Movie Preview: January 2025

The year 2024 has come and gone and we are currently just over a week into the brand new year. As such, I will soon begin to work on my yearly preview of 2025 as a whole, but before I do that, it’s time to take a deeper look into our very first month of the year – January 2025.

January is always an interesting month. There’s always three major story lines when it comes to what movies will be playing at your local theater throughout the month. The first is that there are always plenty of holiday holdovers. Second is the movies that open in limited release at the end of the previous year and expand during January around when Oscar nominations get announced. And the third, of course, is the brand new releases in January. The holiday holdovers this year include “Mufasa,” “Sonic 3,” “Nosferatu,” “Moana 2,” and “Wicked” – the five movies currently occupying the top five spots at the domestic box office. That group helped December earn $977 million total, the second highest month of the behind only July’s $1.18 billion total. And it brought the year as a whole to $8.56 billion, just short of 2023’s $8.91 billion. Prior to COVID hitting in 2020, the five years leading up to that all finished in the $11 billion range, so we’re not quite at were we used to be, but we’re not too far off.

In this monthly preview, we’ll focus mostly on the expanding releases and the new releases. That provides movie-going audiences with quite the variety of things to see. The new releases in January historically aren’t usually the most high quality movies as January is often one of those dumping ground months. But that’s balanced out with plenty of the awards hopefuls that strategically open in limited release to qualify for the Oscars, but then wait until January to open wide when the competition isn’t as high and/or when they can take advantage of the Oscar nominations to boost their profile. So that all leaves us with plenty to talk about as we dive in and explore this month!

As always, release date information for this post 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.

January 3 – 5

Vertical Entertainment's "The Damned"

You may have noticed that I am again a week late putting this post out. I often like getting this post out before or during the first weekend of the month. As such, last week I went to work on this… and noticed that the first weekend of January had no new releases that were opening in at least 1,000 theaters. So there wasn’t much to talk about in that regard, thus I allowed myself a bit of extra time before I did this as the first part of January wound up being fairly busy for me.

In recapping the weekend, the ongoing battle of “Mufasa” and “Sonic 3” turned in the favor of “Mufasa” this weekend. “Sonic 3” had taken the first two weekends, but wound up being more front-loaded as fans of the franchise turned out more on opening weekend rather than waiting around. That’s often the case with popular, established IP, so there’s no surprise there. With “Mufasa,” demand for a prequel to the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” wasn’t incredibly high, which led to the low opening weekend. But as word of mouth came out as more positive than expected, that led to a more back-loaded run as more families decided to give it a chance in ensuing weekends. And as noted in the intro, “Nosferatu,” “Moana 2” and “Wicked” rounded out the top five.

The new release that wound up with the highest opening was The Damned, an Icelandic horror film that opened in 732 theaters. It’s described as a movie about a 19th-century widow having to make an impossible choice, during an especially cruel winter, when a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village. It wasn’t particularly well received by those who did see it as it wound up with a 65 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.2 on IMDb. Not terrible, but not great. The overall result was it opening down in 13th place with just $769,721.

January 10 – 12

Lionsgate's "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera"

The first new major wide release of the new year is Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, a sequel to a movie that maybe most people didn’t expect to actually get a sequel, but “Den of Thieves” was a January action film released back in 2018 that didn’t necessarily do particularly well. The movie is a heist film where a… den of thieves… set out to pull off a heist of the Federal Reserve Bank. The thieves were led by Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and 50 Cent, while Gerard Butler led the LA police force in stopping them. The movie opened to $15.2 million in January 2018 and finished with $44.9 million domestically and $80.1 million worldwide. On a budget of $30 million, that was apparently enough to justify a second go-around. Although it took a few years, waited for a pandemic, and bounced around a few different studios before landing at Lionsgate. STX distributed the first movie and they sold the rights in 2023, initially to Briarcliff before it ended up with Lionsgate. But in this sequel, the escaped thieves are off to Europe to attempt another heist. And our LA police officer played by Gerard Butler has followed them there. Because, you know, why not? The first weekend of January saw “Mufasa” at the No. 1 spot with $23.5 million. And with the way that’s been holding, it might be in for a weekend total of $14-18 million, meaning that “Den of Thieves 2” is going to have to match or exceed the opening of its predecessor if it wants to take away that top spot. And it remains to be seen what the interest in this now franchise is after a five year gap between the first and the second movie, so it seems likely to take a backseat while “Mufasa” reigns for one more week.

[UPDATE: I typed this section before the weekend was finished and before I officially saw what the box office numbers are. I decided I wanted to keep my thoughts in tact. But the update here is that “Den of Thieves 2” won the weekend with just over $15 million, matching the debut of the first, while “Mufasa” fell to second with $14.2 million, a drop of 39 percent, which is its steepest so far and was thus on the lower end of what I projected. “Game Changer” opened to $2.1 million while “Better Man” earned $1.1 million in its first weekend of wide release. “The Last Showgirl” continued to not report numbers, but I can confirm via my local theater that it does, in fact, exist.]

While “Den of Thieves 2” is the only new major wide release, the Indian film Game Changer will also be released in an as-of-yet unknown number of theaters. As I’ve mentioned in the past, these films from India aren’t necessarily the best at reporting box office numbers or advertising their existence to the mainstream. They just kinda show up, make a few million in a weekend or two, then bow out. The most recent one was “Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2,” which opened to $4.8 million in 1,245 theaters. “Game Changer” isn’t a “Part 2,” so I don’t know if it’s going to open that high or in that many theaters, but we’ll see when the weekend is complete. It’s about an IAS officer trying to fight against a corrupt political system in another three-hour adventure. The trailer gives vibes of a one-man army with some crazy action sequences and random music and dance numbers. So, you know, par for the course.

That’s it for new releases, but as mentioned in the intro, another big story of this month is the expanding 2024 releases and this weekend will see a pair of those that will hit wide release. The first of those two is Better Man, which has been hanging out in 6 theaters since Christmas and will now expand into 1,289 theaters. This tells the story of British singer/songwriter Robbie Williams, who started his music career in the late 1990s and has since released 12 studio albums, the most recent of which was released in 2019. This is one of two musical biopics currently in theaters at the moment, the other being “A Complete Unknown,” which tells the story of Bob Dylan. So audiences currently have the option of heading out to learn about both Bob Dylan and Robbie Williams. What makes “Better Man” unique is that Robbie Williams is portrayed as an anthropomorphic chimpanzee using CGI and motion capture. Jonno Davies does the motion capture work in the movie, while Davies and Robbie Williams himself team up to provide the vocal work.

The other expansion this weekend is The Last Showgirl expanding into 780 theaters. Box office data wasn’t reported for the movie while it was in limited released, so I don’t know how many theaters it was in or how much it made, but it is eligible for the 2024 Oscars and is being reported as an expansion and not a new release, so I’m confident that it had a release of some sort at the end of December. The movie’s title is fairly descriptive in this instance. It’s about a showgirl who has had a successful 30 year run, but not has to plan her next steps after the show abruptly closes. Pamela Anderson is in the lead role here and while the movie itself hasn’t had a ton of awards buzz, Pamela Anderson’s performance actually has. She got a best actress nomination at both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards and now the attention turns to see if she can earn the label of Oscar-nominated actress Pamela Anderson.

