December 7th-
Quick note on this month. Usually I organize these by weekend. However, the release schedule for movies this month is all over the place, so I'm going to abandon my typical weekend format and sort things by the day of each movie's release, rather than the weekend. Also of note, there are no new wide releases on the first weekend of this month, meaning that "Ralph Breaks the Internet" is about to take its third straight weekend title, mostly by default as there was only one small wide release on the final weekend of November. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" will be followed by "The Grinch," "Creed II," "The Crimes of Grindelwald" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," all making up the top five. That said, there is one notable new entry, although it's not a new release, but rather is the re-release of Steven Spielberg's classic film Schindler's List into 1,181 theaters in honor of its 25th anniversary. The last Spielberg film to get this re-release treatment was "The Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in September 2017 in honor of its 40th anniversary. That released in 901 theaters and opened to $1.7 million. If "Schindler's List" pulled in a similar per theater, that would give it about $2.3 million for the weekend, making it a contender for the weekend top 10.
December 12th-
December 14th-
Hoping to jump on the awards season buzz a bit late will be Clint Eastwood with his new film The Mule. This screenplay for this movie is based on the 2011 New York Times article "The Sinaloa's Cartel's 90-Year-Old Drug Mule" by Sam Dolnick, wherein DEA Special Agent Jeff Moore was interviewed regarding the investigation of Leo Sharp, a former World War II veteran who became a drug dealer and courier for the Sinaloa Cartel while in his 80's. The rights to the article were sold to Imperative Entertainment in 2014. After a few years of discussion and planning, Clint Eastwood became attached as star, director and producer of the film in January 2018, with filming beginning in June 2018. With the late production, the movie is at a disadvantage when it comes to the awards season as it skipped the festival run and has no awards nominations as of yet, possibly because screeners may not have been sent out to voters. Even with no awards, it will hope to catch on with general audiences as movies centered around drug cartels have done well recently, with one major example being last year's "American Made," which opened to $16.8 million. "The Mule" is Eastwood's first lead acting role since "Trouble with the Curve" in 2012.
Coming in at the rear this weekend will be the Peter Jackson produced film Mortal Engines, which is being heavily advertised as being "from the filmmakers of 'Lord of the Rings.'" While not an inaccurate statement by any means, this has been slightly deceiving as it's leading people to believe that Peter Jackson is directing this movie, which is not correct. The movie is being directed by Christian Rivers, who worked in the visual effects and storyboard departments for "Lord of the Rings." This will be his first directorial feature. It does have the same team of writers as "Lord of the Rings" and Peter Jackson is on board to produce, but he's not the director here, which is kind of a big deal. The movie is of the dystopian genre, and is based on the young adult novel about a young woman who teams up with a dangerous outlaw and an outcast from London to lead a rebellion against a giant city on wheels, or a steampunk version of London. The problem here is that this genre has long since died off with most attempted starts in the last few years completely failing, so Peter Jackson trying to bring it back is probably not a good idea. The production budget here is $100 million, yet it's looking at an opening weekend in the range of $8-12 million.
December 19th-
December 21st-
The other franchise that really needs a win is the "Transformers" franchise. In an attempt to do so, they are taking things in a completely new direction with the movie Bumblebee. Instead of delivering yet another sequel, which would've been the sixth movie in the main saga, they are going the prequel route, in sort of a semi-reboot fashion, by telling the origin story of the popular character of Bumblebee, casting Hailee Steinfeld is the lead female, who discovers Bumblebee in a junkyard back in 1987, shortly after her character turns 18. Now in addition to going the prequel route with this movie, the other major change they are making here is a switch in director. This will be the first modern "Transformers" movie to NOT be directed by Michael Bay. Instead, Travis Knight is at the helm. Knight worked as a lead animator for most of Laika's films and directed Laika's extremely popular animated film "Kubo and the Two Strings." This will be only his second movie he's directed and first in live action. So it's a risk that Paramount is taking here, but it's a risk that probably needs to be made after last year's "Transformers: The Last Knight" made only $130 million domestically and $605 million worldwide, both of which are franchise lows by a long shot.
