Movie Preview: October 2021

It was a very “Shang-Chi” heavy month at the box office in September as the breakout hit from Marvel easily took the weekend crown all four weeks, becoming the highest grossing movie of 2021 at the domestic box office and will soon be the first here to pass $200 million since the start of the pandemic. Again, that’s domestically. There’s been a few Chinese films that have made well over $500 million in China in the last year, but “Shang-Chi” doing so well in the United States and Canada has given studios confidence to stick with their release dates, which has resulted in quite the heavy October.

Nothing else that opened in September even opened above $10 million. In fact, of all movies playing, the second through fifth highest grossing movies in September were all holdovers from July and August. That means there’s still no guarantee of massive success. Not everything is going to be a “Shang-Chi.” But what “Shang-Chi” did prove is that if there’s a movie that people like and word of mouth spreads, people will be willing to show up. And that’s all the studios need to know because that makes the pandemic slightly less of an excuse and opens the door to the potential of money being made. And although the situation is still fluid, this gives me confidence that most of these movies that I’m bringing up in this preview will come out. And there are a lot of them, so it’s time to dive in.

Box office data and release date information is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. Unless specified otherwise, the movies included in this post are movies scheduled for a wide theatrical release in the United States and Canada.

October 1 – 3

Sony's "Venom: Let There Be Carnage"

Starting things off in October, we have our next big comic book film in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. This is the sequel to the 2018 film “Venom,” starring Tom Hardy as the anti-hero Eddie Brock. It was initially seen as a very risky venture for Sony to start a separate Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe by making a Venom movie without Peter Parker in it, thus recreating the origin story of Eddie Brock, which is normally tied directly in with Spider-Man. But the risk paid off and “Venom” scored a then October opening weekend record of $80.3 million (broken by “Joker” a year later), proving to be very critic proof, becoming a fan favorite and having solid legs despite a 30 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics. Now the still Spider-Man-less sequel has Venom going up against his biggest nemesis in Carnage, another symbiote who attaches to serial killer Cletus Kasady. Unlike Eddie Brock, who seeks to keep Venom in check by not eating everyone and everything, Cletus Kasady as a host is more than willing to let Carnage run rampant. Cletus Kasady is played by Woody Harrelson, as was teased in the end credits of the original film, albeit without the wig that he wore in that scene.

How well “Let There Be Carnage” does this weekend will probably be at least somewhat of a reflection of how popular the first movie actually was and how excited the general public is for a sequel. Which, again, the first movie was a lot more popular with fans then with critics, but how beloved is it actually? And what sort of cultural impact has it left in the last three years? Box Office Pro projected an opening in the $45-65 million range, but is there another surprise in store? Can it hit the $80 million opening of the original? Early reaction seems to be on the positive side of things, even from a critics point of view as it’s currently hovering around a 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

As I mentioned last month, one movie that did not hit theaters was “Hotel Transylvania: Transformania,” the fourth movie in the franchise. After getting bounced around like a ping pong ball with most other films, Sony decided to cancel its theatrical release. Reports are that Amazon Prime is in discussions to buy and stream it on their service. This weekend was the date that it was supposed to come out. Instead, United Artists jumped on that opening and will be releasing The Addams Family 2, the sequel to the animated reboot of the franchise from 2019, which was a surprise hit, opening to $30.3 million on its way to $97.9 million domestically and $200 million worldwide. This sequel appears to be a nice sweet spot here. Those who enjoyed the first will probably be interested in this sequel. It’s the first weekend of October, meaning Halloween time is upon us. Plus, parents with young kids haven’t had a movie to take the family to in a while. There were a few options in July and only “PAW Patrol: The Movie” in August. Nothing new for them in September. And despite it being a busy October, this is really the only family release of the month, so that should help it considerably.

