Out of Liberty Review

September has been an interesting month for movies. And by that I mean there's been "IT: Chapter Two" and... well, nothing else. There's been a couple of times in the last week or so where I've had the desire to go see a matinee film or something like that, but I look at what my options are and realize that I've seen everything that I've wanted to see that's currently in theaters near me. So instead of going to see movies and writing reviews, I stayed home and was jealous of all the people who were fancy enough to go to the Toronto International Film Festival, because there's now at least 15-20 films that showed there that I am now dying to see. Now I saw this coming when I did my September preview, but still. I'm excited to get out of this September lull and into the holiday season where there are a lot more options. So while the first weekend of September had only "IT: Chapter Two," the second weekend that just passed us by gave us the option of a stripper movie in "Hustlers" and "The Goldfinch," a movie I was excited for until it got absolutely wasted at TIFF. So instead of seeing one of those two, I turned my attention to the local scene where we have "Out of Liberty," a movie about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. Given these choices, I'd like to say I made a good decision.

Earlier in the summer when I reviewed "The Other Side of Heaven 2," I had no idea what the theater count was and thus I wrongly assumed it was only a Utah release. Turns out the movie opened in 205 theaters, which was a much wider release than I was expecting. After 12 weeks in theaters, "The Other Side of Heaven 2" has made $1.7 million, which is pretty good for a one of these smaller, local-ish Christian films. "Out of Liberty," though, only opened in 35 theaters, so this one does seem like it's actually a local film here in Utah only. Maybe a few locations outside. I do know from looking at my showtimes on IMDb that 22 of the 35 locations are here on the Wasatch Front. Where the other 13 locations are, I'm not sure. They're most likely in places like Idaho or Arizona that have a higher population of Latter-day Saints. In late July, Purdie also released "The Fighting Preacher," which started in 28 theaters and expanded into 37 theaters in its second weekend. So if you got that movie at your local theater this summer, I'm willing to bet that you also have "Out of Liberty" right now. If you don't have either, I'm guessing you'll have to wait until it comes to DVD, unless the movie catches on like wildfire. But based on early returns from this past weekend, I don't think that will be the case. 

For better or for worse, "Out of Liberty" is a movie that assumes you know all about Joseph Smith and are curious in seeing a deeper dive of what he experienced in Liberty Jail. Some of these Latter-day Saint films at least make an attempt to appeal to a non-member audience. Whether or not that effort is successful is a different story, but at least there's an attempt. "Out of Liberty" makes no attempt. If you're not an active member of the Church and/or you don't care about Joseph Smith, this is not your movie. That's my disclaimer right now. And that's a bit of an interesting choice given that Garrett Batty is the director here. His previous two films, "The Saratov Approach" and "Freetown" were movies that had at least some sort of appeal to the general public. I think it was Larry King who said that "The Saratov Approach" was a great little independent film. Now I don't think "Out of Liberty" going a different approach is a bad thing by any means. It's just a different approach. And in many cases, having a very specific, niche audience can be a great thing. You don't have to worry about pandering to people outside your target audience. You can simply give them exactly what they want. If they're pleased with the result, then you did your job.

I didn't pay too close attention to the advertising of this movie. I was very well aware that it existed because they gave it a very good local push. Because of that, I knew this was a movie about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. I just didn't know what the specific angle was and I was curious to see what Garrett Batty brought to the table. The thing is, I'm very well aware of this story. It almost goes without saying that Joseph's Smith story has been told a lot of times. Just about every time it has been told, Liberty Jail is included in some form because it was a key moment in his history. Doctrine & Covenants sections 121 and 122 are some of the most powerful and most quoted scriptures in the Church's library of scriptures. Whenever they are quoted, often a brief explanation of the Liberty Jail context is also given. So in my mind, if we're going to revisit this in the form of a film, there's got to be a specific purpose as to why we're revisiting it for the upteenth time. That's why I was more curious than outright excited for this experience. And I have to be honest here. The final result has me slightly conflicted. I do think Garrett Batty is a good filmmaker and because of that, there's a lot of things here that work quite well. It just didn't resonate with me as much as it should've.

