Movie Preview: October 2024

Happy Halloween, everyone! Spooky season is upon us and this month the box office has a few spooky things in store for audiences to enjoy. Now this time of year is not necessarily known to be massively productive at the box office. There’s almost always a bit of a lull between the big summer months at the box office and the end-of-year holiday box office as vacations end and people go back to the grind of school and work, even during pre-COVID years where the box office was in a much better state. In total this past September finished with $591 million at the domestic box office, which is a fraction of what the previous three months earned (July was the high on the year with $1.18 billion), but not bad for September standards. It was actually the highest September post-COVID and almost half of that total was “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which finished the month with $251.4 million domestically, and is certain to have some holdover success, given the Halloween season. But outside that, there just wasn’t a whole lot on the calendar, as “Transformers One” disappointed and “The Wild Robot,” which over-indexed a bit, was only in theaters for the final four days.

But October has potential at the box office as it’s book-ended by two comic book movie sequels, with a scattering of horror in between and a sprinkle of awards season affair as the big film festivals have concluded and studios are starting to roll out their big awards season contenders. I don’t know if there’s any guaranteed smash hits coming out, but there should be enough variety to entertain those who want to spend part of their Halloween season in theaters. And it should be a decent enough boost to the box office as we prime for the final two holiday months to take this year home. So let’s take a look at what the month has to offer.

As always, release date information is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

October 4 – 6

Warner Bros' "Joker: Folie à Deux"

I mentioned that the month will be book-ended by two comic book sequels and with that, we begin with Joker: Folie à Deux. And first off let me say that whoever programmed the Alt Codes on the keyboard is grounded for making “à” as Alt-133 and “á” as Alt-160. Why aren’t those two accents back to back? It took me way too long to find the correct one for this title (EDIT: after all that - I got them wrong initially). Anywho, if you’re curious about slightly more important things in regards to this movie, the phrase “folie à deux” is a delusion or mental illness that’s shared by two people in a close association. It translates literally from French as “madness for two.” In that context, it makes perfect sense as this is a movie where Joker meets Harley Quinn. This being Todd Phillips’ Joker continuity, which is its own separate thing from DC’s other two or three current Gotham timelines. The first movie saw the character Arthur Fleck descend into madness after getting rejected by society and become the Joker. And now he is in Arkham awaiting trail and meets Harley Quinn, as played by Lady Gaga. How much of the movie is reality vs. being a shared delusion (folie à deux) is for the audience to find out. And there may or may not be a few musical numbers scattered along the way, because… why not?

Now in regards to the box office for this movie that just happened, a month ago Box Office Pro was very confident in their initial long range forecast and said it was on track to make $115-145 million in its opening weekend. Fast forward to this past weekend and it got nowhere close to that. It opened to a very poor $37.7 million, which is a shocking result considering the first movie in 2019 opened to $96.2 million, made $335.5 million domestically, and finished with $1.063 billion worldwide, being the first R-rated movie to cross the $1 billion mark. What went wrong to lead to such a disaster for the sequel? Well, it was probably the perfect storm of bad things rather than just one thing. First off, despite the first movie being such a huge financial success, and also getting 11 Oscar nominations, it had a mixed reaction from critics, with just a 68 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. So if a lot of critics weren’t happy about that first one, they certainly weren’t excited for more. A lot of comic book fans who loved the first also hated the idea that this second one was a musical. And outside that crowd, a lot of people felt like the first movie was a good, standalone comic book film. And that might even have been the initial intent from the director, too, until Warner Bros did a bit of convincing otherwise. Ain’t no way they were going to let a $1 billion movie go sequelless. All of that led to the perfect storm of negative buzz, as mentioned, with a 33 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 31 percent score from audiences. And now after being initially projected to open to $100+ million, it looks like its final domestic total will come in lower than the $96.2 million that the first movie opened to. And that’s rather embarrassing. If there was ever an idea for a Joker 3, that’s probably now gone.

“Folie à Deux” is the big story of the weekend, but there were a few other options out there. And another sequel as well, to a movie that you may not have thought would get a second one? That would be Lionsgate’s White Bird: A Wonder Story. The movie “Wonder” came out in 2017 and told the heartwarming story of Auggie Pullman, a young fifth grader who was born with facial differences and had to now deal with going to a mainstream school for the first time. It actually did quite well for a movie of its type and size, earning a total of $132 million domestically and $310 million worldwide. Lionsgate has used it in their marketing quite a bit since for future movies as “From the studio that brought you ‘Wonder’” has shown up quite a bit in trailers. And now they’re doing another movie in this universe. Because the author of the original “Wonder” novel wrote a follow-up a graphic novel in 2019. This movie does not have the character Auggie Pullman in it, but rather one of his classmates Julian Albans, who has left that former school and gets visited by his grandma, who tells him of her time living in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. So if you had on your 2024 Bingo Card a sequel/spin-off to “Wonder” that is actually a Nazi-centered World War II movie, congratulations. Give yourself a point. “Wonder” opened to $27.6 million in Fall 2017. “White Bird” made a whole lot less, making just $1.6 million. Although those who did see it apparently loved it as it earned an A+ on CinemaScore. That might keep it in conversations moving forward and could lead it to a successful post-theatrical life.

Opening in moderate release is our first dive into the Halloween season this month with Monster Summer, a movie that seems to play off of the 80s/90s nostalgia with a group of kids hanging out and going on adventures, much like “The Goonies” or “The Sandlot.” With baseball playing a big part and the kids being scared of a mysterious old man in a house, perhaps this gives more of “The Sandlot” vibes, except these kids start taking the supernatural as they start seeing weird things happen that they can’t explain. So they end up getting help from the “scary” old man, who turns out to be a retired police detective played by Mel Gibson. Funny thing is, I started typing this post at the beginning of the weekend, before getting distracted with other things. Now after weekend totals came out, no box office numbers were reported for this movie. And I can confirm that it was released because it’s in several theaters near me. The advertising was also almost non-existent and there were only 18 reviews submitted to Rotten Tomatoes from critics, so the distributor here, Pastime Pictures, doesn’t quite seem to be on top of things with this. But the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 82 percent and just over half of the 18 critics who submitted a review gave it a positive note (56 percent), so if you do find it near you, perhaps it’s worth checking out if you’re curious.

Also on the moderate front is another movie where the reporting was a bit funny and that is The Outrun. My main source for weekend numbers is the-numbers and they’re usually pretty on top of things. They also didn’t have “The Outrun” listed on their weekend chart, which surprised me because it’s a slightly more high profile release and is in a lot more theaters around me than “Monster Hunter.” I went over to Box Office Mojo and the DID have it listed, opening with $334,249 from 508 theaters. That’s a terrible per theater average, but a high enough theater count to warrant bringing up. Anyways, this is a movie that plays more on the awards front, led by actress Saoirse Ronan. It’s a movie about a girl who is attempting to come to terms with her troubled past and goes to Scotland’s Orkney Islands where she grew up in an attempt to heal. So yeah, a very indie/awardsy premise there. Many pundits early on have felt that maybe this is the movie that finally gets Saoirse Ronan an Oscar as she’s been on the verge for a while now, having been nominated four times without a win, her first nomination coming way back in 2007 with “Atonement,” but the other three coming in the latter half of last decade. So she’s approaching the overdue narrative, hence the idea that this could be her year. Given the low box office and the muted reaction, maybe that’s more of a long shot now, but there’s currently a lot that’s up in the air in regards to awards this season, so no one really knows at this point.

As a footnote to the weekend, you may have also noticed Sam and Colby: The Legends of the Paranormal around you. It only opened in 302 theaters. These are two YouTubers who investigate the paranormal and now they’ve put one of their latest adventures in theaters. Despite opening in a lower theater count than “White Bird” and “The Outrun,” it opened higher than both with $1.8 million, so their fans showed up to see their recent adventure.