January 17 – 20

Universal's "Wolf Man"

Monday, January 20 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, meaning it’s a four-day holiday weekend at the box office. Often in January that’s the busiest box office weekend of the month. This year it’ll be led by the new horror film Wolf Man. Universal has been attempting or desiring to create a new Universal Monster cinematic universe for some time now. And I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, but it is the second adaptation of a classic Universal Monster movie from director Leigh Whannell, with the previous one being 2020’s “The Invisible Man,” which both performed well at the box office and was well regarded from critics and audiences. The movie only had three weekends in theaters before its run got cut short due to COVID, but it still managed $64.9 million domestically and $139 million worldwide in those three weeks, which considering its $7 million production budget is excellent. Plenty of success for Leigh Whannell and Universal to justify doing another one of these. The premise here is pretty self-explanatory. The movie is a modern remake of the 1941 movie “The Wolf Man.” Family gets attacked by a werewolf at night and man gets clawed by said werewolf and starts turning into a werewolf himself. The movie initially had Ryan Gosling attached to star, but he left and was replaced by Christopher Abbott. Whannell himself also left for a bit due to scheduling conflicts before coming back, so this has had plenty of production drama. “The Invisible Man” opened to $28.2 million back in 2020, which is about the range that “Wolf Man” is being projected to open around

The other new wide release for the weekend is the comedy One of Them Days, starring Keke Palmer and SZA as two roommates whose rent money gets blown by one of their boyfriends, causing them to go the extremes to avoid eviction and keep their friendship in tact. Comedies of late have had a really hard time in theaters. It seems that, for the most part, that’s a genre that people have become conditioned to watching mostly on streaming. In fact, Adam Sandler has found a very strong niche on Netflix with his comedies and they don’t even get released in theaters anymore. Every once in a while there’s a theatrical comedy that breaks out, but that’s few and far between and hard to predict. Recent examples of comedies in the calendar in this time of year include “Drive-Away Dolls” last February opening to $2.4 million, while the remake of “House Party” in January 2023 opened to $3.9 million. Best case scenario might be the Jennifer Lawrence comedy “No Hard Feelings” opening to $15 million in June 2023, but that was both a summer movie and had a huge movie star in Jennifer Lawrence. The biggest name “One of Them Days” has is SZA. And she’s of course a really popular singer, but can that translate into box office success? I’m guessing not. But this might be a movie that finds success on streaming later in the year.

Those two movies are it for new releases this weekend, but as I’ve mentioned several times in this post, there will be a handful of movies expanding this month due to the Oscars. And Oscar nominations will be announced during this weekend, on Sunday, January 19. Initially the plan was for the announcement to be on Friday, the 17th, but the voting period was extended two days due to the Los Angeles fires, and as such the announcement was postponed two days, from Friday to Sunday. Expect movies that get Oscar nominations to expand into more theaters to take advantage of the awards buzz to make themselves more widely available. Given the timing of the announcements on a Sunday morning, it remains to be seen if said movies will expand during this weekend or the following weekend.

Officially listed on the-numbers.com’s release schedule for a wide expansion this weekend is September 5, a movie that chronicles the 1972 Munich massacre terrorist attack at the Summer Olympics, from the vantage point of the ABC Sports crew that were covering the events. This movie is based on the same events that are the subject of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 movie “Munich.”

While “September 5” is the only movie officially listed for expansion on the site, other movies that have not yet had a wide release, and are currently hiding in less than 100 theaters include, but are not limited to, “The Brutalist,” “Nickel Boys,” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and “Santosh.” The french animated movie “Flow” has been slightly more widely available than those movies listed. It was released at the end of November and has had a max theater count of 377. If it gets the nominations expected for animated feature and international feature, it could expand further as well. Also, movies like “Anora,” “A Real Pain,” “Conclave” and “The Substance” have already had a wide release in the latter half of 2024, but could return to more theaters. Again, these movies could be this weekend or next weekend. And how many theaters they add is not yet known. But if you’re wanting to catch up on the awards movies you haven’t seen yet, this could be a good opportunity to do so.

January 24 – 26

Lionsgate's "Flight Risk"

While a lot of the big releases and expansions in January take place over the holiday weekend, with maybe some additional expansions this weekend, given the timing of the Oscar nominations, the movies coming out this fourth weekend of January definitely feel like… a January. Not to say there isn’t any quality here. It’s just that it’s common for studios to just dump things in January to get them out of the way. And it doesn’t look like any of these four new releases have a ton of potential at the box office.

With that said, the movie that seems to have the most potential is the suspense thriller Flight Risk. This sees the return of Mel Gibson to the director’s chair in what feels like the most unheralded and unceremonious return of his career. Not saying the movie going to be bad, but usually Mel Gibson is a much bigger deal. He’s only directed five previous movies and those movies are “The Man Without a Face,” “Braveheart,” “The Passion of the Christ,” “Apocalypto,” and “Hacksaw Ridge.” And now nearly a decade after “Hacksaw Ridge,” he’s come back with… a small plane thriller that’s being dumped in January? It’s just a bit odd, is all. Eventually he has a sequel to “The Passion of the Christ,” which is about the resurrection, but that’s either later this year or early next year. Anyways, as described by Lionsgate, “Flight Risk” is about a pilot (Mark Wahlberg) transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a fugitive (Topher Grace). As the flight goes on, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem. And if you’ve watched the trailer, you’ll know exactly what they mean by that. And maybe they’ve spoiled the big reveal in the advertising? I guess you’ve gotta advertise the movie somehow. And if interest level didn’t seem particularly high, perhaps Lionsgate felt the need to do something to get people’s attention here.

What I haven’t mentioned in this post yet is that the Sundance Film Festival will begin at the end of this month, starting January 23 and going through February 2. And while that doesn’t effect directly affect the theatrical releases this weekend, I point it out because the second wide release this weekend is a horror film from last year’s Sundance Film Festival, NEON’s Presence. This is a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh, who continues to play around with the genre quite a bit. And this time around he’s taken the traditional haunted house story and flipped it to a degree where it’s a haunting movie from the perspective of the ghost or the spirit rather than the people living in the house. That’s a premise that sounds a bit like the A24 film “A Ghost Story” from last decade, although that movie was more of an unconventional drama and not really a horror film. Soderbergh’s last movie was “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” and that opened to $8.3 million in February 2023. Prior to that, most of Soderbergh’s movies went straight to streaming. The last theatrical release outside “Last Dance” was “Unsane” in 2018, which opened to $3.8 million. He hasn’t had a movie open north of $10 million since 2012, so he hasn’t been a huge theatrical draw. And that doesn’t seem likely to change here. However, NEON purchased this film for just $5 million, so on their end, the bar for success isn’t exactly super high.

It’s been three months in a row now where I’ve brought up Angel Studios in this post, so they’ve remained pretty consistent in releasing new movies as of late. Their movie this month is called Brave the Dark and is about a troubled teen with a dark past that has led to him getting into a lot of legal troubles. He’s bailed out of jail and taken in by his drama teacher, who is trying to work with him to help him get his life straightened out. While Angel Studios has been consistent in releasing movies, they’ve also been rather consistent in how much those movies have made. They released nine total movies in 2023 and 2024 combined. And seven of those movies have been between $10-20 million total domestically. The two outliers on both ends are “Sound of Freedom” exploding to the tune of $184.2 million domestically, while “Sight” made just $7.2 million. So statistically it seems likely that this opens around $5 million and ends up finishing between $12-15 million. The movie actually premiered back in 2023 to a few smaller film festivals, so it’s one that’s been around on the shelves and in production for a while now.

