Movie Preview: November 2018

As was expected based on the slate of releases, October 2018 did deliver the record-breaking performance that it was set up to give, earning a total of $818 million at the domestic box office, which bested the previous October record of $758, which was set in 2014. Leading the way was the huge breakout performance of "Venom," which soared past even the most generous predictions, earning $80.3 million opening weekend, a new October opening weekend record that was previous held by "Gravity" in 2013 with $55.8 million. Said opening weekend record was nearly broken again by "Halloween" just two weeks later as the later opened to $76.2 million, carrying the month over the top to break 2014's record. "Venom" and "Halloween" have made $190 million and $137 million respectively through the end of October. Riding along with them is "A Star is Born," whose $153 million total thus far is rising quickly up the list of movies that never hit No. 1 at the weekend box office. All three movies should provide decent holdover totals for November, which also begins the holiday season. That means we should be in for another big month at the box office, although probably not record-breaking since that bar for November is much higher. But nevertheless, let's dive in!

November 2nd - 4th- 

Looking to start November off with a bang will be Bohemian Rhapsody, which looks to easily take away the crown from "Halloween," the winner of the previous two weekends. It's also set to spoil Disney's new release, though we'll get to that in a second. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the musical biopic for the band Queen, chronicling the years leading up to their appearance at the Live Aid concert in 1985. Given that Queen is one of the most popular rock bands in history, this movie has a naturally huge fan base built in. That combined with the strong buzz surrounding Rami Malek's performance as the legendary Freddie Mercury has had fans excited for this one for some time, especially with the huge marketing push that Fox has put behind this. That could lead to an opening weekend that flirts with the $50 million mark. The obvious comparison here is the $42.9 million opening of last month's "A Star is Born," or perhaps the $34.9 million opening of this summer's "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again." The big disadvantage here is the less than stellar reviews from critics who have said the movie doesn't dive quite as deep as it could've. Although that didn't hold "Venom" back last month, so positive word of mouth from audiences could negate that.

Disney has been having a fantastic year this year so far, as they've earned $2.7 billion at the domestic box office alone. Although they could be in a bit of trouble with their latest release this weekend, that being The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" is arguably one of the most popular classical music pieces, especially when it comes Christmas time, with "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" being one of the most well-known selections from the suite. "The Nutcracker Suite" was extracted from "The Nutcracker" ballet, which had its initial two-act performance at Saint Petersberg in 1892. The ballet was adapted from E.T.A. Hoffman's 1816 story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," which is a story about a young girl witnessing a nutcracker coming to life on the night of Christmas Eve and leading the dolls into battle with the Mouse King and his army. Later the young girl is whisked away into the nutcracker's magical kingdom. Despite this long, storied history, this movie adaptation of "The Nutcracker" is not one that has really grabbed people's attention. The lack of excitement combined with poor reviews, wavering around 30 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, will probably make this Disney's lowest opening of the year at around $20 million.

If Disney's not careful, they could see a bit of competition for that runner up spot from Tyler Perry's Nobody's Fool. At best, "The Nutcracker" could see an opening around the $33.1 million opening of fellow Disney release this year of "A Wrinkle in Time" or their 2016 release "Alice Through the Looking Glass," which debuted to $26.9 million. However, if audiences are as unimpressed as critics, they could be looking at a total closer to the $21.5 million opening of "Pete's Dragon" or the $18.8 million opening of "The BFG." If that's the case, that's where "Nobody's Fool" could play spoiler because Tyler Perry fans have rather consistently come out in support of his films. While the Madea films are his most popular, and this movie is not one of those, Perry's 11 non-Madea films have averaged an opening weekend of $18.6 million, with his latest, that of "Acrimony," opening to $17.2 million earlier this year. And "Nobody's Fool" is opening in 400 more theaters than "Acrimony" (2,468 vs. 2,006). "Nobody's Fool" also has the advantage of starring Tiffany Haddish, who recently helped "Night School" open to $27.3 million. The movie is about a woman who recently is released from prison to discover her sister in a bit of a sketchy online relationship.

November 9th - 11th-

If we're calling Disney's release of "The Nutcracker" the beginning of the Christmas season, then Illumination is planning on building off that to swing the season into full gear with their release of Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, potentially stealing all of Disney's thunder in the process. While Illumination hasn't necessarily built up their reputation to the same level as the likes of Disney or Pixar in terms of quality, their box office totals are not to be argued with as their eight releases have averaged a domestic total of $272.6 million, their last five releases all topping the $250 million mark, with three of those crossing $300 million. Since "The Grinch" seems to have everything set up in its favor, there's no reason to believe that will change here. The story of the Grinch is one of the more popular Christmas stories and it's been 18 years since the live-action Jim Carrey version. Illumination bringing it back to animation gives it a more unique angle than the 2000 movie and the star power of Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Grinch also helps immensely. All things said, this could be looking at an opening weekend around $70 million with long legs ahead given the Christmas holiday. Don't be surprised if this winds up as the biggest domestic release of the holiday season.