Also, GKIDS released their latest anime Look Back this weekend and it made $688,253. Box Office Mojo claims this only opened in 2 theaters, which seems wrong. The-numbers says it opened in 535 theaters, which feels more correct given the total (same figure reported by both sites), but it’s also playing nowhere near me, so I don’t know what to think about that either. But the movie is about two very different girls who are brought together with their love of drawing manga. The movie is only 58 minutes long, but has had very high praise across the board from those who have seen it

October 11 – 13

Cineverse's "Terrifier 3"

The second weekend of October seems to be a weekend in which most studios kept their big titles away from “Joker: Folie à Deux” as to not open in that movie’s second weekend. Perhaps in hindsight that may not have been completely necessary, but nevertheless there doesn’t seem to be anything poised to open even remotely huge enough to open No. 1. But there are certainly quite the large variety of movies that will all be fighting for spots in the top 5 and top 10.

To start things off, let’s get into the spirit of the season with the release of Terrifier 3. “Terrifier… 3?” You might ask? Yes, this is the third movie with Art the Clown and the underground swell for this now modern horror franchise has been quite interesting to witness. “Terrifier” first was shown in 2016 at the Telluride Horror Show Film Festival and wasn’t picked up until 2018, when it got a very limited theatrical run, earning just under $340,000 domestically. But it slowly built a cult following since then. That led “Terrifier 2” to come into existence and start making waves in 2022, where it made a total of $10.9 million domestically, after starting with an opening of just $805,000 in 886 theaters, which on its own was double what the first one made in its whole run. And now “Terrifier 3” opens this weekend and is expected to take in $5-10 million in its opening weekend. For a mainstream horror that might not seem like much, but for a small, indie horror film that initially only made $340,000, that’s not bad at all. Art the Clown is an evil, killer clown that shows up only on Halloween to terrorize anyone who comes into his path. And yes, this is a throwback to old 80s slasher horror films with lots of blood and gore. So know what you’re getting yourself into. But fans of slasher horror films now have a new horror icon to attach to instead of getting the same franchise reboots of past horror icons. If this movie does as well as it’s expected, a “Terrifier 4” is in the works and will probably also come out sooner rather than later.

It felt right to lead with the evil clown in this October/Halloween preview, but it might be true that the animated documentary Piece by Piece could open slightly higher. While the theater count for “Terrifier 3” is not known exactly, “Piece by Piece” is anticipated to open in about 1,800 theaters. This is a very unique take on a documentary/biopic as this documents the life and musical career of singer/producer Pharrell Williams… by the means of an animated LEGO movie. Why are they doing it this way? Well, I guess Pharrell might say… why not? While this is directed by Morgan Neville, who is probably most well known for directing the 2018 Mr. Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” Pharrell himself has been on board as a producer this whole time, so maybe he might dance around the more controversial points of his career, as is often the case with musical biopics or documentaries with the subject matter being involved in the making of it. They can tell the story they want to be told rather than the full story. But at the same time, this is a fun way for Pharrell to tell the story of his life in a way that turns what could’ve been a by-the-numbers, familiar documentary into something that feels unique and fresh. Is it a gimmick or is it fun? That’s for the audience to decide. But the movie premiered at the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals and has had mostly positive reviews so far. How this all translates into a mainstream box office run is a bit hard to say, but it should perform decently.

With the next two films, we get a quick dive into the awards front again, with the first being a very timely political drama, The Apprentice. In case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s an election coming up soon and a man by the name of Donald Trump is trying to win back the White House. “The Apprentice” is a movie that stars Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump who is beginning to start his real-estate business in the 1970s and 80s, with the help of his lawyer Roy Cohn. And yes, this is most likely a liberal, Hollywood take on Donald Trump, attempting to paint him in a dark light right before the election comes out. How you react to this movie and their angle might depend on how you think of the man Donald Trump himself. I’m fairly certain that the pro-Trump audience isn’t going to be the biggest fan of this movie, while a lot of the anti-Trump audience might be more willing to praise the movie if they agree with the movie’s portrayal of the man. And then there’s the people who, regardless of their political position, might just not care to watch a two hour movie about the early life of Trump and perhaps not quite see the point in the journey. They know who he is. They lived in the country during his presidency. They might not care to experience. So one way or another, this is certain to spark conversation and often that gets a movie noticed more.

And in a less controversial piece of awards news, this week also sees the wide expansion of Saturday Night, which is scheduled for a limited release on October 4. This is a movie that goes back to the night of October 11, 1975, the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live. Specifically this tells the story of the 90 minutes leading up to that first broadcast and stars a very long list of actors playing the different personalities and people that helped begin the huge phenomenon of Saturday Night Live. The movie premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, followed by Toronto a week later, and got a mostly positive reaction from those festivals. Although its 79 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes through its first 91 reviews does suggest a little bit of mixed reaction that could hold it back from being a major awards player. So maybe it’s not a huge play to actually win best picture, but it could still be in contention for nominations. And at the very least might be a fun movie for those who are a fan of Saturday Night Live. A good shot of nostalgia at the theaters usually doesn’t hurt too many people.

On the anime front, we also have the domestic release of My Hero Academia: You’re Next. This was released this summer back in Japan and is the fourth theatrically released movie from the popular anime series following “Two Heroes” (2018), “Heroes Rising” (2019), and “World Heroes’ Mission” (2021). “My Hero Academia” started as a manga in 2014 and currently has 41 volumes as of August 2024. The anime television series began two years later in 2016 and is currently finishing its seventh season. In terms of the three spin-off movies from the show, “Two Heroes” opened to $1.4 million and finished with $5.4 million domestically. “Heroes Rising” opened to $5.9 million and finished with $13.6 million domestically. And finally, “World Heroes’ Mission” opened to $6.2 million and finished with $9.8 million domestically. So that’s about the range that can be expected from “You’re Next.”

Getting a jump on the weekend, releasing on Thursday, October 10, Fathom Events will be releasing the Christian movie Average Joe. Based on the very brief trailer, this appears to be a movie about a Marine who takes a job as a high school football coach and gets taken to court over his decision to say a prayer at the 50-yard-line of a high school football game and decides to spend years fighting for this right of religious freedom. The movie comes from the director of the first two “God’s Not Dead” movies and “Unbroken: Path to Redemption,” the Christian-made sequel to “Unbroken” that tells the second half of the story from the book that the first movie skipped. I’m not sure exactly how wide this is being released, but if you live in a Christian market, like Utah, this should be playing in most of the theaters around you.

And if you sift through all of that and you decide that none of that sounds like your thing, Disney will be re-releasing The Nightmare Before Christmas into theaters. Granted, you can also watch it for free on Disney+, but if you’ve never had the theatrical experience with this movie and want to go with friends or family, or enjoy a night to yourself, it’s an option for you. “Coraline” was also re-released in theaters this year, back in August, and did pretty well for a re-release, opening to $9.8 million in its first weekend and made $33.6 million in about a month in release. I’m sure Disney would love to see numbers like that for “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” but we’ll see what it does.

October 18 – 20

Paramount's "Smile 2"

A lot less to report on this weekend in regards to quantity. Only two new wide releases this weekend instead of the six from the first weekend and the seven from the second weekend. But if there’s a Halloween movie with potential for breakout success, that would be Smile 2. This looks to feed off of the success of the first “Smile,” which opened to $22.6 million in late September 2022 and held very well to make $105.9 million domestically and $217 million worldwide. And for a horror movie that only had a budget of $17 million, that’s the perfect recipe for a new horror franchise to be born, whether or not the audience wants them. In this case, though, the movie had an 80 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 77 percent score from audiences. So it was well liked across the board. The basic premise is that once you see someone with that very creepy smile, you have a week to live, unless you pass it onto someone else by brutally killing someone in front of a witness, traumatizing them and giving them the curse. And with that basic premise, it’s easy to see how a long string of sequels can be done. “Smile 2” has the curse given to a global pop star, who starts seeing the creepy smile when she goes on tour. Given the positive reaction and strong box office of the first one, this should at least match that movie’s $22.6 million opening. Although if it broke out to the likes of $30-40 million, I wouldn’t be surprised. But regardless of where it ends up, I’m seeing reports of the budget being similar to the first, which means the bar for success and a green light for “Smile 3” is very low. If it hits the low end of expectations, that’s still probably good enough.