Rounding things out, GKIDS will be releasing the anime film The Colors Within. The movie is about a high school student named Totsuko who as the ability to see people as colors and becomes particularly fascinated with her classmate Kimi. The two of them end up joining a band with another student and develop their friendship while writing and playing music. The movie was released in Japan back in August 2024 and has its worldwide release handled by a few different distributors, but as mentioned its GKIDS that’s handling the North American release. Looking back at other movies GKIDS has distributed here, in 2020 and 2022 they released “Weathering with You” and “Belle” in those respective Januarys. The two movies opened similarly, with $1.8 million and $1.5 million. Anime here in the states is sometimes hard to predict. Everyone once in a while something breaks out and does really good in comparison, but it’s still more of a niche audience at the moment. Certainly no where as close to as big as it is in other countries, especially over in Asia.

January 31 – February 2

DreamWorks Animation's "Dog Man"

The final weekend of January has one day in January and the other two days in February. I always count the weekend in the month that it begins in for those posts. That’ll split things up nicely for January and February. Four weekends for January and four weekends for February, given that there were no new releases in the first weekend of January. Anyways, in previous years the first Sunday in February was the home of the Super Bowl and that meant a not so good weekend for movies, unless they counter-programmed. But the NFL recently added a week to their schedule and that pushes the Super Bowl to the second weekend of February, which is February 9 this year.

That leaves this weekend wide open and it should rather easily be lead by the new DreamWorks movie Dog Man. If you have any younger kids around in your life, you might be aware of this one. This animated movie is based on a series of books, or graphic novels, that currently has 13 installments. They come from author Dave Pilkey, who is the author of the Captain Underpants series. In fact, Dog Man come into existence inside of the Captain Underpants series, first showing up in “Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers” when George and Harold get sent to detention and make their first comic: “The Adventures of Dog Man.” That book was back in 2012. Dog Man got its first official solo outing in 2016 and the general idea is that this is a new hero with the head of a dog and the body of a human, first created when an officer and his dog are injured together on the job and get a life-saving surgery that puts them literally together. In regards to DreamWorks and the Captain Underpants movie realm, the first Captain Underpants movie came out in June of 2017. It wasn’t necessarily DreamWorks’ biggest hit. It opened to $23.9 million and finished with $73.9 million domestically. But it continued via a Netflix series beginning the next year that so far has had three seasons and several spin-off specials. So it’s maintained its popularity. Box Office Pro, in their long range forecast, has pegged “Dog Man” to open in the $25-35 million range, which aligns with the Captain Underpants movies, especially if you adjust a bit for inflation.

Pairing up with “Dog Man” this weekend is the psychological thriller Companion, a movie in which the trailer has a lot of fun with. It starts out making you think that it’s a cute, romantic comedy for Valentine’s Day, playing some sweet music and saying that it’s from the studio that brought you “The Notebook” and is cordially inviting you to experience a new type of love story… before shifting tones and revealing that this is actually more of a horror film with Jack Quaid playing some sort of psychopath who has these humans trapped, then reveals that this is from the unhinged creators of “Barbarian.” I don’t know exactly what’s going on, nor do I want to dive too deeply so that I don’t accidentally spoil the experience the movie has in store. What I do know is that Jack Quaid seems like he’s having fun here. In addition to being in the 2022 “Scream” movie and the Amazon Prime series “The Boys,” he made an appearance in “Oppenheimer,” has done some voice work for “Star Trek: Lower Decks” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and has this movie and the movie “Novocaine” in March. So he’s an actor who’s definitely having a moment. If this movie did follow the trajectory of fellow Warner Bros movie “Barbarian,” that opened to $10.5 million in September 2022. The $8-12 million range seems to be where a lot of horror movies are landing these days for their opening weekends.

Finishing off this month, we have the war thriller Valiant One, which is about a US helicopter that crashes in North Korea, which then sees the surviving soldiers and others have to find their way out on their own, given that they’re not going to get a lot of military support while in North Korea. This doesn’t appear to be based on anything, and doesn’t have a cast or crew with many recognizable names. So expectations probably aren’t too high and is one of those movies that’s just getting thrown into the end of January. It’s also being distributed by Briarcliff Entertainment, a smaller studio who has yet to have a movie make more than $10 million at the domestic box office. In October of last year, they released “The Apprentice,” which opened in 10th place to $1.6 million, then in December they opened the horror film Werewolves in 11th place with just over $1 million. So that’s the type of release we’re looking at here.

Movie Preview: December 2024

We have arrived at the final month of the year. And that comes on the heels of a massively successful Thanksgiving season that was, in terms of box office totals, the biggest ever. During the month I did a couple of deep dives on my personal Facebook page in regards to an analysis of this box office phenomenon, so I’ll forgo getting into it too much here, but nevertheless, while going into the month many were trying to make “Glicked” happen (“Gladiator II” + “Wicked”), in a parallel way to “Barbenheimer” from last year, it was instead “Wicked” and “Moana 2” that put on quite the show, giving the end of November two $100+ million openings in back-to-back weekends, opening just five days apart, with “Gladiator II” being a decently successful third wheel to the party.

Now as we move onto December and into the Christmas season, I project that there will be a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers to go around. This duo of “Wicked” and “Moana 2” might be the driving force throughout December, too, especially since there’s not really a December release on the scale of a Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man that we’ve seen in Decembers past. But as this post is focused on the releases that do exist on the calendar, I’ll say that there is quite the wide variety of releases that exist, it’s just that most of them will come with a bit of an interesting conversation with no guaranteed success as opposed to the broadly appealing Hollywood blockbusters that we often see at this time of year, and did see during Thanksgiving. But hey, even if excitement levels might vary, the polarizing nature of many of these definitely gives us plenty to talk about in this post, so lets dive in and explore what’s out there!

As always, release date information for this post 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.

December 6 – 8

A24's "Y2K"

This first weekend of December is already in the books. The weekend was dominated by the aforementioned Thanksgiving holdovers as “Moana 2,” “Wicked,” “Gladiator II” and “Red One” took the top four spots. I actually had this part of the post typed up before the weekend started, but got busy with various things. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t too concerned about getting this post out before this weekend because most of the fun happens closer to Christmas. The first weekend of December is often dominated by the Thanksgiving slate. Hollywood usually avoids this weekend in regards to bigger release in order to give a bit more breathing room before the Christmas blockbusters. As such, there were no new releases that opened above $5 million. Most of them opened below $3 million and in a slightly different order than I expected, so with the benefit of hindsight, I went back and re-wrote this. But there are a lot of them, so buckle up. I go through these quick.

The highest-grossing new release was the Tegulu-language film Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2. This opened in fifth place with an estimated $4.8 million from 1,245 theaters. I say estimated because actual results weren’t posted for this one. There are a lot of these Indian films that come out and I don’t often cover them. And that’s not out of a lack of desire, but many of them come out of nowhere with little to no mainstream advertising or scheduled release dates. The American distributors for these do a great job of opening these movies in specific locations where their target audience shows up, leading to high per-theater totals despite the low theater counts. But reporting numbers is not something they do good at. They sometimes even only post the first weekend results, and usually only the estimates. So it’s hard to project and forecast. But nevertheless, this movie is a sequel to the 2021 film “Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1.” It’s about a character named Pushpa Raj, who is a smuggler that works in the realm of smuggling red sandalwood, rising up in the smuggling industry while avoiding the authorities. Both are three-hour Indian action films. And if you’ve seen movies like “RRR,” you’ll know that these long and silly Indian action films are quite common in Indian cinema.