Looking to compete with the two action tentpoles, as well as Disney's massive "Mary Poppins Returns," is Robert Zemeckis' latest film Welcome to Marwen. This movie stars Steve Carell and tells the true story of Mark Hogancamp, who was a victim of a violent assault. In order to help him cope, he built his own detailed world of action figures and dolls, all of whom represented a person in his life. Hogancamp's story was previously told in a 2010 documentary called "Marwencol" and a 2015 book titled "Welcome to Marwencol. The book was co-written by Hogancamp himself along with Chris Shellen. Given that Zemeckis is at the help here, he being the director of a whole slew of major hits such as "Back to the Future," "Forest Gump" and "Cast Away," this movie has the potential to be a real crowd-pleaser during the holiday season, especially given the popularity of Steve Carell. The problem here is the competition. Yes, it can easily co-exist with "Aquaman" and "Bumblebee," but the presence of "Mary Poppins Returns" is another story. The two movies might be fighting for audience and it's easy to predict which one will win out. Oscar buzz would help this movie out quite a bit, but unfortunately it's had none of that up to this point, so it remains in an awkward position.
Rounding out the slate of new releases on this date is STX Entertainment's release of Second Act. This movie is a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez as Maya, an under-achieving, 40-year-old woman, working a low-paying job, who gets a second chance at a career after private financial firm hires her to handle a major business deal after a fake resume leads them to believe that she is an accomplished consultant. Co-starring along with Lopez is Vanessa Hudgens, Milo Ventimiglia and Leah Remini. The movie is directed by Peter Segal, who recently directed "Grudge Match" and "Get Smart," but is also responsible for a few 90's favorites such as "The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult," "Tommy Boy" and "The Nutty Professor II" as well as a handful of Adam Sandler comedies in the early 2000's. So he has a prestigious enough record with various different comedies that could come in handy in pleasing people wanting a comedy during the holiday season. Given the premise, this could also capture the attention of the female audience. But like "Welcome to Marwen," the competition here is going to be tough, especially because, in terms of comedies, "Second Act" will also have to deal with "Holmes & Watson," which gets released on Christmas.
December 25th-
The final movie getting a wide release is Adam McKay's Vice. This is movie is a biopic of Dick Cheney, vice president to George W. Bush, and carries with it quite the large cast, which includes Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, Steve Carrel as Donald Rumsfeld, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell, Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Alison Pull as Mary Cheney, as well as quite a bit more. Adam McKay previously went from comedy director ("Anchorman," "Talladega Nights," "Step Brothers," "The Other Guys") to Oscar powerhouse with the very well received film "The Big Short," which got five Oscar nominations, including best picture, best director and best supporting actor, while winning the award for best adapted screenplay. So his follow-up here has received a lot of buzz ever since it was announced and it's looking like it'll live up to that buzz with various of nominations already, including six Golden Globe nominations. So it's chances of scoring big with the Oscar nominations is quite high. In which case, this will be more of a long-term player at the box office rather set to have long legs. The easy comparison is "The Big Short," which expanded wide on Christmas, making $10 million, but wound up with $70 million overall.
Major Limited release films:
With these monthly previews, I made the decision a while back to focus specifically on nationwide releases, mostly because covering every major limited release is a daunting task in certain months like this. But since it's Awards season, here are some of the most notable limited releases scheduled for December that will expand to varying degrees throughout December and January, based on how well they do in limited release as well as how well they do as Awards season continues:
- "Ben is Back" (Dec. 7)
- "Mary Queen of Scots" (Dec. 7)
- "Vox Lux" (Dec. 7)
- "If Beale Street Could Talk" (Dec. 14)
- "On the Basis of Sex" (Dec. 25)
- "Stan & Ollie" (Dec. 28)
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