If you want to go into this movie completely blind as to what it's all about, feel free to exit this review and come back after you watch. If you don't mind a bit of an exploration of this, then proceed. With that out of the way, the specific angle here is, simply put, Liberty Jail. All of it. Nothing more, nothing less. We don't get a recap of who Joseph Smith is. There's also very little information given about the Saints' situation in Missouri. We don't even get to see why Joseph Smith and company got put in Liberty Jail. There's a few words of text that briefly describe the situation, but no visuals. After said text, the movie starts with them two months into their jail sentence, the month being December 1838. The introductory scene is of them formulating a plan to escape because they feel like that's their only way out. That plan fails. Because, you know, they ending up being there for six months. Following that, the movie goes in a very straight-lined narrative, giving highlights of their time in jail in four different sections: January, February, March and April. No, the movie doesn't have a nice and pretty three-act structure, thus this ends up as quite the tricky undertaking. Most of the time that Joseph and company were in Liberty Jail, it was cold, dark and lonely with nothing happening.   

That's why I felt conflicted here. While there was a lot going on during this time period, if the decision is made to have the point of view strictly from Liberty Jail only, what do you do to make that story interesting? Yeah, they did a great job of setting the scene for Liberty Jail. It was cold and chilling. There were definitely some great individual moments. But when I had to stay in jail with them for the whole movie, I started to get claustrophobic a bit. It felt like I got thrown in jail for two hours with them and it began to be uncomfortable. It's just hard to maintain a great flow when you decide to handcuff yourself to just one point of view. And given that I'm well familiar with the story, I think it would've added to the emotion to see what the saints were going through while Joseph was stuck in prison. The events right before Joseph got thrown in Liberty Jail were emotional and heart-wrenching. The continued extermination order while Joseph was in prison was tragic. Pair all these events up and you have an excellent movie. With what we got instead, we feel bad for Joseph because he's cold and miserable. In reality, he was mostly sad about what the saints were going through and the fact that he could do nothing to help them given that he was stuck in this jail all winter.

Yet we don't get to see any of that. Instead, we get loaded with constant exposition the entire movie and that's just not as effective as seeing what's going on. That's why whenever these events have been portrayed in various movies, we do get to witness the full scope of what's happening from every angle. And I don't think this decision was made due to budget constraints. Batty's previous two movies have been fairly successful. I just think he wanted to tell a more constrained, personal story with this, thus giving us a different look at this then what we've had in the past. And I will say that does make this unique in the large library of movies based on Church history, so I give him points there. I just don't know if unique is always the best. I mean, when Liberty Jail is portrayed, it's never the focus point of the entire film and I think there's a good reason for that. It's just a bit exhausting when we zoom in and spend the whole movie there. It gets the point across just fine in 20-30 minutes as a part of something bigger in scope. And if I'm being honest, if I'm ever in the mood to dive into some Church history via film, I don't know how often I'm going to turn to this one when something like "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" is available instead.

All that said, this review has been a lot more negative than I initially intended it to be. I just walked out in a bit of a conflicted manner and I've used this review to get to the bottom of what I've been feeling. Since I feel I've gotten that point across just fine, if we put aside the narrative structure of the film, there is a lot of positive moments in this movie. Despite this being about Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith is actually almost a supporting character in the film. There's a lot of focus around the jailer Samuel Tillery, who is played by Jasen Wade, who is definitely the lead in the film. He's the name they have advertised on all of the posters and is the one who comes up first in the end credits. And he has a solid arc in the film. He's trying to be this stern jailer so that the leaders of county and state will be happy with him, but he also fights hard to protect all of his prisoners from the angry mobs that constantly try to come and take justice into their own hands. He's bound and determined to keep all of them safe. There's some good, solid character moments with him. And if you don't remember off hand exactly how Joseph got out of Liberty Jail, I won't give that away, but it makes for an excellent moment that leaves you with all warm and fuzzy inside.