The only other scheduled wide release this weekend is the comedy Goodrich, which stars Michael Keaton as a man named Andy Goodrich who left alone to raise his younger kids when his wife enters a rehab program. In order to help him, he leans on his adult daughter from his previous marriage, played by Mila Kunis, who experiences a variety of emotions as she sees him develop into the father that she never had. This does give the vibes of a much smaller opening with not a ton of awareness at the moment, although having a movie starring Michael Keaton is certainly not a bad thing while “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is still in theaters and doing well. But this is distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, whose only other wide release thus far was the 2023 movie “Hypnotic,” which opened to $2.4 million. It’s directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, whose only other directing credit was the 2017 movie “Home Again,” which opened to $8.6 million. So a $5-8 million opening for “Goodrich” feels like a safe range, if they start actually promoting it.

Not a wide release, but a notable limited release this weekend is the movie A Real Pain, which stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as two mismatched cousins who reunite to tour through Poland to honor their grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when emotions arise via old tensions against the backdrop of their family history. This was initially released at Sundance this year and is being released by Searchlight Pictures for an awards push. It’s also played at a variety of festivals to help build momentum. It doesn’t seem like traction is super high at the moment in regards to its awards chances, but Kieran Culkin is the one getting the most buzz as he looks to feed off his Emmy success with the hit show “Succession” and use that to break into the Oscars. A lot of things are up in the air with this awards season, but Culkin does seem like one of the favorites in the supporting actor race. The movie itself is directed by Jesse Eisenberg, in addition to him being one of the lead stars. If the movie hits anywhere else, it seems like it could be a play in original screenplay and maybe has an outside chance of sneaking in as one of the final best picture nominees. How it manages to do in its theatrical run could play a big role into how it does on that front.

October 25 – 27

Sony's "Venom: The Last Dance"

The final weekend of the month is where we finish with the other big comic book movie and that is Venom: The Last Dance. Perhaps it’s good to be cautious with early forecasting and tracking. As noted to start this post, “Joker: Folie à Deux” was initially tracking to $115-145 million before actually opening with just $37.7 million. And Sony on their own in their Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe has a very spotty track record. But there have been two Venom movies so far. The first opened to $80.3 million and the second opened to $90.0 million, both in the month of October. Neither had very good reviews, but audiences didn’t care. So it seems like this is a critic-proof franchise that should lead to a safe opening for “The Last Dance,” which is advertising itself as the final movie in the trilogy. That’s something that’s hard to believe considering Sony failed miserably with both “Morbius” and “Madame Web,” and things aren’t looking so hot with “Kraven the Hunter” later this year. Is Sony actually going to let go of their only popular franchise in this specific realm? Or are the going to find a way to bring Tom Hardy back in some way? It would seem like a missed opportunity to not have Tom Hardy unite in some way with the other Tom, Tom Holland, in a Spider-Man and Venom adventure. Or maybe it’s just the symbiote that will live on in the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. Either way, the success of the first two and the promise of this being the final one should lead this to be the biggest movie of the month. It’s currently tracking to open in the $70-100 million range, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this opened higher or lower than that range.

The final movie of the month is the scheduled wide release of Focus Features’ Conclave. This comes from director Edward Berger, who most recently found a lot of success with his 2022 remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which wound up getting nominated for nine Oscars, winning four of them. So his next movie has had a lot of buzz just based off of that. And with this movie, “Conclave,” he is taking on the subject matter of the Catholic Church choosing a new Pope after the death of the current one. The movie is based off of the 2016 novel by Robert Harris about the death of a pope and the subsequent papal conclave. I’m having a hard time figuring out if this is based on a specific historical event in the Catholic Church or is just a fictional telling of one of these events. But either way, this seems to be in the genre of a psychological thriller, or even a politcal thriller of sorts as a lot of secrets and mysteries are promised are promised with 118 Cardinals gathered from around the world, locked behind the doors of the Sistene Chapel to try to figure this out over the course of 72 hours. The movie premiered at the Telluride Film Festival at the end of August and also showed up at the Toronto International Film Festival a week later and is considered to be one of the bigger awards players this season by awards pundits. It currently has a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and specifically has a lot of buzz for Ralphi Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow in the acting realms, but is one that could be a big player in most of the major categories.

Movie Preview: September 2024

We’re getting this month’s preview out a tad bit late. Sorry about that. Life happens sometimes. However, Labor Day weekend was covered in last month’s preview, so we only missed one weekend. That means we’ll preview the massive opening of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and then preview what’s coming up in the next few weeks!

To wrap up summer, though, we actually finished off on yet another strong note. For August standards, this was actually the best August since 2016 with $892 million. August 2016 saw the release of “Suicide Squad” while August 2014 saw the release of “Guardians of the Galaxy” and those are the only two August months that have crossed a billion at the domestic box office. Without a massive release like that (“Deadpool & Wolverine” was released at the end of July and only about half of its earnings came in August after that massive opening weekend), August can only go so high, but the fact that this August even out-grossed the pre-COVID August months from 2017–2019 is a positive sign for the current state of the box office. In addition to the second half of the earnings of “Deadpool & Wolverine” helping a lot, as that movie won the No. 1 spot in all but one week during August, “It Ends with Us” getting a surprise $50 million debut was huge, followed by a $40 million debut for “Alien: Romulus.” We finished with the typical late-August dumping ground affair, but those three titles alone boosted this month to positive heights. And after a weak first month of the summer, we’ve been on a roll!

That streak has already continued with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in September, which we’ll get to in a second. But there’s also a few other promising titles on the schedule that should continue to help this be a better than normal September as we then lead to the holiday portion of the year. So let’s get started!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. Both sites are back up while I’ve been doing this post after a bit of a kerfuffle last month. But I still had a little bit of help from some other sites. But yes, the movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

September 6 – 8

Warner Bros.' "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"

As mentioned a couple times in that intro, this month started off with an absolutely massive opening as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice took in $111 million in its opening weekend. Now if you had asked me early in the year, I would’ve had a bit of hesitation towards this movie. Legacy sequels to movies from the distant past have a very poor track record as a whole and I didn’t see this as a movie that would work out. But then the advertising kicked in and buzz started to build. There seemed to be genuine excitement for the movie, so it seemed like I could end up being wrong. And I definitely was. When early tracking started coming out, it was much higher than I would’ve guessed and that just kept going up and up as the release date got closer. If you would’ve told me that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” would’ve cracked a $100 million opening, I would’ve called you crazy, but here we are. And it wound up as the second highest opening weekend in September history, behind only the 2017 release of Warner Bros’ “IT,” which opened to $123.4 million. In fact, as “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is also Warner Bros., it’s also worth of pointing out that Warner Bros has found a gold mine in this second weekend of September, starting with “IT” in 2017 and has taken advantage of this weekend almost every year since. Normally September isn’t seen as a big box office month, but Warner Bros learned that this isn’t true. And Disney even debunked the Labor Day curse in 2021 with “Shang-Chi.” So the September curse is more of a self-fulling prophesy on the end of Hollywood than anything. Make a good movie that people are excited about and people will show up, regardless of where it is on the calendar

The interesting thing is that the first “Beetlejuice” wasn’t even a massive hit back in 1988. It opened with $8 million in March of 1988 and held well to make $74.5 million domestically. Times were different back then, of course, but it did alright for its time. Press the inflation-adjusted button on the-numbers.com’s movie comparison section and it reveals that said numbers would be equivalent of a $21.1 million opening and a $195.4 million domestic total, which adjusted for today’s ticket prices. But in the 36 years since it’s release, it’s become a favorite of many people. It certainly helped put both Tim Burton and Michael Keaton on the map. The actor/director duo would go on to release “Batman” the following year. And as you can see, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” wound up going the way of “Top Gun: Maverick” when it comes to legacy sequels. “Maverick” opened to $127.7 million domestically after also coming out 36 years after its predecessor, an exact year total between both “Beetlejuice” movies. So every once in a while this works really well, which is why Hollywood keeps trying. It makes you wonder if Disney is really regretting throwing the likes of “Hocus Pocus 2” and “Disenchanted” straight to Disney+ instead of putting them in theaters. Now I doubt that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” holds quite as well as “Top Gun: Maverick,” but I imagine it will hold quite well throughout the entire Halloween season.