Despite opening in just 846 theaters, the next highest new release was Solo Leveling: The ReAwakening. This opened in seventh place with $2.5 million. In between this and “Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2” was actually the IMAX re-release of “Interstellar,” which pulled in $4.6 million from 165 IMAX theaters. But back to “Solo Leveling,” this started as a South Korean portal fantasy web novel in 2016 and was then adaptated into a webtoon in 2018. Season 1 of the anime series adaptation was released earlier this year beginning in January and has 12 episodes. “Solo Leveling: ReAwakening” is actually a recap of Season 1 that tacks on the first two episodes of Season 2, which starts in January of 2025. So anyone who was a fan of Season 1 can head out to theaters to get a head start on Season 2

Sliding in right after “Solo Leveling” is actually not a movie, but rather the concert film For King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas. Taylor Swift certainly popularized this current trend of recording one of your concerts and putting it into theaters. She wasn’t the first to do something like that, but with how much she made that has certainly inspired more to give it a try. This concert film from For King + Country was recorded at one of their performances in the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, and pulled in $2.3 million from 1,540 theaters. The popular Christian band also made a movie about their story called “Unsung Hero,” which was released back in April. It was more about their parents discovering their sister’s talents, but it was written and directed by Joel Smallbone, one of the brothers in the duo. In 2025, they will apparently be going on a brief touring hiatus to work on their next musical project and next movie.

The movie that I initially had first in this post was the horror comedy Y2K. And I listed it first because it was the movie that was released in the most theaters – 2,108. In fact, it was the only new release to open in over 2,000 theaters. So if you managed to go to your local theater this past weekend, there’s a good chance you saw posters for it or noticed it on the box office kiosk when you purchased your tickets. But the box office numbers indicate that you may have also chose to skip it and see something else because this one did not connect with audiences, nor did it gain their interest. The movie is a horror comedy about the Y2K crisis. If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about there, back in 1999 a lot of people were worried about what would happen when the calendar turned over to the year 2000. Nothing actually happened. But there did exist conspiracy theorists who thought something would. This movie is comedy in the vein of “Superbad,” but portrays a high school New Years Eve party where the appliances and technology all come to life and start killing all the teenagers at this party. And maybe it’s a premise that would’ve worked had it come out closer to the actual year 2000. But in 2024, it just didn’t connect. It probably didn’t help that on Rotten Tomatoes the critics score was 44 percent and the audience score was 49 percent. So poor word of mouth from those who did go that resulted in a ninth place finish with just $2.1 million.

Rounding out the top 10 was the holdover “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” pulling in another $1.5 million. Just outside the top 10 in eleventh place with $1.1 million was the final wide release of the weekend, Werewolves, which opened in 1,351 theaters. I guess people just weren’t in the mood for horror-related projects this weekend. The Halloween spirit has evaporated. Or maybe this one just wasn’t advertised very well. It’s almost exactly what it seems like. It’s a monster movie about werewolves. Specifically it’s about two scientists who are trying to stop a mutation that turns people into werewolves after being touched by a super-moon the year before. There weren’t a lot of critics who reviewed this one. Just like there wasn’t a lot of humans overall that went into see it. But of the 35 critics on Rotten Tomatoes that submitted a review, they were split down the middle as it has a 51 percent score. This might be the type of movie that ends up on a streaming service somewhere, but theaters was not the place that it performed well.

And just for fun, just to show how many other movies showed up in moderate release this weekend, Vertical Entertainment released The Order into 603 theaters, earning $877,855. We had another concert movie released, with Laufey’s A Night at the Symphony: Hollywood Bowl, which captured one of her recent performances with the LA Philharmonic, which played in 133 theaters and made $845,370. The documentary RM: Right People, Wrong Place opened in 595 theaters and made $626,534. Its subject is BTS leader RM. The Return, an adaptation of the second half of “The Odyssey,” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche as Odysseus and Penelope, opened in 629 theaters and made $361,507. Trailer Park Boys Presents: Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties was released in 285 theaters and made $210,000. And finally, the horror comedy Get Away, which stars Nick Frost and is about a family that goes on vacation to an island that winds up being inhabited by a serial killer, opened in 474 theaters and made $104,976. If I counted right, that’s a total of 11 new movies that opened in at least 100 theaters. You might find an interesting combination at them at your local theater as you go see the other big releases. Now onto the next weekend!

December 13 – 15

Sony's "Kraven the Hunter"

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that there’s not really a movie on the scale of a Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man coming out this month. Well, the word “scale” was the most important there because with Spider-Man, I was referring to the December 2021 release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which opened to $260 million domestically. No, there is not a movie of that scale getting release this month. But there is a Spider-Man movie coming out. Or Spider-Man adjacent, that is. And that’s Sony’s release of Kraven the Hunter, the latest in their series of Spider-Man villains and other characters getting their own movie without the presence of Spider-Man. Kraven the Hunter has been around in the comics since 1964 as one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes. He’s typically a big-game hunter whose goal in life is to beat Spider-Man and prove himself as the world’s greatest hunter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson will be playing him in this film and he’ll be hunting… something. Not Spider-Man in this movie. But they’ll give his origin story here and we’ll see where and how they use him in the future. I’d say I’m not sure what Sony’s overall plan is, but honestly I don’t know if Sony knows what their plan is. It seems they’re throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and most of it isn’t sticking. In this realm of movies, “Morbius” opened to $39 million, which itself was seen as a disappointment. But that looks great in comparison to “Madame Web,” which opened to just $15.3 million earlier this year. The Venom movies have done well, but even the third one opened to just $51 million, which is a far cry lower than the first two, which opened to $80 million and $90 million, respectively. So there’s not been a whole lot of optimism or excitement for “Kraven the Hunter.” And it having been delayed several times doesn’t help it’s case. It’s tracking to open higher than “Madame Web,” but that’s not a particularly high bar. They have leaned into the R-rating this time. We’ll see if that hurts or helps. Many fans wanted “Morbius” and “Venom” to get that rating, so those fans will get their wish in that regard with “Kraven.”

I do find my intro a tad bit amusing in context of this weekend. I say no movie on the scale of Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man. But there was kind of a Spider-Man movie opening this weekend and it’s paired with a Lord of the Rings movie as the franchise returns to the animated realm with The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Again, scale is the key word here, though. All of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies opened in December. The average opening of the six movies is $65.8 million, yet this one is tracking to open in the $5-10 million range. I feel the reasoning behind that is a combination of awareness not being super high and people being not quite sure what to do with this. Movie adaptations of Lord of the Rings started as animation before the live-action movies came out, so it’s not like that’s completely unique. What is unique is that this movie is anime-style specifically. And thus it seems like it will perform more like an anime film rather than a Lord of the Rings film. Anime is increasing in popularity here in the states, but it’s still not the most popular medium, comparatively. A lot of them open in the $5-10 million range, give or take a bit, with the highest hitting around $20-30 million. If this movie hit the latter range, that would probably be considered a huge success, but it isn’t seeming likely. In regards to story, this is set 183 years before the original trilogy and tells the story of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan. Not helping this movie’s case is that recent trips to Middle Earth haven’t exactly been received as warmly. The original trilogy is a classic to many. The Hobbit movies… not so much. And “The Rings of Power” has had two seasons of mostly mixed reviews. So the Middle Earth novelty has maybe worn off a bit. People might be waiting for something more universally praised, which hasn’t quite been “The War of the Rohirrim” so far as early reviews have it sitting around 65 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Not terrible, but not great, either.