Finishing off the trio of new wide releases this weekend is a potential treat for fans of “The Sopranos” in The Many Saints of Newark. “The Sopranos” is highly regarded as one of the best TV shows ever made, currently sitting at No. 13 on IMDb’s list of top rated TV shows. It first aired in 1999 and ran for six seasons, totaling 86 episodes, on HBO. The TV show chronicled the journey of Tony Soprano, who attempted to balance being a family man with being a mob boss of the Soprano family. “The Many Saints of Newark” is a prequel movie to “The Sopranos,” following a young Tony Soprano, with the backdrop of the movie being the 1967 Newark riots in Newark, New Jersey. Michael Gandolfini, son of James Gandolfini, plays the role of young Tony Soprano, a role his father played in the TV series. “The Many Saints of Newark” will debut simultaneously on HBO Max along with its theatrical debut. This hybrid release strategy seems to be going away in favor of a 45-day theatrical exclusive window. After the success of “Shang-Chi,” a theatrical exclusive, Disney committed to this strategy for the rest of their movies in 2021. However, Warner Bros. had already committed to the hybrid strategy for the whole year, so they’re stuck with it until January, when they also plan to ditch it. But for now, “The Many Saints of Newark” will be free at home for HBO Max subscribers, which will eat into its box office potential.

It looks like that’s it for the wide releases this weekend, but there are two more significant smaller releases. The Jesus Music is actually listed as a wide release by the-numbers.com, but I’m expecting it to play more like last month’s “Show Me the Father,” which opened to $700,181 from 1,081 theaters. “The Jesus Music” is a documentary by Andrew and Jon Erwin, directors of “Woodlawn,” “I Can Only Imagine” and “I Still Believe” and chronicles the history of contemporary Christian music from its origins up to its popularity today, featuring many popular Christian artists. And on possibly the exact opposite side of the spectrum, also opening in at least a few hundred theaters is the buzzy French film Titane, which has sparked quite the discussion across the festival circuit the past few months. And that makes sense when you learn its premise is about a female serial killer who gets impregnated by a car. Yes, you read that right. From IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, “there’s no denying that ‘Titane’ is the work of a demented visionary in full command of her wild mind.” It’s described as the most shocking movie of the year, one worth seeing in a crowded theater in order to witness everyone’s reactions.

October 8 – 10

United Artists' "No Time to Die"

After a rather busy opening weekend of October, there’s only one wide release in the second weekend of October. But it’s certainly not going to be a quiet weekend as the 25th James Bond movie, No Time to Die, will finally be hitting theaters. This was initially scheduled for a November 2019 release date until it was postponed to April 2020 after initial director Danny Boyle left the project. That was, of course, unfortunate timing with COVID-19 shutting down the world a month before its planned release. And now after an 18-month game of chicken with COVID, the movie will finally see the light of day. United Artists will be handling its domestic release, with Universal taking care of the international release. And those two studios were definitely happy to see “Shang-Chi” do so well, otherwise it may have been bumped down the calendar even more. For many reasons, this has movie of the year potential in regards to the box office. Bond has been around since Ian Fleming’s original novels in 1953 and has been a movie franchise since “Dr. No” in 1962, with many actors taking over the mantle of Bond. That alone makes a new Bond film almost a guaranteed success.

Beyond that, “No Time to Die” will be Daniel Craig’s fifth and final time portraying Bond. The franchise is far from being done and may never go away as long as movies continue to be a thing, but the idea that this is an end of an era might make this more of an event film than even the likes of “Skyfall” and “Spectre.” The initial screenings have already taken place and reactions from the Twitterverse from those lucky enough to see it have been generally very positive, which also helps build anticipation. What does that translate to in terms of box office? Well, the first thing to look at is those two predecessors. “Skyfall” opened to $88.3 million in 2012, while “Spectre” opened to $70.4 million in 2015. Yes, we are still in a pandemic. As I said, not everything is going to be a “Shang-Chi.” And yes, there is strong competition from “Venom 2” and “Dune” over the context of the whole month, but I’m feeling generally optimistic with this one. I don’t know if it can be the first movie of the pandemic to open north of $100 million, but I’d say there’s an outside chance for it to come close. At the very least, somewhere in the “Skyfall” and “Spectre” range seems like a given.