The main story was “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” of course, but there was a second wide release this weekend to briefly mention. Opening way down in 10th place with just $1.7 million in its opening weekend was the A24 horror movie The Front Room. This movie stars Brandy Norwood as a very pregnant teacher who quits her job right before having her baby, which aligns with her very busy husband being forced to invite his stepmother to live with them following his dad’s death. When the baby comes, this leaves lots of solo time with Mom, baby, and mother-in-law. And this mother-in-law is very crazy and unhinged. The movie is directed by the Eggers Brothers, Max and Sam Eggers, the younger brothers of director Robert Eggers, director of “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman.” However, the two younger brothers didn’t quite achieve the success as older brother in their directorial debut, which was this movie, “The Front Room,” as the movie earned a 52 percent from critics and a 38 percent from audiences from Rotten Tomatoes. And despite opening in 2,095 theaters, as mentioned it opened in 10th place with $1.7 million, a per theater average of $794. That means this will be gone from theaters rather quickly, especially since the quantity of releases in the following weeks is rather high.

September 13 – 15

Universal's "Speak No Evil"

Currently scheduled for wide release in this upcoming second are two major wide releases and a small handful of moderate releases. Of the two major wide releases, the American remake of Speak No Evil appears poised to earn the title of top new debut. It’s not going to come anywhere near the second weekend total of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” but second place should be pretty easy to snag. It just has to earn $8-10 million to get that spot. Anyways, “Speak No Evil” was a 2022 Danish psychological horror film that scored a solid 84 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2022 and was released in Denmark two months later in March. It then had a scattered worldwide release that even stretched to earlier this year for some markets, but it hit a very limited U.S. release in September 2022. But because we’re allergic to foreign films here in the United States, of course there is an American remake just over two years after its initial debut. The original movie was about a Danish family visiting a Dutch family on what was supposed to be a nice weekend before things start unraveling. This remake, which stars James McAvoy in the lead, is just about two families, one family visiting the other family in the countryside, before learning that the host family might have a bit of a dark side to them. Box Office Pro in their weekend projections has this pegged in the $15-20 million, which would be solid for a horror movie this year, many of which have struggled to hit $10 million. But the advertising has certainly been very heavy. I personally feel I’ve seen this trailer 100,000 times over the last 4-6 months, so the awareness might be decently high here, compared to others.

The other major wide release this weekend sees Lionsgate taking a swing at another action film with The Killer’s Game. Ever since striking gold with “John Wick” in 2014, Lionsgate has been trying hard to find the next “John Wick” and they’ve not been shy on just about every trailer for a new action movie they’ve released since then to remind people that they are the studio that brought you “John Wick.” And this month’s version of that stars Dave Bautista in the lead role as an assassin who is given a terminal diagnosis and decides to put a hit on himself to avoid the inevitable pain, only to learn afterwards that the diagnosis was a mistake. This causes him to have to fight off an army of assassins that have now come to kill him. The other connection that this movie has to “John Wick,” outside sharing the same studio, is that the director here, J.J. Perry, was the stunt coordinator for the first two “John Wick” movies, as well as a long list of other movies. “John Wick” was famously directed by a duo of stunt dudes who hadn’t directed a movie at that point, so “The Killer’s Game” is looking to follow that path as well. J.J. Perry has directed before – he did the 2022 movie “Day Shift.” But that’s it. Yet he does have over 150 stunt work credits, so Lionsgate is really looking to catch lightning in a bottle twice. Although they’ve been having a really bad year thus far as they’re responsible for both “Borderlands” and “The Crow” within the last month alone. And although “The Killer’s Game” doesn’t have a budget as big as those two, it’s also looking at an opening around $4-8 million, which isn’t exactly what they’re hoping for.

Going into the handful of moderate releases, first we have the comedy documentary Am I Racist?, which stars conservative political commentator Matt Walsh go undercover as a D.E.I. expert, performing several pranks under the guise of educating others about racism. This isn’t the first time Matt Walsh has done a documentary like this. In 2022, he did a similar documentary titled “What Is a Woman?” The difference here is that “Am I Racist?” is actually being released in theaters, in 1,517 theaters to be exact. It’s actually the first time a documentary from The Daily Wire is being released theatrically, so it’s a bit of a new adventure for them. It’s also not too often that documentaries get a wide theatrical release, but every once in a while a political documentary shows up. Election season is a prime target for that. So this documentary will look to fight for a spot somewhere in the top 10.

And speaking of polarizing media, another moderate release this weekend is God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. This is actually the fifth movie in this particular franchise. The first movie was a breakout hit in 2014, making a final domestic total of $60.8 million after opening to $9.2 million. And it’s been downhill since that, financially speaking. The second one made a third of that total, with $20.8 million total domestically, while the third and fourth barely registered, the fourth playing in just over 500 theaters and making $1.2 million total. But the filmmakers here are doing their best to spread the good, anyways. Your mileage may vary in how effective they’re being. Many people who are active Christians take issue with how polarizing these movies are, portraying everyone who is a non-believer in a dark and sometimes evil light, which might not be the best way to earn converts, but to each their own, I suppose. The movie actually opened a day early on Thursday. As of me typing this, there’s not an official theater count released, or Thursday totals, but in my local market, at least, it’s playing in more theaters than the third one did, for what’s that worth. So it might do a tad bit better than that one, but no guarantees.

The final scheduled wide release is an anime from GKIDS called Dan Da Dan: First Encounter, which is the first three episodes of the anime TV series “Dandadan” packaged together and released in theaters. This is based on the manga that began in 2021 and currently has 15 volumes released, with volume 16 set to be released in October. The anime TV series adaptation has not yet been released, but is also scheduled to start in October, so if you manage to catch this packaged movie in theaters, that’s a preview or sneak peak of the show. Although I’m not exactly sure how wide this is being released. Like with “God’s Not Dead,” there’s not an official theater count yet, but it is in both Cinemark locations in my area, so it should be in a decent number of theaters. All three of these moderate releases will be fighting for spots in the top 10, so we’ll see by the end of the weekend how they play out.

September 20 – 22

Paramount's "Transforms One"

In the third weekend of September, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will of course still be a major player, but it seems likely that it will be surrendering the top spot to the latest movie in the Transformers saga, Transformers One. Dating back to the first live-action Michael Bay movie in 2007, the Transformers movies have been fairly consistent hits. Although franchise fatigue finally kicked in with the fifth movie, which only made half as much as the third and fourth, both of which were billion dollar movies worldwide. Since then, Paramount has been trying to creatively figure out how to spark some life into this saga. And although new directors not named Michael Bay led to better reviews, “Bumblebee” in 2018 and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” in 2023 weren’t exactly the smash hits that Paramount is used to, both making in the $400 million range worldwide, and $127.2 million and $157.3 million domestically, respectively. Their next attempt here is going back to the beginning with the origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron, who were once friends known as Orion Pax and D-16. The other huge difference here is that this is an animated movie, which takes us back to the style of the original series to begin with. Now animated Transformers stuff has existed in both movie and series form, but they’re usually streaming releases as opposed to theatrical releases. We also have a large voice cast. And a different voice cast than the other movies. This includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, Laurence Fishburne, and Steve Buscemi. Given that this is animated, the ceiling is probably much lower than the first handful of Michael Bay movies, but positive early reviews could lead to opening close to the $61.0 million opening of “Rise of the Beasts” last year.