The movie's soundtrack is also quite excellent. When moments of tension happened, I was successfully on the edge of my seat. Even though I know that they all stayed in Liberty Jail until April, their attempted escapes were framed and executed quite well. And all of the acting was solid. Now if we're going back to the nitpicky side of things, I do have to say that the actor who played Joseph Smith looked nothing like him. It made me laugh when the whole group stood up and Joseph Smith was short and chubby. I don't know how tall Brandon Ray Oliver is, but he looked like he was only 5'6" or 5'7" while I think Joseph was closer to 6'2" or something like that. So if we're going to get a random, non-member actor to play Joseph, why not cast someone who looks more like him? That said, he did a great job of portraying Joseph in the most honest and respectful way, so I appreciated that. And we also had a lot of other great supporting cast members, including Garrett Batty bringing back Corbin Allred from "The Saratov Approach" to play Porter Rockwell. Corbin Allred always gets into his roles and it's fun to watch him. And without saying more than I should, if you've been to the temple recently, you'll know exactly who Corbin Allred is when you see him. 

Some other quick final thoughts. Again, if you are unfamiliar with Church history, some of the drama that happens won't have as strong of an effect. The main antagonist in the film is a mob member who is very angry about certain events that happened at the Battle of Crooked River. If that battle rings no bells, you're going to be at a disadvantage. Also, Alexander Doniphan plays a significant role in this. And if that name doesn't ring a bell, then you're also at a disadvantage because the movie assumes you already know him and doesn't bother explaining. If you're watching this at your home, you have the advantage of being able to pause and go over that. But if you're watching it in theaters, the movie has the potential to lose you. That's why I said earlier that if you're not an active member of the Church, this movie is probably not for you. Given that I am in the target audience, I personally wasn't bothered, but again it's worth noting. All in all, this movie does have plenty of great moments. It's not preachy, but it does leave you with enough of a spiritual high that I imagine most people won't even think of all things that I brought up here. I don't think it's a movie you need to rush out to see in theaters, but I do think it's worth a watch at some point. My grade here is a 7/10.

IT: Chapter Two Review

Everyone's favorite killer clown is back in what is easily the horror event of the year. It's actually been a pretty decent month or so for horror as in just the last month I've done reviews for "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," "47 Meters Down: Uncaged" and "Ready or Not." Then we had "Midsommar" back in July as well as "Child's Play" and "Annabelle Comes Home" back in June, the latter two of which I still haven't seen. We also had the little Sundance thriller "Don't Let Go" last weekend, but I also didn't get around to seeing that one. But, yeah, "IT: Chapter Two" is the big one as the first "IT" made an astronomically high $123 million opening weekend, which is practically unheard of for a horror film. Horror films are so cheap to make that if you get $40-50 million opening weekend, you're almost guaranteed to have 10 sequels coming in the next 10 years. You can even get away with only making $20-30 million overall in certain instances and still be considered profitable given that most of these films are budgeted at only a few million dollars. So yeah, $123 million in one weekend is insane. It went onto make $327 million domestically and $700 million worldwide. So here we are with "Chapter Two" as fast as they possibly could, which is also set to do quite well.

Sure, it might be unfair to expect "Chapter Two" to perform as high as the first one, but given that the first one was only budgeted at $35 million, it's not necessary for it to do as well, even though it does appear that they doubled the production budget to $60-70 million, which it's certainly guaranteed to make back in its upcoming opening weekend as it's on pace for somewhere between $80-100 million. In the meantime, Warner Bros. is probably trying to figure out a way to bring Pennywise back for a third outing, but I hope they can manage to restrain themselves and just keep it as these two movies because, with both movies combined, this is a solid five hour epic that has a perfect beginning, middle and end. We don't need more. As far as my feelings on this second half going in, I would label myself as being cautiously optimistic. I really enjoyed the first movie and I loved the idea of having the same director and team come for this second movie. I also loved the new cast they had for the adult versions of the losers club, highlighted by Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader. But if we're being real, the first half of the movie was the part that was easy to get right whereas they had their work cut out for them as the second half is the lesser half of the story.