No direct competition for Bond, but two smaller films worth mentioning. Lamb sees A24 getting in the Halloween spirit with their new supernatural indie horror film. Well, kinda. In true A24 fashion, this looks right up their alley as an unconventional horror film that might lean heavily on the drama side with a young couple in Ireland, played Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, parenting a… strange humanoid/lamb hybrid thing. Fans of traditional horror might want to wait for the big horror film up in the next weekend, but fans of indie horror will have something to look forward to when it expands to their region. Alongside “Lamb” will be Mass, a popular film out of Sundance looking to make an Awards run. The plot has the parents of a victim of a school shooting meeting face-to-face with the parents of the perpetrator. At the very least, the actors in the film are looking at some nominations, led by Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, and Reed Birney. And if Bleeker Street can figure out a way to promote and campaign this, and it connects with general audiences, this might be a film to look out for.   

October 15 – 17

Universal's "Halloween Kills"

And for the major horror audiences, Michael Myers is back to haunt Halloween with Halloween Kills, the sequel to the 2018 reboot of the franchise, titled simply “Halloween,” which did very well for itself in positioning it as a direct sequel to the original John Carpenter movie, wiping the rest of the slate clean. After hunting down Michael and burning him to a crisp, Laurie Strode isn’t done dealing with Michael. Because, you know, he’s never dead. The 2018 “Halloween” did very well for itself, opening to $76.2 million and winding up with $255 million worldwide, $159 million of that coming domestically. Not bad for a movie budgeted at $10 million. And now you know why these movies never end. “Halloween Kills” debuted at the Venice Film Festival in early September, an interesting choice, and is said to be a movie focused heavily on Michael killing people. Whether that’s positive or negative is up for debate. Diminished returns are expected, as is almost always the case with a horror franchise. And Universal also made a strange choice to debut this day-and-date on Peacock along with its theatrical debut. So this won’t be hitting that $76 million of its predecessor. But again, with the budget of these films, that doesn’t really matter. A $30-50 million opening would already be far above the line of profitability.

Ridley Scott will be competing against himself at the awards circuit this year with two films he directed being released this awards season. The first of that comes this weekend with The Last Duel. In November he’ll also have “House of Gucci.” The reason for this double release is directly related to COVID as “The Last Duel” was initially supposed to come out last year. It’s now been a while since Ridley Scott had a major awards contender, since “The Martian” in 2015. Many have wondered if this year could be his year. “The Last Duel” definitely looks great on paper. It is co-written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The last time those two wrote a movie together was “Good Will Hunting.” Both Damon and Affleck star in the film along with Adam Driver and Jodie Comer in what some have called a Medieval #MeToo saga. Damon and Driver are the two male leads. Formerly friends, Damon’s character challenges Driver’s character to a duel after Damon’s character’s wife (Comer) accuses Driver’s character of raping her. Damon and Affleck brought on Nicole Holofcener to help them write the screenplay, in part to make sure the female’s perspective is properly represented.

October 22 – 24

Warner Bros.' "Dune"

As you’ve seen by this point, this month is full of big titles postponed by COVID-19 that will finally be getting their releases. Yet another one of these movies is the highly anticipated release of Dune. At the helm here is Denis Villeneuve, director of “Arrival,” “Sicario,” “Prisoners,” and – perhaps most notably – “Blade Runner 2049.” The man is very experienced in many genres and looks to bring the epic sci-fi adventure triumphantly to the big screen. “Dune” is based off of the novel “Dune,” which was written in 1965 by Frank Herbert and is often cited as the best-selling sci-fi novel in history. “Dune” was the first in a series of six novels written by Herbert before he died in 1986, which was followed by his son Brian and co-author Kevin J. Anderson continuing with two different prequel trilogies, while also writing two direct sequels to the original series after Brian found his father’s notes. So yeah, this new movie is one that Warner Bros. hopes is the beginning of a new film franchise if all goes well. It’s not the first time Dune has been adapted to film or TV, but the hope here is for this to become the definitive version.

Warner Bros. may be shooting themselves in the foot a tad bit with their hybrid release strategy, meaning “Dune” will be free on HBO Max to subscribers. And the budget is upwards of $165 million, which means this needs to be a major hit for them to justify continuing. Luckily for Warner Bros., the movie has already been released and has been playing well. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and played again at Toronto International Film Festival to positive buzz from both. And it’s already been released in over 20 countries worldwide starting on September 15. In two weekends internationally, it’s already made $77 million and has several more countries yet to go. The October 22 release for the United States is actually among the last countries to get the movie. So early prognosis is quite good, even with the HBO Max angle and crowded release schedule.

