for this whodunit murder mystery, which includes Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr, Michelle Pfeiffer and Daisy Ridley. The movie was released on Nov. 3 in the U.K. to mostly positive reviews, swinging right around 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning it might not be a movie that blows people's minds, but it could be a fun whodunit outing, especially for Agatha Christie fans.

The second wide release is another comedy sequel based on a surprisingly successful comedy and that is Daddy's Home 2. Again with comedy sequels, which is what "Bad Moms Christmas" is currently suffering from, it's hard to capture that lightning in a bottle from the first film, which is why a lot of comedy sequels fall short of their predecessors. It was back in December 2015 when "Daddy's Home" surprisingly lit up the box office. It was panned by critics and opened up right after "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," which sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it ended up being both critic proof and a successful counter-programming option for family audiences that Christmas as it wound up with $150.4 million, sparked by the successful banter between Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. In "Daddy's Home 2," we're going double the daddy's with John Lithgow and Mel Gibson joining the part as the daddy's of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg respectively. They are releasing this earlier in the holiday season this time around, meaning if this does manage to catch on with family audiences, it has the potential to play well throughout the holiday season.

On the Oscar front this weekend, a definite best picture contender will begin its platform release in four theaters and that is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Not only did this play well throughout its festival run, this won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is a pretty good indicator for Oscar prominence as the last five winners of the award were "La La Land," "Room," "The Imitation Game," "12 Years a Slave" and "Silver Linings Playbook," all of which went on to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, with "12 Years a Slave" winning Best Picture. "Three Billboards" is a dark comedy directed by Martin McDonaugh where Frances McDormand plays a single divorced mother whose teenager daughter was raped and violently murdered. When the law enforcement made no progress in the investigation, she buys three billboards that rather harshly challenge law enforcement. Dark comedy is extremely hard to pull off, but word on the street is that this movie pulls off the genre excellently, thus becoming a rather poignant and hilarious film.

November 17th  - 19th-

The second powerhouse film of the month comes our way in the third weekend of this month and that is the live-action cinematic arrival of Justice League. This is a movie that's been easily over a decade in the making, potentially a lot longer. With Batman and Superman being two of the most popular comic book characters in existence, I'm sure conversations were at least had about a reunion of the Justice League ever since Richard Donner's "Superman" or Tim Burton's "Batman." Production on a "Justice League" has been started several times, but never amount anything until the idea was re-sparked by the success of Marvel's "The Avengers." And now it's finally here. This iteration of "Justice League" sees a team-up of Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg. The arrival of Superman in this specific movie is still technically up in the air, but it's probably the worst kept secret as we all know that Superman isn't dead. The villain they are teaming up to fight will be none other than that of Steppenwolf. While one would think that the arrival of "Justice League" into theaters would be a guaranteed box office smash, reviews will be key here given DC's spotty record recently, especially given competition from "Thor Ragnarok" two weeks before and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" three weeks after.

There are two wide releases that will hope to play counter-programming for families while most are busy with "Justice League" and "Thor: Ragnarok." The first of which is Wonder. This is based off the novel of the same name by R.J. Palacio and is about a 10-year-old boy with severe facial deformities who is going to public school for the first time. Palacio was inspired to write the novel after a situation where her son noticed a young girl with facial birth defects while they were eating ice cream. Palacio removed her son from the situation, fearing he would react poorly, but ended up making the situation worse. This inspired her to write the novel in an attempt teach a valuable lesson to society. The novel, published in 2012, has been fairly successful, earning a spot on New York Times Best Seller list for a time. The movie adaptation stars Jacob Tremblay as the young boy with Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts as his parents. While the novel has been successful, it remains to be seen of the movie itself can manage to stand out from the crowd. This didn't receive a festival run and isn't getting much awards buzz. So if it can't stand out, this might be a movie that flies in under the radar and goes unnoticed unless audiences give it the time of day for Thanksgiving.

Hoping to catch the early Christmas buzz and win over the hearts of family and Christian audiences will be the animated film The Star. This is another telling of the Nativity story, which we've seen many times before. What makes "The Star" unique is that it tells the story of the Nativity from the perspective of the animals, which is a perspective we've never really had, although that might be for good reasons as it's a perspective that probably no one asked for. Director Timothy Reckart is the director on this, having previously worked on various shorts as well as being the lead animator for the very adult targeted animated film "Anomalisa." The cast here for "The Star" is rather impressive as it features voices from Steven Yeun, Kristin Chenoweth, Zachary Levi, Gina Rodriguez, Tyler Perry, Christopher Plummer, Keegan-Michael Key, Patricia Heaton, Kris Kirstofferson, Mariah Carey, Oprah Winfrey, Gabriel Iglesias, Tracy Morgan, Kelly Clarkson and more if you believe it. If this manages to capture the hearts of Christian audiences, this could play well over the holidays. But there's also the possibility of it being completely skipped in favor of  Pixar's "Coco" five days later.

November 22nd - 26th-

And speaking of Coco, it will be enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend as the only new wide release in the marketplace over the holiday week, although I'm sure audiences will be storming the theaters to go see the other November holdovers. "Coco" will be Pixar's 19th feature-length film, which started 22 years ago with "Toy Story" back in November 1995. This is also Pixar's second movie of the year following "Cars 3," which wound up as Pixar's second lowest grossing film in their history with just $152 million, ahead of only notorious disaster in "The Good Dinosaur." "Cars 3" arguably didn't need a huge box office total as it will do Pixar well in merchandising, but nevertheless they hope to get back to box office prowess with "Coco," which celebrates the Mexican holiday of Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, much like the movie "The Book of Life" did a few years back. Given that Dia de Los Muertos was at the beginning of November, "Coco" was released over in Mexico right before the holiday and was praised by most as a movie that did a great job of honoring and celebrating Mexican culture. If that goodwill carries over to the United States during Thanksgiving, this could be a Pixar film that plays very well over the holiday season.

While "Coco" is the only wide release of the month, there's three movies on the limited release front worth a quick mention. The first is Call Me by Your Name, which has received pretty much unanimous praise from film festival audiences throughout the year as it started in January at Sundance while also screening at Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival. At TIFF, it was the second runner-up for People's Choice Awards, behind "Three Billboards" and "I, Tonya." The movie is a romance story following two men in Italy in the 1980's, featuring praised performances from Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer.

The second limited release of the weekend is Darkest Hour. This is a movie starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill during his early days as Prime Minister when Hitler closes in on Britain during WWII. This also hit the festival rounds, as it was thought of as a best picture contender going in, but reaction to the film itself has been a bit more muted than expected as people have focused their praise on Oldman's performance as Churchill in a role that could get him an Oscar win, while being a little less ecstatic about the movie itself. Meaning this could be a movie that loses its momentum as the Oscar race heats up, unless of course mainstream audiences react differently.

And finally with the major limited release films we have the release of The Man Who Invented Christmas. While the Oscar buzz isn't necessarily super strong at the moment, this is a movie that's started to gain steam following the release of its trailers as it tells the story of Charles Dickens and his journey in writing his classic novel "A Christmas Carol," which he wrote in a bit of turmoil following the failures of his previous three novels. Dan Stevens will be playing Charles Dickens, meaning Stevens should finish this year off on a really strong note after starting strong with "Beauty and the Beast." Given the popularity of Dickens and "A Christmas Carol," as well as the timely release, if reviews are strong, this could be a movie that plays very well throughout the Christmas holiday even if it isn't an Oscar contender.