Also opening in wide release, but on a much lower financial tier, is the horror film Never Let Go. Unlike “Speaking No Evil” from weekend 2, I’ve not actually seen this horror movie advertised a whole ton, which is a bit surprising considering that this is Lionsgate releasing and Halle Berry starring. But perhaps Lionsgate was too busy putting their focus on “Borderlands” and “The Crow” that they neglected to much effort into this one. They also have “Megalopolis” next weekend, which is looking to be another big-budget failure, but we’ll get to that in a second. I guess we’ll see what the Halle Berry star power has to say in 2024, if word gets out that she has a movie coming out. Anyways, the movie is about a mother and her twin sons living off in the woods somewhere, having suffered the torment of a malicious spirit for many years. The IMDb premise states that one of the boys starts doubting the existence of the evil and that triggers no so good things happens, while the trailer focuses on them all holding onto a rope that’s connected to their house that they’re never supposed to let go of. The movie is directed by Alexandre Aja, director of “The Hills Have Eyes” from 2006 and “Crawl” from 2019, as well as a handful of other low-budget, poorly reviewed horror films that maybe Lionsgate wouldn’t be so keen on putting on the trailer.

The final release of this weekend is a movie that is making quite the wave among the festival crowds at the moment and that is a little indie film called The Substance. This stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid and is about a fading celebrity who decides to use a black market drug that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. That’s just the surface-level premise here and what’s beneath the surface is something that I have no idea. But Joey Magidson from the Awards Radar podcast said that this is about as out there as it gets that goes places you’ll never expect and won’t believe if he told you. It can be categorized in the body horror genre with some stuff that apparently is going to incite quite the reaction from audiences. Demi Moore specifically is getting quite the buzz with this performance that could lead to Oscar nominations. From the critics and festival crowd, the movie currently sits at a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 78 reviews. However, how this translates from critics and festival goers to general audiences is a story yet to be seen. If the movie ends up being as insane and crazy as advertised, I imagine that this could be quite the polarizing movie. I’m also not sure exactly how wide this is being released. I could see this being a much more moderate release, but we’ll see.

September 27 – 29

DreamWorks Animations' "The Wild Robot"

In the final weekend of September, DreamWorks is coming to play with their latest animated movie, The Wild Robot. Trailers for this movie have sparked quite the positive reaction as it looks like DreamWorks has a real tearjerker on their hands. The movie is adapted from book series of the same name and is about a robot that gets shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and has to learn to adapt to the surroundings, while building relationships with the animals on the island. The movie just recently had its premier at the Toronto International Film Festival and so far the reviews have been unanimously positive. I’m not sure this Rotten Tomatoes score will hold, but as of me typing this, it’s currently at a 100 percent. Trailer buzz followed by unanimous praise could very well lead to a sleeper hit. Although with this being an original movie from DreamWorks as opposed to a franchise film, this might be a movie that relies on strong legs and positive word of mouth rather than a massive opening weekend. The last movie that DreamWorks released in this spot was “Abominable” in 2019 and that opened to $20.6 million. The highest opening weekend for an animated movie in September is “Hotel Transylvania 2” with $48.5 million. The highest non-sequel for DreamWorks is “Kung Fu Panda” with $60.2 million.” So that’s the ceiling here. But Office Pro has it projected at a $25-30 million opening weekend, yet that Long Range Forecast was posted prior to the reviews coming out, so perhaps that shifts a bit.

I referenced this briefly in the previous weekend, but the other notable release from this weekend is another high-budgeted disaster in the works from Lionsgate and that is Megalopolis. The asterisk here from a Lionsgate perspective is that they’re not footing the bill here. This is the decades in the work passion project from prestigious filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, director of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II.” He’s had an idea for this movie dating as early as the 1977 and attempted to start developing it in 1983. There is a decades long story to be told as to what has happened along the way and if you want that full story, you’re going to have to look that up. Nevertheless, the short version is that it got delayed and postponed for a long list of reasons before Coppola finally got around to reviving it in 2019. Then COVID hit, so more delays. But filming finally took place in 2022 and the reports are the Coppola spent $120 million of his own money to get this done. And it didn’t have a distributor until earlier this year, after it finally premiered at Cannes in May. The story behind this movie finally getting made is probably going to wind up being a whole lot more interesting than the movie itself. Early reactions are that it’s certainly a movie worth seeing, for better or for worse. Mostly for worse. Film fanatics might feel obligated to see the latest movie from the director of “The Godfather,” but it might be a hard sell for casual audience. And despite being the director of “The Godfather,” Coppola has spent the last few decades making a long list of movies that have been critically panned, so this movie not being received well is not exactly surprising. And is probably not the comeback Coppola was hoping for.

And finally, we’ll finish off this month with another handful of smaller films. I’m guessing these movies might range from a couple of hundred to maybe a surprise release in 1,000-1,500 theaters, depending on if marketing actually kicks in. First off, Lionsgate isn’t done just yet. They have another horror film called Bagman. The movie stars Sam Claflin as a guy who has to now deal with a mythological villain from his childhood stories called Bagman that is coming back to haunt him. Kinda like the Boogeyman from your childhood turning out to be real. I’m guessing there’s no relation to the 1982 video game of the same name. But that’s what I found when I tried to search this out on Wikipedia. The movie doesn’t have it’s own Wikipedia page. Just a trailer with just under 500,000 views at this point that I haven’t seen played in theaters. I doubt Lionsgate put much of anything into marketing machine for this one.

Next up is another horror film, this one from IFC Films and Shudder called Azrael. This movie’s trailer has about as many views as “Bagman,” but it does have a Wikipedia page, so that gives it an edge. And, in fact, humans have seen this movie as it was released earlier this year at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March to decently positive reaction, currently carrying a 71 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Azrael is a mythological character that is the canonical angel of death in Islam as well as appearing in the apocryphal text of Apocalypse of Peter. Generally speaking, it’s God’s angel of death. How much of that lore this movie takes from is yet to be seen, I suppose. Or has been seen by some, but I don’t know the answers myself. The premise follows a world in which no one speaks and a woman named Azrael has escaped and is hunted down to be sacrificed to an ancient evil. So even if it’s not the actual lore of Azrael, they have some sort of lore set up here. If this doesn’t play in a ton of theaters, I’m guessing it’ll be on Shudder before too long. Shudder has done that with a few movies this year. Team up with a smaller studio to give some movies a brief theatrical release before putting them on their own streaming service.

The final moderate release I’ll mention is a movie called Lee, which is a bit of a funny thing to hunt down on the internet. Search “Lee” online and see how many possible things come up before you find what you’re looking for here. Anyways, this comes from Roadside Attractions and is about an American photographer named Lee Miller, who was a fashion model that became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II. This movie portrays a pivotal decade in her life that resulted in some pretty famous pictures of World War II. The movie stars Kate Winslet, Alexander Skarsgard, Andy Samberg, Andrea Riseborough, Marion Cotillard, and Josh O’Conner, so it definitely has the prestigious cast to be something. But it was released at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and hasn’t seemed to gain much of any traction since then, so I’m not sure this will be much of a thing.