December 20 – 22

Disney's "Mufasa: The Lion King"

While the prior weekend gives us an appetizer into familiar franchises leading up to Christmas, the weekend right before Christmas, which is on a Wednesday this year, is where the real party begins. Again, holdovers are certain to still be strong throughout the season. But in terms of the two big new releases, it’s poised to be a battle of two major family films, both of which are tracking to open in a similar range. But I’ll start here by talking about Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the 2019 remake focusing on the origins of Mufasa. “The Lion King” has been one of Disney’s biggest films ever since its release ever since its release 30 years ago, so it makes sense that they keep returning to it in various ways. And despite the very mixed reaction to the 2019 movie (and “mixed” might be putting it nicely), the branding was still very strong as it opened to $191.8 million domestically and finished with $543.6 million domestically and $1.661 billion worldwide, one of the biggest box office performances ever, currently standing at No. 10 on the all-time worldwide box office chart. And if you know Disney well enough, you know from the moment that happened that they weren’t going to let that go without a follow-up of some sort. And they had options of what to do here and they ultimately decided on the prequel route, telling the story of how Mufasa and Scar came to the point of going from brothers to bitter enemies. Based on the trailers, it seems they are going the route that Mufasa was an orphan who was befriended by the young prince Taka and adopted into their family. Taka eventually becomes known as Scar. We of course know how things end. But the goal of a prequel is to show the journey of how they got there.

Before moving onto the next movie, how well is this actually going to do at the box office? Well, the first comparison that came to my mind in the Disney remake realm is “Alice in Wonderland” from 2010. That’s another movie that, for various reasons, both made a ton of money and wasn’t really highly regarded by audiences. It initially opened to $116.1 million in 2010. When the sequel finally came out six years later, it opened to just $26.9 million. I highly doubt “Mufasa” is going to dip quite that low. The Lion King brand will help it do at least somewhat decently. But in terms of a percentage drop-off from a first movie to its second movie, that might not be too far off. Box Office Pro projects that the movie will open in the $55-75 million range, which puts it in the realm of 2015’s “Cinderella” or “Maleficent,” both of which opened just below $70 million. So that wouldn’t be terrible. But compared to a first movie that opened to $191 million, that would be a huge drop-off. Now this does come from Academy Award Winner Barry Jenkins. Not that many families or Disney fans will recognize that name, but the fact that he’s directed a movie that won best picture makes for an interesting discussion. Is he here just for his Disney paycheck to fund his next smaller film? Or does he have a good story on his hands that he wanted to tell? If the response to the movie is at least average or better than the first, that might not lead to a bigger opening, but if word of mouth is positive, Christmas releases have a tendency of holding really well throughout the month and into the new year. So that might be a better judgment of how its received rather than the opening weekend.

And now to its competition. Another family-friendly film targeting a very similar demographic. And another franchise film. This is the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3? Is it possible that Sonic pulls the upset and defeats the massive Disney film? Early tracking says its quite possible as Box Office Pro’s latest long range forecast pegs it in the $65-85 million range. Famously the first movie released their trailer, got a lot of complaints about the design, then postponed the movie to completely redo Sonic’s design. The final result ended up pleasing audiences quite a bit and it opened to $58.0 million. It’s final result is hard to look too far into because COVID hit a few weeks after its release, but the sequel in 2022 opened to $72.1 million and finished with $190.9 million. There’s been generally positive reactions to both movies, which bodes well for the third movie. The second movie introduced Tails and Knuckles into the gang along with Sonic. And now the third one introduces Shadow as an antagonist for them to deal with, with Keanu Reeves as the voice cast. Jim Carrey also returns as Dr. Robotnik, as he’s been in all three of these movies. So all things considered, there’s a solid chance that this matches or improves upon the second movie and thus actually takes the weekend. It’s also worth noting that December releases often open smaller and have longer legs. So even if “Sonic 3” doesn’t improve upon the second one on opening weekend, it’s conceivable that it might hold better throughout the holiday if its received well and could outgross the second movie’s $190.9 million domestic total. Regardless it should make for an interesting race at the box office. Christmas has proven that multiple movies can coexist at the same time throughout the holiday season, but two movies aimed at a similar target audience will definitely test that. And if I were to guess, “Mufasa” might be the one to underperform while “Sonic 3” overperforms,” but we will see how this plays out.

Tagging along for the ride, just for fun, will the latest from Angel Studios, the movie Homestead, a movie that in a press release earlier this year, Angel Studios co-founder Jeffrey Harmon described as a hope-filled, family apocalypse story. “Homestead goes on a wild ride through the crash of civilization, only to reveal that family, community, and love are the ultimate survival advantage,” he said. That makes for a bit of an interesting combination of genres. An apocalyptic action thriller with a touch of hope, faith, and religion. The movie is based on a book titled “Black Autumn” by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross, and stars Neal McDonough and Dawn Olivieri in the lead roles. The initial goal of this is to also transition it into a series as well that will pick up where the movie leaves off. Angel Studios has been desperately trying to chase the success of “Sound of Freedom” last year, which grossed $184 million domestically. But they have yet to have a follow-up movie gross over $20 million since then. Their last attempt was during the Thanksgiving season where “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin” opened to $5 million against “Wicked” and “Gladiator II.” It quickly disappeared from theaters after just three weeks. I’m guessing “Homestead” might follow a similar trajectory.

December 25 – 29

Searchlight's "A Complete Unknown"

Christmas hits on a Wednesday this year, and we have four movies opening right on Christmas Day. Which means the box office release strategy this month reflects that of last month around Thanksgiving. Yes, Thanksgiving is obviously on a Thursday, but the movies that opened that week opened on the day before – Wednesday. Leading the pack will probably be “Sonic 3” and “Mufasa” again, but of the four new ones, it’s like that A Complete Unknown will lead the way. This is the latest in the long string of musical biopics that Hollywood keeps churning out. This month’s feature is Bob Dylan and the movie reportedly manages to fit around 40 Bob Dylan songs in the movie, with the actors doing their own live singing and playing their own instruments, as it follows his life and career from January 1961, when he moved to New York City, up until his 1965 concert at the Newport Folk Festival. The movie will attempt to drawn in audiences both old and young, with the older audiences coming for Bob Dylan and his music, while the younger audiences might be showing up for Timothée Chalamet. These musical biopics have been very hit and miss as of late. And while it’s debatable as to whether Dylan was as big of an influence as the likes of Elvis or Queen, whose musical biopics did very well, the Chalamet factor and the holiday season could lead this to decent results. Reports are that this is one of Chalamet’s best performances that should lead him to another Oscar nomination. Early reviews are mostly positive as it currently sits at 75 percent with 68 reviews counted. That’s not unanimous, rave reviews, but high enough to indicate that this could be a good crowd-pleaser.

Is it Christmas? Or is it Halloween? Well, we might be doing a bit of a blink-182 and having Halloween on Christmas because this next movie is the horror film Nosferatu, a remake of the old classic by Robert Eggers, director of “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse,” and “The Northman.” The original 1922 “Nosferatu” was among the first on-screen adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1987 novel “Dracula.” It was a German adaptation that was technically an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of the book, but it was very much one of the most influential movies for the horror genre and is still quite prevalent in pop culture over 100 years later. Early indications are that this Robert Eggers remake is very much a Robert Eggers film. He’s a filmmaker who loves becoming completely enveloped into the time periods that he explores, getting as dark and realistic as he can. He’s not a director who is interested in holding back or pandering to mainstream audiences. This has led his movies to be somewhat divisive. Either you’re all in and love his takes or his movies rub you the wrong way. “The Witch,” for example, had a 91 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 60 percent from audiences and a C- CinemaScore. If you’re looking for a fun, mainstream Dracula adaptation, this might not be your thing. But early critical reviews have it at a 95 percent. So it seems like it’ll be par for the course for Eggers. And if you’re wondering why Christmas for this movie, the likely answer is that it’s being positioned for awards consideration rather than the holidays. Eggers’ biggest opening weekend was “The Northman” with $12.3 million, while “The Witch” in 2016 opened to $8.8 million. So this isn’t necessarily expected to be a huge hit, but brand name awareness could lead it to being Eggers’ highest opening.