I don't want to get too deep into my issues with this second half, in terms of the book and the 1990 TV miniseries, because most of that has to do with how this ends. It's not a good ending. Granted, I haven't physically read the 100,000 page book by Stephen King (OK, that's a slight exaggeration in terms of that length), but I've read and heard a lot about it, especially since I have seen the miniseries and when that ending came, I was like, "Wait, what? That's it?" A friend of mine once told me that, while Stephen King does an excellent job setting up his horror, mystery and suspense, he's not very good at his resolutions. I can't claim that as my personal opinion of his work since I haven't actually read most of his stuff, but in terms of the ending of "IT," I'd say that most certainly holds true. The other non-spoilery reason why I'm not as big of a fan of the second half of the story is that having Pennywise terrorize a group of teenage kids is a much more intriguing setup that simply works better for a horror film as compared to Pennywise terrorizing a group of adults. With the 2017 movie version, the fact that they made it take place in 80's was a perfect marriage as it felt like a classic 80's horror. And we all know how popular and fun 80's nostalgia vomit is right now. 

So yeah, the filmmakers here really had their work cut out for them, which is why I think I ended up enjoying and appreciating this film a lot more than I was expecting to. First and foremost, what really held this thing together was the cast. When I heard that they cast Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader, I knew I was going to get 110 percent out of those three. And I was exactly right. But what I also got was an equal amount of effort from the other three members of the adult losers club, played by Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Isaiah Mustafa. Yes, there were seven kids in the losers club in the first movie. If you don't know the story here, I'll let you figure out in the first 20 minutes what happens to the seventh one as an adult. But for the sake of this review, these six actors are our main group that are focused and I think it's impressive how much I bought the idea that they are grown up versions of the kids. There's a lot of flashbacks in this where they go back to them as kids and it helped me remember their personalities in the first movie, which in turn made it extremely impressive because those same personalities still existed in their adult selves. Despite being very well known actors, especially Chastain, McAvoy and Hader, they were all able to disappear into their roles and become these characters.

On top of there being six great performances in the movie, I also liked the focus of this being a character piece. A lot of horror films out there are focused first and foremost on the scares and the imagery, with story and characters being afterthoughts. Depending on how well said scares are set up, that can work as mindless entertainment, but where the horror genre really shines is when there's more depth. When the horror sequences are secondary in focus to the themes, characters and story. That's one thing that the first "IT" excelled at. You really cared about this group of young outcasts and what they were going through. Having them all bind together to face their fears and thus become stronger was quite touching and inspirational. It was a lot more than just a killer clown chasing kids around. I loved how "Chapter Two" built on that. Sometimes we make promises as kids, but life happens and we forget. In the movie, they literally forgot due to supernatural elements of the town, but I think it was very metaphorical. They had to remember who they were, come together again, and conquer their fears once and for all. For most of them, the struggles they had when they were younger carried over into their adult lives and all of that got forced to the surface when they reunited in Derry.

I found myself really enjoying watching all of them grow and progress as characters. I don't want to specifically single out one or two of them as having superior arcs because I liked all six of them. I also liked how the movie chose not to rush to a finale. There's a lot of story to tell here and they gave themselves plenty of time to tell it. It was a gamble to make the movie nearly three hours long (2 hours 49 minutes), but I think it payed off as nothing felt rushed or compromised. This could've easily been one of those 10-episode Netflix shows with how much material there is to work with, but I liked having this as a movie and I liked how well it has done because it's given them the financial freedom to do this story justice with high budget effects and top notch actors to go along with 2019 technology. It's allowed us to experience the "IT" story that we all deserve. And I think it's highly amusing that people will binge a whole season of "The Haunting of Hill House" in one weekend with zero complaints (that's nearly 10 hours worth of content), yet at the same time will walk out and complain that "IT: Chapter Two" was too long at just three hours. Yes, this movie is a bit of time investment, but if you're just going to watch Netflix all night anyways, you might as well invest that time, right?

Now it would certainly be foolish of me to review an "IT" movie and not talk about the scares. Because there's a lot of them. I don't know if I was cowering in my seat like I was with something like "Hereditary" or "Midsommar." I'm not even sure this was quite as terrifying as the first "IT." But I was really enjoying myself. Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise was again having the time of his life. Every time he showed up on screen, he just completely took over and had my full attention. Tim Curry as Pennywise is rightfully iconic, but Bill Skarsgard absolutely does the character justice and also does a great job of making it his own. These are two very different performances, but are both great in their own right. The advantage that Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise has is that it's not held back by being a TV miniseries. They can get away with being a lot more gruesome and graphic. Speaking of that, I felt that "Chapter Two" was even a lot more graphic than the first one. Given that they didn't know how successful that first movie was going to be, it felt like perhaps they were a bit cautious. But this time around, knowing that people will show up in droves, they did not hold back one bit. They completely unleashed the Pennywise fury.