While we've had two Christmas releases thus far, heading into the actual holiday in November, that being Thanksgiving, the market looks to be really crowded, especially as Thanksgiving itself approaches. That doesn't bode super well for our next two releases, both of which will be fighting for the adult audiences. The first one will be The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story, with the subtitle of said film being added on fairly recently in order to boost brand name recognition. On that note, "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" began as a trilogy of novels written by Stieg Larsson, with the first book being released in 2005 and the two sequels in each ensuing year. There have been two film adaptations, a Swedish version in 2009, with both film sequels also being released the same year, and a Hollywood version in 2011 directed by David Fincher, which has not yet had any sequels. While fans of the franchise were probably hoping for a sequel to David Fincher's film, they'll have to settle with this instead, which is based on the fourth book in the series, called the Millenium series, with "The Girl in the Spider's Web" being written by a different author as Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004, before his three books were published.

If "The Girl in the Spider's Web" matched the opening of David Fincher's "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo," that means it's in line for an opening around $12 million. "Dragon Tattoo" held on very well and wound up with $102 million, something that "Spider's Web" probably won't accomplish. That said, a $12 million opening is probably good enough to place ahead of the other adult-targeted release, J.J. Abrams' Overlord. This movie was initially thought to be a fourth "Cloverfield" movie, but Abrams confirmed in April that it is not, but is its own film. While Abrams is on as producer, this is actually directed by Julius Avery and is a World War II drama where a team of soldiers gets caught behind enemy lines after their plane crashes on their way to destroy a German radio tower. With enough buzz, this could in theory match the $15.2 million opening of "Hacksaw Ridge" in November 2016. However, last month's "Bad Times at the El Royal" comes to mind as that was a well-received, adult-targeted film that simply got lost in the mix and could only manage an opening of $7.1 million. Last month also saw the submarine thriller "Hunter Killer" only open to $6.7 million. So barring a breakout performance, that's about the range that "Overlord" is looking at.

November 16th - 18th-

With Thanksgiving being at its earliest possible date of November 22nd, that thanks to Nov. 1st falling on a Thursday, that means this weekend is the weekend right before the week of Thanksgiving and that's where audiences will be transported back to J.K. Rowling's wizarding world with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. This pre-Thanksgiving weekend has always been a productive weekend for the young adult book adaptations as every year from 2008 to 2016, this spot has been occupied by either a "Twilight," a "Harry Potter," a "Hunger Games" or a "Fantastic Beasts" film, all of which got huge openings. While "Fantastic Beasts" was on a break last year, "Justice League" jumped into the spot. This year, though, "Fantastic Beasts" is back, and as the title reveals, Johnny Depp's Grindelwald is wreaking havoc as he was revealed at the end of the 2016 film. To confront Grindelwald, a young Albus Dumbeldore, played by Jude Law, has commissioned this franchise's protagonist Newt Scamander to lead the charge. While this spin-off franchise was never going to match the huge grosses of each "Harry Potter" film, it's safe to expect this sequel to match the total of the first "Fantastic Beasts," which opened to $74 million on its way to $234 million.

Providing a comedic option for the Thanksgiving holiday, and potentially on through the Christmas season, is Instant Family, which is a movie that re-teams Mark Wahlberg with director Sean Anders, who helmed both "Daddy's Home" movies. Like "Daddy's Home," this is a movie involving a non-typical family situation as Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play a couple who don't really want to have kids and are certainly not the best parents in the world, but happen to adopt three foster children into their family anyways and have to figure out how to make that family work. Given that this is the first comedy since "Night School" at the end of September and won't have any direct competition until "Holmes and Watson" on Christmas,  the door is wide open for it to have a good run and the Mark Wahlberg star power will certainly help. Although without a fellow co-star on the level of Will Ferrell, this probably won't get quite as high as either "Daddy's Home" movies, which starred both Wahlberg and Ferrell, making $38.7 million and $28.7 million respectively on their opening weekends. Rather, we've had a long string of comedies in 2018, like "Tag," "Game Night" and "Life of the Party" all open in the mid- to upper-teens range, so that seems like a safe bet.