Speaking of movies positioned for awards consideration as opposed to the holidays, we might as well lead right into Babygirl while we’re at it. If watching erotic thrillers is what you love doing for Christmas, then you do you, I suppose. But that’s why I say this is an awards play rather than a holiday play. Oscar nominations will be around the corner after this movie’s release and we’re currently in the thick of the awards season, so A24 would like this movie fresh on people’s minds. Whether or not the movie as a while gets showered with nominations is up for debate, but Nicole Kidman is the lead in this movie and it’s her performance that’s getting the high praise that seems like it could be leading her to another Oscar nomination. She plays a high-ranked CEO who embarks on a forbidden romance with an intern who is much younger than she is, so the movie is one that explores the complexity of power dynamics and sexuality within a professional setting as Kidman is nearly 30 years older than her co-star Harris Dickinson. Although you might not realize the gap is quite that large just by watching the movie. The age gap is one of the main points of the plot, but it’s still nevertheless quite impressive that Kidman is nearing 60 because she doesn’t look even close to being that old. She’s one of these Hollywood actors who managed to find the Fountain of Youth. Probably the same Fountain that Tom Cruise found.

And finally, a movie that might be looking to please both holiday audiences and awards season voters, instead of just the latter, is the sports drama The Fire Inside. The movie itself might not be Christmas-specific with its themes, but seeing the latest sports drama over the holidays is a fun past-time for many. “The Fire Inside” tells the story of Claressa Shields, a professional boxer and mixed martial artist. She is one of only four boxers in history – male or female – to hold all four major world titles in boxing (WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO) in two weight classes. She also won gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, making her the first American boxer to win consecutive Olympic medals. She was also the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in boxing, given that 2012 was the first year that women’s boxing was a part of the Olympics. I’m not sure how much of this movie I just spoiled by talking about this recent sports history, but her being a gold-medal winner 12 years ago is also in the trailer and the IMDb description of the movie, so I educated myself on her history. This is the type of movie that’s more about the journey and her influence on others around her rather than the final result. The movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival this year and currently holds an early 96 percent from 26 reviews, so it was well received there, which bodes well for awards consideration and audience interest. It actually has a decent chance at opening higher than the previous two movies mentioned, or at the very least holding well over the holidays and into January. Feel-good sports dramas with positive reviews have a tendency to hang around.

Movie Preview: November 2024

The month of November is now upon us! Hope everyone had a happy Halloween and a lovely October. In regards to the box office success of the month, after a very successful second half of the summer and a September that was the highest in the post-COVID era, October was… not able to maintain that success. I mentioned in my October preview that the month was bookended by two big comic book films that, on paper, were both expected to do really well. At one point in their pre-release cycles, both were projected as $100 million openers at point. The story is that both of them failed to meet expectations. “Joker: Folie à Deux” failed so badly that, a month into its run, it’s already almost gone from theaters. This upcoming weekend as of me posting this it’ll only be in 72 theaters, with a box office total that’s currently at $58.3 million domestically. Compared to that, “Venom: The Last Dance” is doing significantly better. It’s actually held decently for a comic book film and did well internationally, but it’s $51 million opening is still $40 million less than its predecessor, which opened in October 2021 when COVID was still a big issue. When both your big tentpole releases fail, that’s a bad formula for the month as a whole. “The Wild Robot” ended up as the highest grossing movie of the month and that was a late September release.

November will be better, though. Nothing is a guarantee, of course, but there’s two movies at the end of the month that seem as close to a guarantee as they get, and a couple more that also could do quite well. And yes, we are beginning the second of five weekends this month, so this is again a bit late. But as you’ll see, not much happened in that first weekend, anyways. And this second weekend isn’t expected to do a whole lot better. All these near guaranteed hits I speak of come in the second half of the month as we approach Thanksgiving and the holiday season. So we’ll recap the small releases in weekend one and then preview what the Thanksgiving side of the holiday season has in store!

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.

November 1 – 3

Sony's "Here"

In the first weekend of the month, it was “Venom: The Last Dance” that ruled supreme. After a disappointing opening of $51 million, the lack of any major competition helped it stay at the top with $25.9 million, a drop of just 49 percent. It’s usually rather common for a comic book movie to drop in the 60 percent range, give or take 5 percent either way. “Joker: Folie à Deux” set a lot of bad records with an 81 percent drop in its second weekend just a few weeks ago, so a 49 percent drop for “The Last Dance” is pretty good.

I anticipate that Hollywood studios also anticipated a much bigger opening for “The Last Dance” and decided to avoid the weekend because of that. The biggest new release was Robert Zemeckis’ Here, starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, which opened down in 5th place with $4.9 million from 2,647 theaters. The story or the gimmick behind this film is that it’s about one particular plot of land, with the camera essentially in the same spot the whole time. While the time span goes to the very distant past in parts, most of the movie is about the couple living there, which are played by Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, making this a “Forrest Gump” reunion with Zemeckis, Hanks, and Wright. The movie spans the life of this couple from them being a young married couple all the way up to them being an old couple. The movie uses artificial intelligence to de-age the actors in their younger scenes, which might be one of the reasons why many have been turned off by this. I think there’s also many who expect or hope for a return to form at some point from Robert Zemeckis, director of “Back to the Future,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Cast Away.” But this does not appear to be it. He’s had a long string of disappointments for the last decade plus and this adds to them. In addition to the subpar box office opening, the movie also earned a 36 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 57 percent audience score.

There’s two other new wide releases that opened in theaters this week. However, both of them opened below the top 10. Down in 12th place with $1.4 million from 1,500 theaters was the new Liam Neeson movie Absolution. Ever since starring in “Taken,” Liam Neeson has spent most of his time essentially making the same low-budget action movie, which has especially been the case the last five years. Dating back to “Honest Thief” in October 2020, all of them have opened with less than $5 million, but above $1 million, from a moderate amount of theaters. Most of them have had a very similar premise and about the same reaction. And he’s averaged two of them per year. “Absolution” is the latest. An aging mob enforcer attempts to outrun his past and reconnect with his estranged daughter and grandson after discovering he has CTE and only a short time to live. Hey, if Liam Neeson is having fun doing these and he has a specific niche target audience who enjoys watching them, then all is well.

Opening right below that in 13th place with $1.2 million was the animated movie Hitpig! This was released in 2,055 theaters, so the per theater average is a bit uglier. The movie is about a bounty hunter pig who gets hired to capture an elephant, but ends up on a cross-country adventure with said elephant instead. The movie stars the voice talents of Jason Sudeikis, Lilly Singh, RuPaul, Flavor Flav, and Rainn Wilson, which feels like an especially random assortment of actors that were picked out of a hat. The movie comes from Viva Pictures, which has done a few of these low-budget animated films as of late, directed at a young audience. Others include “Rally Road Racers” and “The Amazing Maurice.” They all seem like the type of animated movie that eventually winds up on Netflix and does a good job at distracting the younger kids. Given the box office numbers, clearly a big marketing push for its theatrical release wasn’t a high priority.