With that does come a bit of a caution. If you don't have the stomach for graphic horror films, but yet you were considering maybe give "IT" and "IT: Chapter Two" a chance due to how culturally relevant and popular the movies are becoming, you might want to reconsider. Perhaps you can check out the first movie, I own it if you are a good friend of mine who lives close. And if that's too much for you, then steer clear of "Chapter Two" because they turn up intensity quite a bit. If you've only seen the 1990 miniseries, know that these two movies make that one look cheesy, childish and tame. But if you do have the stomach for these types of horror films, buckle up and enjoy the ride. Now "Chapter Two" is not being as widely acclaimed as the first movie, thus I think I might end up being one who is higher on the movie than most. As such, I was going to counter a lot of the common complaints that I didn't have an issue with, but there's an interesting psychological phenomenon with movies that once you hear a complaint about a movie you haven't seen, you often go in with that complaint in mind, thinking that you might also have the same complaint. So I'm not even going to put those negative thoughts about this movie into your brain. Maybe it'll give you more of a clean slate. 

As far as a final grade, I think I've handcuffed myself a bit. I really enjoyed last month's "Scary Stories" and gave it a really high score. And even though I liked "IT: Chapter Two" for very different reasons, I'm not quite sure which one I like more and I'm not ready to make that determination quite yet. So I feel obligated to give it the same score just to make my life easier. But at the same time, I will freely admit that the first "IT" is a more polished, refined, and scarier movie that "Chapter Two" simply because it was easier to get right, thus I was going to give "Chapter Two" a slightly lower grade than that one. But yet my score for "Scary Stories" and "IT" is the same exact score, so I'm in a bit of a bind. That's why I hope you don't put too much weight into the grades I give in my reviews. I like giving them because it's a good summation of how I feel. But yeah, what I say means a lot more than the number I give and this is a good example of why. I suppose this is deserving of the same score as the first simply because they had a bigger uphill battle to climb and they did an excellent job with the task that they were given. And without spoiling the ending, I left the movie with a huge smile on my face thanks to certain things they changed. So, sure. I'll give "IT: Chapter Two" a 9/10. 

Movie Preview: September 2019

And just like that the summer movie season for 2019 is in the books. It finished with a decently respectable August that was about par for the course. There was not "Suicide Squad" or "Guardians of the Galaxy" to boost it above average, but "Hobbs & Shaw" did a good job leading the way with just over $150 million total through the end of the month. July holdovers "The Lion King" and "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" also did solid business while there were plenty of mid-range hits that performed a bit over expectations, like "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," "Good Boys" and "Angel Has Fallen," which helped the month avoid disaster and finish around $830 million, which is about average for August. Overall, the box office did quite well over the course of the whole summer movie season, finishing with around $4.3 billion, which is about even with last summer's $4.4 billion and well ahead of 2017's disappointing $3.8 billion. The average over the last decade is right at $4.3 billion. So again, par for the course. But with summer over, it's time to look forward to the fall movie season, which often starts a bit slow in September, but there will be at least one clown wreaking box office havoc.

September 6th - 8th-

Historically speaking, Labor Day weekend is often one of the worst for the box office. That rang true this year as this past weekend became the second worst weekend of 2019, ahead of only Super Bowl weekend. Prior to 2017, the weekend after Labor Day hadn't fared a whole lot better. But then Warner Bros. discovered a secret. Horror movies can do quite well in early September as "IT" sent shock waves through the world, earning an unprecedented $123.4 million in September 2017. That release date proved to not be a fluke as "The Nun" then opened to $53.8 million last September. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Warner Bros. will be attempting to go three for three in this spot by releasing the highly anticipated IT: Chapter Two. This will be the conclusion to Stephen King's classic story as Pennywise the clown will again be terrorizing the Losers Club, but this time with all of them as adults 27 years later. The adult cast here is rather impressive with Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean and Isaiah Mustafa taking the reigns from the younger cast, who will also all be reprising their roles via flashbacks, with Bill Skarsgard returning as the infamous clown Pennywise, a mysterious presence who preys on people's greatest fears.