In other non-“Dune” related news, Disney will be releasing the animated movie Ron’s Gone Wrong via their 20th Century Studios banner. This is a movie starring a kid named Barney and is set in a future where every kid gets their own robot friend called a B-bot. When Barney gets his new B-bot, he figures out that it doesn’t really work and has to figure out how to survive with his dysfunctional B-bot friend, which is named Ron. The history of this movie actually goes back to 2017 when new animation studio Locksmith Animation struck a deal with 20th Century Fox to release their movies. Fox was bought by Disney, thus meaning Disney inherited the project. While in production, Locksmith struck a new deal with Warner Animation Group, which will release their future films. That means this will be the first and only Locksmith movie handled by Disney. It’s also a movie that got postponed by COVID and thus in a weird chain of events, we have a movie released under the 20th Century Animation Studios after Blue Sky, the main Fox animation division, got shut down this April. So that’s a long a twisted history for a more low-key movie that might not break the bank. But it is getting a 45-day theatrical exclusive window along with the rest of Disney’s 2021 slate, so that helps it out.

Lastly for this weekend, in limited release we’ll see the debut of Wes Anderson’s movie The French Dispatch, which will be slowly expanded over the rest of 2021. Wes Anderson has a very unique style and thus has a strong, niche following. In 2018 he directed the animated movie “Isle of Dogs,” but his last live action movie was the 2014 hit “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which scored 10 Oscar nominations, winning four of them. He’s also directed “The Royal Tanenbaums,” “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and more. “The French Dispatch” is a love letter to journalists and is set in a fictional 20th century French city that brings to life a series of stories published in a magazine called “The French Dispatch Magazine.” Like most Wes Anderson films, the movie stars a lot of people in various roles. It’s always an acting party. The trailer specifically highlights Benecio Del Toro, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Timothee Chalamet, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, Stephen Park, and Bill Murray. But there’s a lot more.

October 29 – 31

Focus Features' "Last Night in Soho"

Nope. We’re not done yet. With October 1 landing on a Friday, we have five full weekends in October without even poaching into November. But given that Halloween is on Sunday and will most likely be celebrated on Friday and Saturday, opening a big release on this weekend is not the smartest of ideas. Perhaps “Dune” takes this weekend again. And I’m assuming “Halloween Kills” will perform nicely over Halloween weekend.

Leading the charge among four new films will be Edgar Wright debuting his latest film Last Night in Soho. Wright has become a beloved name among film fans. Like Wes Anderson, he has a very distinct style with his humor and his sharp, quick editing. He directed the Cornetto trilogy, consisting of “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz” and “At World’s End.” In between that he directed what has become a huge cult hit in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” He almost directed “Ant-Man” for Marvel before stepping away due to creative differences, but his style remains imprinted on that whole movie. And his biggest hit financially came with the 2017 movie “Baby Driver,” which finished its run with over $200 million worldwide. “The Last Night in Soho” sees him delve into the psychological horror/thriller realm, perfect for Halloween weekend.  The story is about an aspiring fashion designer, played by Thomasin McKenzie, being able to mysteriously enter 1960s London in the body of an iconic night club singer, played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Early buzz is a bit mixed, which means it might not open as strong as “Baby Driver,” which scored $20.6 million opening weekend. Rather, his other films all opened in the $5-10 million range, which could be closer to what “Last Night in Soho” is looking at.

While we’re in a Halloween mood here with this last weekend of October, let’s throw out the movie Antlers as being another option for the horror crowd. Having both “Last Night in Soho” and “Antlers” on the same weekend, both competing with “Halloween Kills” for the horror audiences on Halloween weekend, might not be the best of choices. One or both new horror films could be left in the dust because of it. But this is Disney here via Searchlight Pictures and they look like they’re simply taking a chance here after “Antlers” is another movie that bounced around the schedule due to COVID. So I’m guessing Disney isn’t too terribly worried about it not doing well. The movie stars Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons and is about a school teacher (Russell) and her brother, the local sheriff (Plemons), who become worried about one of her students who is hiding a supernatural creature in his house. This movie reminds me of last year on Halloween when Disney via Fox kinda just dumped “The Empty Man” on Halloween weekend without spending much time giving it any awareness. That movie made $1.3 million and had to rely on finding on audience afterwards. Granted, there were fewer theaters opened last Halloween, but there was also a lot less competition, too.  