Wrapping up the weekend with the moderate releases, two Indian films, “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3” and “Singham Again” both opened in about 700 theaters each, actually ending up in the bottom half of the top 10, higher than the previous two wide releases mentioned. “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” opened in 630 theaters with $385,442. “The Carpenter” opened in 500 theaters with $137,906. And the biggest limited release was “A Real Pain,” which is directed by Jesse Eisenberg and stars him along with Kieran Culkin from “Succession.” Culkin is getting a lot of Oscar buzz for this role after dominating the Emmys in “Succession.” The movie had the highest per theater average of the week, opening in 4 theaters with $228,856 and will look to expand wide at some point.

November 8 – 10

A24's "Heretic"

“Venom: The Last Dance” is looking to potentially three-peat at the top of the box office this upcoming weekend, but it does have some competition this time around with the latest A24 horror film Heretic, which is looking to give horror fans something to be excited about this weekend as it’s currently at 93 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes with 152 reviews counted. In addition to the horror crowd, this seems to have especially captured the attention of people in Utah as the movie is about two sister missionaries who knock on the wrong door and get trapped by a psychopath played by Hugh Grant. Utah crowds, and other LDS church members, have noted the surprising level of accuracy from the trailers in portraying mission life. Prior to the capture, anyways. And both lead actresses were at one point at least members of the Church, so there’s a level of authenticity there that’s unique to Hollywood when portraying missionaries in big studio films. What happens to these sisters after capture is the real mystery here and the main appeal to horror fans. It seems like Hugh Grant’s character will be putting them through a series of psychological “games” or traps that are similar to the “Saw” franchise, although perhaps not as graphic or violent. $8-12 million is the expecting opening range, which has been common for a lot of lower-budget horror films this year, but should be pretty good for A24 standards, which usually opens its films in a smaller number of theaters and expands outwards. But they instead put “Heretic” right into 3,000+ theaters, which is the second time they’ve done that this year, the first being “Civil War,” which opened to $25.5 million. “MaXXXine” was also given an immediate wide release, but in 2,450 theaters and not 3,000+.

For those wanting to get a jump on the Christmas season, the other major wide release this weekend, also opening in 3,000+ theaters, is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which comes from Dallas Jenkins, director of “The Chosen,” which he filmed as a side project in between seasons 3 and 4 of “The Chosen.” And while there is some footage from “The Chosen” that Jenkins includes in parts of this movie, this is primarily based on the 1972 novel by Barbara Robinson, which has been adapted into a play as well as a 1983 TV movie. The original novel is about a group of six misfit children from the Herdman family who volunteer to star in their town’s Sunday school Christmas pageant, ending up teaching the town the true meaning of Christmas. This new movie seems to be more or less the same idea, but perhaps in a slightly more modern setting. For a religiously-themed Christmas movie, it has a surprisingly high critics score, currently in the upper 80s, so this appears to be a movie that manages to appeal to a more wide audience of people who in enjoy Christmas rather than just a religious crowd. But that means the target religious audience will probably like it even more. It’s expected to open in the $6-8 million range, although good word of mouth could push it higher. “Heretic” beat it out on Thursday preview totals, so it’s probably looking at a third place finish.

The previous two movies are the only major wide releases, both opening in over 3,000 theaters. But there are a handful of moderate releases also opening. The highest theater count of this tier of releases will be the movie Elevation opening in 1,400 theaters. This movie is a post-apocalyptic action thriller starring Anthony Mackie, Morena Baccarin, and Maddie Hasson who venture from the safety of their home to face monstrous creatures in order to save the life of a child. The advertise it as being from the producers of “A Quiet Place” and “The Purge,” but it’s actually directed by George Nolfi, who worked on neither of those things. He worked as a writer on “Ocean’s Twelve” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” but the movies he’s directed include “Adjustment Bureau” (2011), “Birth of the Dragon” (2016), and “The Banker” (2020). Early prognostication isn’t looking particularly positive with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 52 percent, but it could be a decent escape for those wanting a simple sci-fi action movie.

Based on the-numbers’ article reporting upcoming theater counts on the weekend, other moderate releases include Small Things Like These opening in 799 theaters, Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom opening in 550 theaters, and Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point opening in 405 theaters. Specific counts for Weekend in Taipei weren’t specifically mentioned in this article, but it seems like it’s also opening somewhere in the realm between “Small Things Like These” and “Elevation.” So that gives plenty of options for those heading out to theaters, wanting some sort of escape or entertainment. “Small Things Like These” comes from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company and is a historical drama set in the 1980s starring Cillian Murphy about the infamous Magdalene laundries in Ireland. “Weekend in Taipei” is an action thriller were a DEA agent and a former undercover operative revisit their romance, only to learn that doing so leads to dangerous consequences. “Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom” is an anime film that’s an offshoot of the “Overlord” anime series that began as a light novel series and a manga before being adapted into an anime series beginning in 2015 that now has four seasons. And “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” provides another option for people wanting to celebrate an early Christmas, a comedy about a chaotic family gathering for what could be the last holiday in their ancestral home.

November 15 – 17

Amazon MGM's "Red One"

The first two weekends of the month provided a large amount of quantity of options. But the last three weekends is where the big releases show up. And that party begins with the Christmas action comedy Red One. And while there could end up a few movies sneaking into moderate release, “Red One” is the only current wide release on the schedule and its projected to launch in over 4,000 theaters. If you’ve been to theaters at any point recently, you’ve probably seen this heavily advertised. The movie stars J.K. Simmons as Santa Claus and he’s been kidnapped. Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, and Lucy Liu lead a team of people attempting to go rescue Santa Claus and it appears that a lot of shenanigans ensue in what seems like a somewhat complex holiday world in a movie that seen as the first in an attempted Christmas franchise. Before they get to the franchise part, they’re going to have to make sure this first one is a success. The movie was actually originally scheduled for a debut straight on Amazon Prime in December 2023, but got delayed for a few different reasons, one being the actors strike, and is now being released theatrically by Amazon MGM. This is one of those movies that seems like it has the potential to be a big, fun Christmas blockbuster that is enjoyed by families throughout the season, especially with the cast being led by Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. But it’s going to have to survive its initial wave of negative reviews, which have not been nice to the movie at all. But Dwayne Johnson has done big, dumb action movie plenty of times over, so critic reviews might not matter if it manages to connect with family audiences during the season. The most recent tracking by Box Office Pro has it anywhere in the $20-40 million. That means it’ll take the No. 1 spot without any competition, but how high it opens and how well it holds are big wild cards.

November 22 – 24

Universal's "Wicked"

As mentioned, “Red One” is a wild card this month that could be the kick-off of a very lucrative holiday season at the box office. But regardless of how that one does, this weekend is where the real fun begins, with a double feature event that has the potential to be reminiscent of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon last year, which saw “Barbie” open with $162.0 million, followed by “Oppenheimer” with $82.5 million, both on the July 21, 2023 weekend. “Glicked” isn’t a term that’s had nearly as much usage as “Barbenheimer” and the internet hasn’t completely exploded yet with this showdown, but yes we’re talking about “Wicked” vs. “Gladiator II,” both of which have had a lot of buzz and great early reaction. And both we’ll be released on this weekend, five days before the release of “Moana 2” right before Thanksgiving. Is this going to be an excellent Holy Trinity of holiday movie-going?