Just how much will "IT: Chapter Two" make in its opening weekend? We'll find out pretty quickly here, but given how well received "IT" was, historical logic says people will turn up in droves to catch the next chapter, especially with said chapter being advertised as the final chapter. Not only did "IT" open with $123.4 million, but it also held fairly well for a horror film, earning $327.5 million overall domestically, which is the highest total ever for an R-rated horror film, not adjusted for ticket price inflation (1973's "The Exorcist" easily wins out when you do adjust as it's one of the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time adjusted for ticket price inflation). Can "IT: Chapter Two" top that opening, while possibly capturing the opening weekend record for an R-rated film, currently held by "Deadpool" with $132.4 million? Given that no one expected "IT" to open as high as it did, that's certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. However, it should be noted that the second half of this story is typically seen as the lesser half, both with the book and the 1990 mini-series. If that trend continues, "IT: Chapter Two" could be in for a slight dip in performance. What also can't be ignored is the movie's 169 minute run time, which could be a bit daunting for casual horror audiences. 

September 13th - 15th-

There are more movies being released in September. The other studios just decided to let "IT: Chapter Two" have that first weekend all to itself. But there are two releases in this second weekend of September. The one getting a significant amount of buzz right now is Hustlers. STX Entertainment was a bit late in beginning their advertising campaign for this movie as they didn't release the first trailer for this until mid-July, but said trailer has caught a lot of attention. The movie stars Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Lizzo and Cardi B as it follows a crew of former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients. It was inspired by the New York Times article "The Hustlers at Scores," which was written by Jessica Pressler and published in December 2015. In Pressler's article, she describes this original story as a modern-day Robin Hood story where strippers stole from "(mostly) rich, (usually) disgusting, (in their minds) pathetic men and gave to, well, themselves." So this movie could be a good one for the female crowd and thus might be comparable to fellow STX film "Bad Moms," which is currently STX's highest grossing film as it opened to $23.8 million and held well, making $113.2 million overall.

The second wide release of the weekend is one that doesn't have quite as much buzz, but is hoping to build said buzz with it's premier at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8 and that is The Goldfinch. This movie is a collaborative effort between Warner Bros. and Amazon Studios wherein Warner Bros. will control the theatrical release while Amazon gets the exclusive streaming rights later on. Both studios helped finance the film. The movie is about a boy in New York who gets taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The big draw here is that this is from director John Crowley, whose previous film is the 2015 drama "Brooklyn," which got a best picture nomination at the Oscars as well as as nominations for best lead actress for Saoirse Ronan and best adapted screenplay. Whether or not "The Goldfinch" follows suit will largely depend on how critics and audiences react to the film, which is why its debut at TIFF will be key. The movie does boast a cast that includes Ansel Elgort, Oaks Fegley, Aneurin Barnard, Finn Wolfhard, Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright and Nicole Kidman. I'm sure a few of them would love awards season consideration if the movie does play well.

September 20th - 22nd-

The third weekend of September might be the most interesting in terms of the fight for the top box office spot. In 2017, "IT" made $29.8 million in its third weekend after a $60.1 million second weekend. If "Chapter Two" ends up with a sharper fall in its ensuing weekends, there could be a fight to dethrone it with all three new wide releases this weekend being in play. The first of them is Rambo: Last Blood. The marketing push for this movie hasn't necessarily been the most aggressive, neither has the interest level been super high. But nevertheless this is the fifth movie in what was at least at one point a popular franchise. The Rambo franchise initially began in 1982 with "First Blood," which was right in the midst of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky success as 1982 was also when "Rocky III" got released. While the second film, "Rambo: First Blood Part II," did excellent business, the third and fourth movies didn't exactly repeat that success, with the fourth film, simply titled "Rambo," failing to reignite the franchise back in 2008, 20 years after the release of "Rambo III." So is "Rambo: Last Blood," supposedly the final film in the franchise, going to fare any better? "Rambo" opened to $18.2 million in January 2008, which is a mark "Last Blood" should hit if it wants to justify its existence.