Movie Preview: August 2024

 

After a rocky start to the summer in May where some people made it seem like the world was ending and cinema was dead, a strong June was followed by a very strong July that proved yet again, with a series of hits, that people will in fact still go to the movies if it’s a movie they are excited for. And they were very excited for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which shattered records for an R-rated opening, making $211.4 million, beating the previous record by nearly $80 million. It wound up being the sixth highest opening ever at the domestic box office for any movie and the fourth highest opening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But “Deadpool & Wolverine” wasn’t the only success story. Both “Despicable Me 4” and “Twisters” also lived up to and exceeded expectations, leading the overall July box office to cross $1.1 billion, the first month of the year to hit the $1 billion mark.

Now even in the best of years, the August box office is always the cool down month of the summer. Every once in a while there’s a “Guardians of the Galaxy” or a “Suicide Squad” that gets released and dominates, but for the most part studios save their biggest blockbusters for the other three summer months, as August sees the summer wind down and school starting up again, leading to the slower fall movie season before the holiday season kicks things back into gear. So expectations aren’t exactly super high, so no worries if there’s not a massive hit. Looking at a glance, there are a few titles that could hit, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything like what we just saw in the last two months. Thus that leaves “Deadpool & Wolverine” to dominate the month as it only had six days in theaters during July. And thus we will be playing the game here of what movie can manage to dethrone “Deadpool & Wolverine” as we dive deeper into the August releases, so let’s get started.

This is where I usually say that release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. And while that’s still true, I had to cross reference things with a few other sites to attempt to have the most accurate information. Box Office Pro has been very inconsistent and sparse with their long range forecasts, while the-numbers.com has had a rough time loading the last few days and weeks. So I had to double check some things with my old friend Box Office Mojo. Metacritic also provided some useful help. Generally speaking, I have a good idea of the major wide releases, but it’s some of the small to medium sized films that provided a bit more ambiguity as to how big their releases are going to be. So the general idea is to list the movies that are currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada, which is always subject to change, but I’ll note the ones that I’m uncertain about as to whether it’s a wide release or a more limited on.

August 2 – 4

Warner Bros.' "Trap"

Before we jump into the new wide releases for this weekend, I did a bit of number crunching with “Deadpool & Wolverine” to try to have an idea of how well it will do each week this month, to see what the bar is for a movie to dethrone it. Due to it being the first R-rated movie to open above $200 million, it’s pioneering its own path, making specifics hard to predict, but I did compare it to a handful of movies that opened in a similar range to see what the possible paths could be. For this weekend, the worst case scenario would be a second weekend around $70 million, with the best case scenario being around $115 million. The correct answer is probably somewhere in between. In Box Office Pro’s weekend forecast, they pegged it at a range of $80-100 million. The first Deadpool movie fell 57 percent in weekend 2. If “Deadpool & Wolverine” has a similar fall, that would lead to a $90.9 million second weekend.

With that as the bar, there is most certainly not going to be an upset this weekend as the biggest competition is Shyamalan’s new mystery/thriller Trap. Shyamalan’s biggest ever opening is “Signs” in 2002 with $60.1 million. More recently, “Knock at the Cabin” opened to $14.1 million last year, while “Old” opened to $16.9 million in 2021. If “Trap” opens in that realm, that means it will be in a fight for second place with the third weekend of “Twisters,” which put up $34.9 million last weekend after its $81.3 million opening. That should see it on track for $15-20 million. That means “Trap” needs to hit on the higher end of expectations to earn second place. And it very well could do that as this is a more unique setting for a Shyamalan thriller, specifically a concert setting. A serial killer dubbed “The Butcher,” played by Josh Hartnett, is taking his daughter to a concert of her favorite pop star Lady Raven, played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka. Turns out the concert is a big trap with a massive police presence, who are there to try to stop him. So the attempt here is a serial killer crime thriller from Shyamalan, a thing he has done a time or two. Given the hit or miss nature of a lot of Shyamalan movies, reaction to this might be key to the movie’s success. 

On a completely different level than “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Trap,” or “Twisters” is the latest PG-rated family film, Harold and the Purple Crayon. This theoretically could lead to some solid counter-programming if parents are ready for another trip to the theaters with the kids. Or maybe they already spent their summer movie budget on “Inside Out 2” and/or “Despicable Me 4.” Either way, this is based on the 1955 children’s book about a 4-year-old boy and his magic purple crayon, which gives him the power to create a world of his own simply by drawing it. This became a series of books that is currently 10 books large and has been adapted a few different times via an animated short in 1959, a few other smaller animated movies, a 2001 TV series that ran for 13 episodes, and an upcoming Broadway musical that was announced in 2022. Production on this current film adaptation has been in the works for quite some time, initially slated as an animated film before ending up in its current form as a live-action/animated hybrid, with Zachary Levi playing an adult version of Harold. I don’t know exactly how high the interest in this one is, but it will at least be an option for families.

It appears that “Trap” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon” are the only two major wide releases this weekend, but there also might be a movie called The Firing Squad in some theaters near you. The different sites I looked at couldn’t quite agree on whether this was a wide release or a limited release. So looking at my local showtimes suggested that this is probably a more moderate release in a few hundred theaters rather than a super wide release. But regardless of exactly how many theaters, this is indeed a real movie getting released in some places. And it’s a Christian film starring Kevin Sorbo and Cuba Gooding Jr. and is about three prisoners facing execution who find Christ while in prison and undergo a change of heart. It is inspired by the story of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, two drug traffickers who were convicted and imprisoned in Indonesia, but were converted to Christianity before being executed by a firing squad in 2015.

August 9 – 11

Lionsgate’s "Borderlands"

Reporting in on the third weekend of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” based on the different models I created, it seems likely that it will land somewhere in the $40-60 million range. Is that enough for it to three-peat at No. 1 at the box office? Based on the three movies being released this weekend, that seems quite likely.

The first of these three is the live action adaptation of the video game Borderlands. Video game adaptations have generally had a very streaky success rate at the box office, but whether it be a bad or good streak, Hollywood keeps on trying. Recently the luck has actually been a lot more positive with shows like “The Last of Us,” “Fallout,” and “Arcane,” and movies like “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Sonic the Hedgehog.” I wouldn’t quite say we’re at the level of a video game movie revolution, but things have been quite positive. And on the positive note, Eli Roth is on board to direct “Borderlands,” which is described as an action role-playing, first person shooter video game series that has been out since 2009 and has had mostly very positive reactions. The movie adaptation looks quite colorful and vibrant, some making comparisons to a James Gunn style of film, like “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “The Suicide Squad.” And in addition to Eli Roth directing, the movie has a solid cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. However, despite the positives here, it also must be mentioned that the general online buzz doesn’t seem to be particularly great at the moment, especially as we get closer to release. Perhaps more casual viewers will not be as phased, but fans of the video games don’t seem to be particularly excited, which leaves the movie in a precarious situation, especially sitting here in the middle of August where things are easily forgotten about. A debut around $20-30 million isn’t outside the realm of possibilities, but it seems likely to fall below that.