Let’s start with the movie that’s going to be the winner on the weekend and that will easily be Wicked. This is a movie and a musical that needs no introduction. It’s currently the fourth longest running Broadway show of all time, behind only “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Chicago” and “The Lion King.” It’s also the second highest grossing Broadway show of all time, behind only “The Lion King.” It’s opening date was October 30, 2003, so it recently passed its 20th anniversary. The show is a loose adaptation of the 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” which in turn was based off of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz.” It is, of course, told from the perspective two witches, Elphaba and Galinda, who eventually become “the good witch” and “the bad witch” in “The Wizard of Oz.” The story explores their complex relationship and Elphaba’s eventual tragic fall when she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. The movie adaptation has been in the works for quite some time and will finally arrive in theaters, with Cynthia Erivo playing Elphaba and Ariana Grande playing Galinda. The movie is directed by Jon M. Chu, who has quite the varied resumé. That’s included two “Step Up” movies, Justin Bieber’s musical documentary “Never Say Never,” “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” “Now You See Me 2” and “Crazy Rich Asians.” But his most recent movie is very relevant to the “Wicked” conversation, and that’s him doing the fellow movie musical “In the Heights” in 2021, which feels like his audition to doing “Wicked”? Now while everyone knows “Wicked,” everyone might not know that this is Part 1. That makes sense given that the original play is done in two acts. And Chu has stated that there was simply too much to shove into one movie and their goal is to do the whole production justice. But they haven’t exactly advertised that in the trailer. So some might be surprised when the movie ends halfway through the story, but “Wicked: Part 2” is currently scheduled for next year, so people shouldn’t have to wait too long to get that closure.

The competitor to “Wicked” in the box office arena is, of course, Gladiator II. While the film adaptation of “Wicked” has definitely been long awaited, I’m not so sure a sequel to “Gladiator” can quite make the same claim. In fact, when it was announced that Ridley Scott was doing a sequel, that got met with a lot of skepticism and negativity, yours truly being part of that. “Gladiator” was a massive success back in 2000, opening in May of 2000 to $34.8 million, eventually grossing $187 million domestically. According to the-numbers’ inflation adjusted tool, that would be the equivalent of a $69.6 million opening and a $375.4 million domestic total. It held very well, was very highly regarding, and eventually won best picture, which is not common for a movie of its size or a movie that opened in the first half of the year. But despite it’s massive success, is it a movie that needed a sequel? The world wasn’t sure, but Ridley Scott said yes. Ridley Scott is a great director, but he’s had his fair share of duds as of late, so he doesn’t the most clean record, which has been part of the skepticism. But the movie stars Pedro Pascal, Paul Mescal, and Denzel Washington, among others. The trailers came out and started to win people over. And now the movie has been screened by critics. And although there’s no official reviews posted yet, the early Twitter reaction has been very positive. So it looks like while one crowd of people will be off to see the big movie musical, another crowd of people will be off to see one of the final big action blockbusters of the year. And both of these can coexist with each other just fine.

But how high will each go? Conservative estimates from Variety in an article published back on November 4 says “Wicked” aiming for $80-85 million, while “Gladiator II” is looking at $55-65 million. However, Box Office Pro’s most recent Long Range Forecast has “Wicked” tracking between $100-130 million and “Gladiator II” tracking at $60-80 million. Of course we know from last month that tracking can be a funny game. But reactions to both have come out and early social media reactions have been very positive for both. “Wicked” fans have been waiting for this movie for a long time and would’ve shown up regardless. But if this movie turns out to be everything they’ve hoped for, that only helps it even more. Could it get to the high end of the tracking and potentially even get close to $150 million? I have no idea. But at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised. And has pointed out, the original “Gladiator” opened to what adjusts to around $70 million in today’s ticket prices. A lot of people love “Gladiator” and if the sequel does it justice, this also looks like a big winner. And that’s why I bring up “Barbenheimer.” Even if “Glicked” isn’t the same cultural phenomenon, the box office numbers have the potential of coming close. “Barbenheimer” combined for $244.5 million on their opening weekend. It seems reasonable that “Glicked” could combine for at least $200 million, if not more, if all goes well.

Certain to be lost in the shuffle of all of this is a third wide release of this weekend, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin, the latest movie from Angel Studios. The title and especially subtitle there does a good job of describing this movie on its own, but this is a historical drama that tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor who lived during Hitler’s Nazi regime who was very vocally opposed to the Nazis and joined a deadly plot to try to assassinate Hitler. A journey over to his Wikipedia page informed me how that went, but I won’t share that here. But an Angel Studios movie about a historical character of faith reminds me very much of “Cabrini” from March of this year, which opened to $7.2 million and made $19.5 million total domestically. Angel Studios might never replicate the success of “Sound of Freedom,” which made nearly $200 million in its run, but if this catches on with the target crowd, a run similar to that of “Cabrini” could be considered a success.

November 27 – Dec 1

Disney's "Moana 2"

Completing the “Holy Trinity” of movie-going this Thanksgiving is the one that could potentially be the biggest of the three and that’s Moana 2. As an animated movie directed at a family audience, this movie’s target audience is much different than both “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” which are both different from each other. That means it’ll be easier for all three to co-exist, reaching different audiences over the course the Thanksgiving week and beyond. And yes, “Moana 2” is the only new release of this final weekend of November and it opens on Wednesday the 27th, a five-day stretch that Disney really loves. It’s been their tradition most years to release either a Pixar movie or a Walt Disney Animation Studios movie on this weekend and they’ve seen a lot of success, including the original “Moana” itself back in 2016. The story behind this sequel sees Disney appearing to learn from their recent mistakes. When COVID hit, Disney went all-in on their Disney+ strategy, thinking that was the future of movies, so they tried to get a head start and pushed everything to Diseny+, often ditching the theatrical window. Maybe in the moment that didn’t seem like the worst idea. A lot of studios thought streaming was the future of cinema. But no, the theatrical experience has very much survived and has proven to be the more financially successful route. Streaming is still good. But you give the biggest movies their theatrical run first and then put them to streaming. And I bring this up in context of “Moana 2” because this was initially set to be a straight-to-Disney+ streaming show. It wasn’t until earlier this year that they decided to that multiple episode show into a “Moana” sequel and put that into theaters instead. Might it backfire in regards to movie quality to edit a series into a movie late in the process? Perhaps. But financially it’s poised to be a great decision.

The first “Moana” in 2016 opened to $82.1 million over its first five days in this exact window in Thanksgiving 2016. It’s traditional Friday to Sunday 3-day opening officially goes down as $56.6 million. So that’s the baseline level of success here and about the range that many of these Disney movies have opened to in the past. “Moana” finished with $248.8 million domestically and $686 million worldwide. It wasn’t even the highest Disney movie that year or the highest animated movie over the holidays that season. “Sing” from Illumination ended up outgrossing it. But it’s cultural relevance has certainly outlasted just about everything. YouTuber Dan Murrell has a weekly box office and streaming show where he gathers streaming data from various sources on a weekly basis and “Moana” still manages to make the weekly top 10 in most weeks when it comes to library titles across all streaming services. It’s become one of the highest, if not the highest streamed movie across all streaming platforms. It was one of the highest streamed movies overall of last year, close to a decade after its release. And it’s almost certain to be Disney+’s highest streamed movie ever. So that’s why we’re going both a “Moana 2” right now and a live-action remake of “Moana” in 2026. When Disney gets numbers like these, they capitalize. And thus it makes sense that Box Office Pro has “Moana 2” tracking to make $120-150 million over its 5-day weekend. I personally look at “Frozen 2” because of this. That movie opened the weekend before Thanksgiving, so it’s not the perfect comparison, but that had an opening of $130.3 million domestically before eventually become the highest grossing animated movie off all-time worldwide, a mark it held until “Inside Out 2” topped it this year.