There's been plenty of Oscar contenders that have been released already and November will see a handful more. While I encourage you to constantly be on the lookout for the smaller releases that slowly expand, in this post I'm choosing to only cover the ones opening in wide release, just for the sake of simplicity. On this weekend that means talking about Widows. This movie is a big deal because it's Steve McQueen's first directorial effort since he won best picture with "12 Years a Slave," a 2013 release. "Widows" follows four women who team up together to pull off a heist after their husbands were all shot by police in an armed robbery attempt. The four widows are played by Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo, with a supporting cast that includes Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Jon Bernthal and more. After early releases at various film festivals, the movie currently stands at a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising it for combining popcorn entertain with a strong message in a heist thriller. This means it could be the type of movie that pleases people across the board, from casual film-goers to Oscar voters, which could give it a good box office run.

November 21st - 25th -

As previously stated, Thanksgiving falls on November 22nd this year, which means there will be three wide releases all opening on Wednesday, November 21st. Hence the extended date range. Leading the pack will be Disney with Ralph Breaks the Internet, sequel to 2012's "Wreck-It Ralph." Believe it or not, this is actually only the second sequel Disney's main branch of animation has made for one of their animated films, with the other being "The Rescuers Down Under" in 1990. Unless you count the 2011 "Winnie the Pooh" or "Fantasia 2000." But what about all of those other sub-par sequels to all the animated classics? Yeah, those are all DisneyToon, not the main branch. That means Disney's in surprisingly new territory here, but a second adventure with Ralph and Vanellope should be a good crowd-pleaser as the two of the head out to the internet, where they run into all sorts of internet-related obstacles, including all the potential cameo appearances from the "Oh My Disney" section of the internet, such as all the Disney princesses. As far as box office comparisons, Disney's most recent Thanksgiving release, that being "Moana," earned $56 million on the three-day weekend and $82 million on the five-day weekend, so that might be a range to look at.

Providing additional power to the Thanksgiving week will the eighth film in the "Rocky" franchise and second to specifically follow Michael B. Jordan's Adonis Creed, that of course being Creed 2. Those with an attachment to the "Rocky" franchise might take especial interest here with the connection to "Rocky IV," as Adonis Creed is determined to face off against Viktor Drago, whose father Ivan Drago killed Adonis' father Apollo Creed in a boxing match at the beginning of "Rocky IV." Dolph Lundgreen will be reprising his role of Ivan Drago in the movie while Florian Munteanu will be playing his son Viktor. Sylvester Stallone will of course also be coming back in his iconic role of Rocky Balboa with Tessa Thompson also returning as Adonis' love interest. Since "Creed," Tessa Thompson has seen her star power rise after wowing audiences as Valkyrie in "Thor: Ragnarok." The most notable person to not return to "Creed 2" is director Ryan Coogler, being replaced by Steven Caple Jr. That could be the main issue that hurts this sequel, but it still should be able to play well, despite the crowded market, as the first "Creed" opening to $29 million over the three-day weekend and $42 million over the five-day weekend during Thanksgiving 2015.

The third Thanksgiving week release is the one that very well might be dead on arrival and that is the umpteenth film iteration of Robin Hood. This version of "Robin Hood" stars Teron Edgerton in the lead role of Robin Hood, with Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn and Jamie Dornan also coming along for the ride in supporting roles. That's a decent cast there, especially with Edgerton as the lead, but that's about all the movie has going for it at the moment. The biggest issue here is convincing people to be excited for another version of this character. Wikipedia has a whole page devoted to the list of films and TV series featuring Robin Hood and I think I counted 78 entries on that list. Not to mention Wikipedia also claims the character has been around in folklore since the 15th century in various stories, songs, plays and other productions. So I'd probably wouldn't be exaggerating when I say the number of times Robin Hood has shown up is countless. With so many options this Thanksgiving, it's hard seeing too many people choosing "Robin Hood" over all the others. The perfect comparison is last year's "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword," which faced a similar problem of overexposure and tanked with an opening of $15.4 million. Word is "Robin Hood" is tracking behind that movie.

November 30th - December 2nd-

Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving is left completely blank and is dominated by holdovers. This is often a smart move by studios in giving audiences a bit of breathing before loading them up again for Christmas. And that's mostly the case this weekend, thus however things shake up over Thanksgiving will probably end up being how they reflect here, with "Ralph Breaks the Internet" being the best candidate to lead the way both weekends. However, there is one small movie that decided to show up last minute in wide release and that is The Possession of Hannah Grace. This little horror film is about a corpse that is possessed in a hospital morgue and is discovered by a cop working the graveyard shift after recently getting out of rehab. It comes to us via Screen Gems, who have had a decent time recently with "Searching" and "Slender Man" both making around $30 million total domestically, an alright total for low-budget horror films. Given the lack of awareness at the moment for "Hannah Grace," if this opened anywhere near the $11.4 million of "Slender Man," that would probably be a huge win for Screen Gems. Although an opening closer to the $3.6 million of "Unfriended: Dark Web" or $3.7 million of "Unsane" might be a more realistic goal.