Perhaps a sleeper pick for the weekend is the romance drama It Ends with Us, which is based on the popular novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, published in 2016. Hoover said her novel was based on the relationship between her mother and father and is the hardest book she’s ever written. The movie stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, who meets a guy named Ryle Kincaid and falls in love. Ryle is played by Justin Baldoni, who also directs the movie. He’s also directed other movies such as “Five Feet Apart” (2019) and “Clouds” (2020). Anyways, things are going great with Lily and Ryle until she notices random outbursts of rage, which reminds her of her father’s poor treatment of her mother. Lily then has to wrestle with whether or not Ryle is different than her father, while also keeping in mind her childhood lover Atlas, who left for the military, but promised to return. It’s while he was gone that she met Ryle. So here we have a classic love triangle in a romantic drama that seems like it has the possibility to connect with audiences. The hesitation might be looking at July’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” which was one of the month’s not so successful stories as that romance film only opened to $9.4 million, despite starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. But if “It Ends with Us” manages to successfully draw out the female crowd while the men are off at “Borderlands,” it could open in the high teens or even flirt with $20 million. And if “Borderlands” is a major disappointment, it could potentially take second place behind “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Riding the caboose in regards to the three new wide releases is the horror film Cuckoo. This stars Hunter Schafer as a 17-year-old girl who leaves her American home to live with her father, who has moved into a resort in the German Alps. And well, this is a horror movie, so things go crazy and bonkers. The trailer pulls some pull quotes that call the movie “wild, blood-soaked, big-screen fun” and “very bonkers and deliriously entertaining,” which does seem to fall in line with the general consensus from critics. The movie had a festival run earlier this year that included the South by South Film Festival in March and came out of that with decent buzz and an 83 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes through 46 reviews. Whether or not that translates into mainstream success with audiences in the middle of August is a different story. Horror fans can be quite picky and critical with their horror movies. But this does come from NEON, who has developed a decent reputation as of late as a distributor of good low-budget horror films. They just celebrated their biggest opening yet with “Longlegs” at $22.4 million, which has since legged it out to beat “Parasite” for NEON’s highest grossing movie overall. “Cuckoo” won’t get that high, but if it can hit $10 million, that would be a win. That said, there have been a lot of 2024 horror films opening in the $5-8 million range, which wouldn’t be terrible for a low-budget film like this.

August 16 – 18

20th Century Studios' "Alien: Romulus"

In all likelihood, the reign of “Deadpool & Wolverine” will end this weekend with the release of Alien: Romulus. Even if “Deadpool & Wolverine” experiences excellent holds similar to “Black Panther,” that would leave it at a $42 million gross this weekend. More likely is a gross in the $20-30 million range, which “Alien: Romulus” should soar past. This is a franchise that has been around since the original “Alien” in 1979, which was followed up by its equally as beloved predecessor “Aliens” in 1986. And even though it’s been a bumpy road since, the franchise has remained popular and even the “lesser” more critically divided entries in “Prometheus” (2012) and “Alien: Covenant” (2017) still opened to $51.1 million and $36.2 million. Given that this is the first movie in the franchise to open since Disney got the rights after buying Fox, they should be happy to know that the buzz on this one has been quite positive as it feels like a return to form after the franchise has wandered for several decades. “Romulus” specifically takes place in between “Alien” and “Aliens” chronologically and seems to be taking notes from those two movies. While Ridley Scott, director of the original movie and the most recent two, is still on board as producer, Fede Alvarez has taken the torch as director this time and he’s found plenty of success in this horror realm, directing things like “Don’t Breathe” and the 2013 remake of “Evil Dead.” Pegged as the last blockbuster of the summer, this is expected to open in the $45-50 million range.

While “Alien: Romulus” is the big event film this weekend, it’s a bit murky as to what exactly is joining it in wide release, but it feels somewhat safe to start out by talking about penguins with My Penguin Friend, a PG-rated, family-friendly drama about a Brazilian fisherman who discovers an injured penguin and rescues it and brings it home to help it rehabilitate. This is a Brazilian film that is in the English language and is based on the true story of fisherman João Perei de Souza and the penguin Dindim, which went viral in 2016. The movie stars Jean Reno, who played Léon in “Léon: The Professional,” and Adriana Barraza, who got an Oscar nomination for the movie “Babel” in 2006. This is a mid-budgeted movie, so expectations probably aren’t too high, but it should at least be around in theaters near you. And it is a movie that I’ve seen advertised, so that’s at least something.

The last two are even more up in the air, but both the-numbers and Box Office Mojo claim Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure will be hitting wide release. The movie is being distributed by Falling Forward Films, which did distribute Nicolas Cage’s “The Retirement Plan” in 1,175 theaters last year. The movie is a live-action/animated hybrid film and is based on the Ryan’s World YouTube channel, which is a bit of a new concept. But said YouTube channel, which is directed towards kids, does have 37.4 million subscribers and also has a video from eight years ago titled “HUGE EGGS Surprise Toys Challenge with Inflatable water slide” that has over 2 billion views, so there is an audience here. The movie sees Ryan’s twin sisters get sucked into a mystical comic book, leaving Ryan no choice but to jump in after them, transforming him into an animated superhero in this comic universe, while Ryan’s live-action audience watches his adventures from their devices. How this will all translate into a mainstream audience is good question, but if there are kids who love this YouTube channel and want to convince their parents to take them to the movie, it again should be an option.

And finally we have the crime thriller Skincare, which is being distributed by IFC Films, which usually does smaller, platform releases instead of wide releases. But they did recently release the horror film “Oddity” in 790 theaters last month, as well as the 2022 film “God’s Country” in 785 theaters. So if this is a wide release, it’s likely more of a moderate release in this range, one that you might have to search for if you’re interested. The movie stars Elizabeth Banks as a famed aesthetician Hope Goldman who is about to launch her very own skincare line, but suddenly finds out that rival boutique has opened directly across from her, which sends her on a quest to find out. Both previously mentioned IFC Films that hit moderate release opened to less than $1 million, so that seems like it could be the case here as well. A movie you might find on streaming down the road if it doesn’t expand far enough for you to catch it in theaters.

August 23 – 25

Lionsgate’s "The Crow"

We’re now getting into the weeds of late August where a lot of things are just dumped onto the schedule. We’ll definitely see that more in the final week of the month, but this weekend looks like an “Alien: Romulus” repeat at the box office crown while others fight for spots in the top 10. However, there is at least one notable title, even if it’s not getting notable attention, and that’s the long-delayed remake of The Crow. The original movie, released in 1994, has become a bit of a cult classic as it has a decent-sized fan base, but did not do particularly well in theaters, opening to $11.8 million and grossing $50.6 million domestically. It might actually be most notable for it’s star Brandon Lee, son of legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, dying on set after being fatally wounded by a prop gun. The movie had to be completed through rewrites, a stunt double, and digital effects. The movie went on to spawn three sequels, only one of which was released theatrically. This remake has been in the works since 2008 to varying degrees. Upon finally finishing, Lionsgate has emphasized that it’s another adaptation of the original graphic novel rather than being a remake of the 1994 movie. The movie is directed by Rupert Sanders and stars Bill Skarsgard in the lead role. And despite the marketing having made an attempt to get the movie off the ground, this is another case of the interest level just not appearing to be there as the expectation is an opening in the $6-10 million range, which is certainly not what Lionsgate is hoping for.

Next up we have a psychological thriller from actress turned director Zoë Kravitz, titled Blink Twice. Zoë might best be known for her acting roles in the likes of “The Batman,” “Divergent,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Big Little Lies,” but she sees her first attempt at directing a film with this movie. She brings with her a decently large cast that’s led by Naomi Ackie playing a cocktail waitress named Frida who becomes infatuated with a tech billionaire named Christian Slater, played by Channing Tatum, at his fundraising gala. He then invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. All things are going well until the audience remembers that this is a psychological thriller and we suddenly have a group of people all alone on a private island, which means lots of things are going to go wrong and Frida is going to start questioning her reality and work on uncovering whatever truth is there if she’s going to make it out alive. Now looking at this, this does have the cast, crew, and premise to potentially be a surprise. But again, there’s been a lot of horrors and thrillers that have managed to open in the $5-8 million range this year and a late August release doesn’t exactly inspire a ton of confidence. This is distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, which means if you don’t catch it in theaters, there’s a high likelihood that it’ll end up on Amazon Prime at some point before the year is over.