Fighting for a fairly similar target audience as "Rambo: Last Blood" will be the Brad Pitt space drama Ad Astra. Traveling to space is something that we've done a lot of recently in Hollywood with the likes of "Gravity" (2013), "Interstellar" (2014), "The Martian" (2015), "Passengers" (2016), "Life" (2017), and "First Man" (2018). So, yeah, we've had at least one of these types of movies every year since 2013. We're even going to go back again in October with "Lucy in the Sky." With "Ad Astra," Brad Pitt is heading to space in order to figure out what happened with his father, who went on some sort of expedition 30 years prior that now jeopardizes the universe. The movie has a reported production budget of around $80 million, which means Disney would love it if it opened to the $45+ million that "Gravity," "Interstellar" and "The Martian" all did, but that might be wishful thinking. Rather, last year's "First Man" opened just over $16 million, which might be more around the range that "Ad Astra" hits. The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 29 to positive reviews and will also have the benefit of IMAX theaters. But looking at that budget, this might be another one of these Disney-distributed Fox films that falls short of its financial expectations.

The biggest wild card of the weekend will be the release of Downton Abbey, which is a continuation of the popular British TV series that ran for six seasons from 2010 to 2015. This movie is written by show creator and co-writer Julian Fellowes and is directed by Michael Engler, who directed four episodes of the show during the final seasons. So that information, combined with the return of much of the original cast, including Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton, has a lot of the fan base of the show excited to return for another experience. The general premise of this film involves King George V and Queen Mary visiting Downton Abbey in 1927. The question here, though, is how much of the fan base will make the trip to the theaters to see this? Given that they originally watched the show in the comfort of their own homes, will many of them chose to wait to see this until they can also watch this in their own homes instead of paying for a ticket to see it? There's not a whole lot of exact historical precedent to compare this to, in terms of completed shows continuing later via movie by the original creative team, but perhaps the 2015 film "Entourage" is one? That opened to $10.3 million in June 2015.

September 27th - 29th-

The final weekend of September only has one wide release and that is DreamWorks Animation's Abominable. The end of September has been a very popular time to release an animated film as there's been one around this time every year since "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in 2009. A good percentage of these instances have been Sony Animation claiming the spot as their own with their "Cloudy" and "Hotel Transylvania" franchises, but occasionally another studio will jump in, like DreamWorks this year. "Abominable" continues an odd trend recently of animated yeti movies with "Smallfoot" last September, "Missing Link" this April and now "Abominable" this month. This latest yeti adventure involves a girl finding a magical yeti outside her home and having to go on a journey to return him back to his home. The easiest comparison here to how well this will do is "Smallfoot," given the exact same release date and premise. "Smallfoot" opened to $23 million and made $83 million total. In the two previous years before "Smallfoot," we've also had "The LEGO Ninjago Movie" opening to $20.4 million, making $59.3 million overall, while "Storks" opened to $21.3, making $72.7 million overall. At first look, "Abominable" seems like it will fit right into that range.


If this is the range that "Abominable" hits, that will actually be on the low end of the spectrum for a DreamWorks animated film. If you remove the three Aardman films they helped distribute in the early 2000s ("Chicken Run," "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" and "Flushed Away"), the average opening weekend for DreamWorks is $44.3 million, while the average final domestic total is $162.7 million. Given that these movies have now spanned over 20 years, if you take things a bit further and adjust for ticket price inflation for each film, the average opening weekend number goes up to $54.8 million, while the average final domestic total going up to $204.7 million. So if "Abominable" only hits the numbers of "Smallfoot," that will be a major disappointment for the studio. They're probably hoping for numbers similar to what the first two "Hotel Transylvania" movies did, that being $42.5 million and $48.4 million, respectively. And it wouldn't be unheard of for a DreamWorks film to drastically overperform and hit those levels. "Home" in 2015 and "The Boss Baby" in 2017 were only expected to open around $30 million, but yet both opened over $50 million. So it's possible that the DreamWorks brand could push "Abominable" higher than expected.