The third release of the weekend sees the return of the Kendrick Brothers, with their latest film The Forge. The Kendrick Brothers, Alex and Stephen Kendrick, have been making these Christian films dating back to 2006 with “Facing the Giants” and have since made things like “Fireproof,” “Courageous,” and “War Room.” They all pretty much have the same basic premise, with a slightly different setting. Life is hard for a character as they face a certain challenge, but when they come to Jesus and accept Christ into their life, he’s able to help them solve their life’s problems. This movie’s character is a kid named Isaiah who recently graduated high school, but has no real plans for the future and needs to start making better life decisions. Now the Kendrick Brothers have actually had decent success in the past in his exact slot. “War Room” opened to $11.4 million in late August 2015, but then held really well and actually took the top spot the following weekend, eventually making $67.8 million domestically. In 2019, “Overcomer” also opened in late August and earned $8.1 million in its opening weekend. That said, in 2021, “Show Me the Father” only opened to $700,181 from 1,073 theaters, but that might be a COVID recovery issue. So no guarantee for success here, but if the movie has a decent grassroots campaign, there’s the potential to surprise, at least in regards to the competition with new releases.

Finally, we have Lionsgate possibly competing with themselves this weekend as, in addition to releasing “The Crow,” they also have plans on releasing the mystery comedy Greedy People. Although if I were to guess, I’d say “The Crow” will be in as many theaters as possible while “Greedy People” might be a more moderate release in a few hundred theaters. I wasn’t initially going to put this on here because different sites disagree on how wide or limited this will be, but I did notice it had quite the cast listing with Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Himesh Patel, Simon Rex, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Gaffigan, and others. On the poster specifically is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Himesh Patel as two cops and the trailers show them investigating a murder and discovering a large sum of money, with a whole lot of things going wrong. And yes, this does appear to be very heavy on the comedy in its approach to this buddy cop/murder mystery film.

August 30 – Sep 2

Sony's "AfrAId"

And now we arrive at the final weekend of the month. And since September 1 is on a Sunday this year, that means Labor Day comes early this year, on September 2, making this the four-day Labor Day weekend, which has historically been very spotty as Hollywood usually avoids the weekend. Recent history has shown that it is actually possible to do well here if you put a movie on the schedule that people are excited about rather than treating it like a dumping ground weekend, but that doesn’t appear to be what happened this time around, thus your guess is as good as mine in regards to what ends up at No. 1. Could it be “Alien: Romulus” for a third weekend? Could “Deadpool & Wolverine” actually rise back up to No. 1 if it stabilizes in future weeks while “Romulus” could be a bit front-loaded? My model says “Deadpool & Wolverine” could be looking at a $10-15 million 3-day weekend, meaning those two movies could be in a battle. Or is one of the SIX new wide releases going to make a splash and take the weekend?

I don’t know if there is going to be a new movie that takes the crown, but if there is, it seems likely that it is the horror movie AfrAId, which is stylized a bit funny there. If you couldn’t tell, it’s the word “Afraid,” with the AI capitalized. Or I’m also seeing the whole title capitalized with “AI” in italics, and in a different color (red vs. black). However you stylize it, the point here is to emphasize the Artificial Intelligence in the title, as the movie is about a family who is chosen to test a new smart home AI, called AIA. And, of course, as this is a sci-fi horror film about rogue AI, the machine they’re testing becomes a little too involved in their lives. The premise of technology taking over the world has been a thing in movies pretty much since new technology has become better. I guess there’s the idea in the back of people’s minds of the horror of technology becoming too much and that has translated over into film many times over. This movie comes via Blumhouse, who is really good at making a quick buck off of a low-budget horror movies and they’re pushing the connection to M3GAN here, a similarly themed horror film that opened to $30.4 million. That’s, of course, the dream here, but anything around the $10 million range is probably going to be considered a success.

Given the timing of the upcoming election season, another movie to possibly look out for is the historical biopic Reagan, about the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. This is bound to be quite divisive, as Reagan is seen as the gold standard by most Republican politicians, who also seem to bring him up in their election speeches, while also being seen as one of the worst modern-day presidents by many on the Democratic side. Without making this a political post, I’ll just say that divisiveness often leads to good success at the box office. And given the liberal nature of a lot of critics, this is bound to be a movie that is trashed by critics and praised by a lot of audiences. Many might choose to see it just to be a part of the conversation. From an objective filmmaking standpoint, though, this is directed by Sean McNamara. And when you look at his filmography as a director, he has a long list of very low quality movies, with the occasional hit, so that doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence, but that might not matter much here. Dennis Quaid is playing Ronald Reagan in the movie, so there’s a positive in regards to the movie’s lead actor.

Another movie to potentially look out for, again based on the subject matter alone, is the movie 1992, which was originally titled “April 29, 1992,” which is a reference to the first night of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the unrest following the Rodney King verdict. The movie follows two different families caught in the crossfire of all of it, one being a father trying to restore his relationship with his son and the other being a father and son planning a heist at the other father’s workplace. The movie is directed by Ariel Vromen and stars Tyrese Gibson, Scott Eastwood, and Ray Liotta. This was the final film that Ray Liotta shot back before he died in May 2022. He had finished all of his scenes in this movie before he died, so this movie has been on the shelf for a little while. According to IMDb, it even had a brief premier at the Harmony Gold Theatre in Los Angeles back in October 2022. I’m not sure what happened to it in the meantime, but Lionsgate is finally unloading it off their schedule here at the end of August, which again is usually not the best sign.

Next we have a pair of sports films getting released. Although the first of which might just have the sportsing as a brief backdrop and that’s the movie City of Dreams. Inspired by a true story, this tells the story of a Mexican boy whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he’s smuggled across the border and sold into a sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles, where he is forced to work a grueling 18-hour work day under a boss who theoretically promises freedom to those who fulfill their quotas, although our main kid quickly realizes that his only actual way out is by figuring out a way to escape. So yeah, this is more of a crime thriller here. And another movie that has sat on the shelf for a while before being dumped at the end of August as it premiered last March at the Mammoth Film Festival and is finally being dumped here by Roadside Attractions. Although the few reviews it does have seems like it’ll lean positive, so perhaps it has a chance of some sort of life either in theaters or on streaming afterwards.

The other actual sports movie here is You Gotta Believe, which seems to be a bit of a traditional, run-of-the-mill baseball story. It’s about a Little League baseball team of misfits that dedicate their season to one of their player’s dying father and eventually do the impossible by making it to the Little League World Series in a final game that, according to IMDb’s description, became an instant ESPN classic. The movie is rated PG, so a solid option for families. And it does have Luke Wilson and Greg Kinnear, so a solid cast with a feel-good story potential. But it doesn’t seem to have much of a marketing footprint yet. I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia page for the movie and the trailer currently only has 373,000 views from Well Go USA Entertainment, the movie’s distributor. So that’s what leads me to believe that this will be more of a smaller to moderate release rather than a movie that’s going to be released everywhere.

And finally, in what is most likely another small to moderate release, we have the space movie Slingshot. This is distributed by Bleecker Street, so the release strategy could go either way, but it stars Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Tomer Capone as astronauts who are on a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Along this multi-year journey, that could potentially be a fatally endangered mission, one of the astronauts seems to start losing grip on reality. And that is about as much plot detail as I can discover, even by watching the trailers, but I’m sure there’s a few other layers to this space adventure. Honestly it reminds me a bit of the Adam Sandler space movie “Spaceman” that debuted on Netflix earlier this year, as well as “I.S.S.,” a space movie that was released in theaters in January. So there’s been a few of these smaller space movies scattered through 2024. In regards to a comparison, “I.S.S.” opened to $3.1 million and was also distributed by Bleecker Street, so that seems like a fair mark for “Slingshot.” Although “I.S.S.” was released during an empty weekend in January with no other new wide releases and thus managed 2,520 theaters. With six new releases on this weekend total, as well as all the holdovers from the month, “Slingshot” might not have the luxury of that many theaters. But if Bleecker Street actually stars marketing the movie, maybe it can catch some attention.