Out of the horror field and into the anime realm, Funimation will be releasing My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission. “My Hero Academia” is a popular Japanese manga that started in 2014 and an anime series starting in 2015 that had five seasons. It’s also had two movies released during that, subtitled “Two Heroes” in 2018 and “Heroes Rising” in 2019. “World Heroes’ Mission” will be the third movie and it probably shouldn’t be overlooked in projecting the box office totals this weekend. While the big focus with these anime movies is the international release, Funimation has snuck up and done will in the United States, too. “Two Heroes” opened with $1.4 million from just 508 theaters, while “Heroes Rising” then opened with $5.9 million from 1,209 theaters. Even if this third film wound up like the second, that could be enough to be the top new release if the two horror movies disappoint. But it’s also worth noting that, while not in the same exact series, Funimation found huge success with “Dragon Ball Super: Broly” opening with $9.8 million from 1,247 theaters in 2019 and, most recently, “Demon Slayer: The Movie” opening to $22.8 million from 1,605 theaters earlier this year.

Last and, well, possibly least is a drama released by Sony called A Mouthful of Air. I’m a bit unsure about this one. It’s currently listed as a wide release. I’m not sure how wide that’ll end up being or if it will hit the date, but this is a movie that’s written and directed by Amy Koppelman, based on the book by Amy Koppelman. So she got the opportunity to adapt her own book into a movie, which is cool. The movie stars Amanda Seyfried as an author of bestselling children’s books that are about unlocking your fears, but she’s having her own fears and trauma that she’s struggling to deal with on her own. Exactly what that is beyond that basic description is a bit muddy and the trailer is also fairly vague. Ultimately there doesn’t seem to be a lot of buzz surrounding this and the trailer released a week ago only has 50,000 views on Sony’s official YouTube channel. So I’m not sure how much attention this will get when released, but we’ll see. It is Sony and Amanda Seyfried, so that’s at least something.

Dear Evan Hansen Review (SPOILERS)

The Tony award winning musical “Dear Evan Hansen” has made its way to the big screen in a triumphant and exciting way and the whole world couldn’t be happier. I mean, the winner for best musical at the 71st Tony Awards in June 2017 being adapted to film, with Steven Levenson, who wrote the book for the musical, penning the screenplay for the movie, and Ben Platt reprising his role as Evan Hansen, in which he won best actor at said Tony Awards, is the perfect winning formula. What could go wrong? This here is certain to be a critically praised Oscar nominee and candidate for best picture that continues this cultural phenomenon that the musical started.

Right?

Well… uhhh…

While a phenomenon this movie is, a positive phenomenon is a bit more debatable. Yes, the Broadway musical has been a resounding success. And even someone like me who most definitely doesn’t have his finger on the pulse in that area of entertainment is well aware of its existence. “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen” are the two recent musicals whose recent success has caught on like a wildfire. It’s hard to ignore. I’ve even loved the song “You Will Be Found,” even though I didn’t know much of the context behind it. But the interesting phenomenon that I’ve found here is that this movie adaptation really illustrates how vastly different the cultures are with stage productions and movies. If you were to create a Venn diagram, there are not very many things that intersect. And the expectations from the respective fan bases are quite different. Yet when you forcibly try meld the two together, the ensuing conversations are quite the thing.

Point in case with “Dear Evan Hansen.” I’ve had my eye on this movie adaptation for some time. I was even rather excited for it, being completely ignorant of the plot. And I know many people who have loved the original musical who have been super excited for this movie. But when the film’s trailer dropped back in May, the overall response from the film community was not one of excitement in the least bit. In fact, the response was quite the opposite. This is one of those trailers where the reaction immediately got toxic.

“THAT’S what ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ is about?” was the most common response I heard.

This response actually threw me off. I even posted the trailer on my Facebook page where I said that this looks like the movie of the year and I was beyond excited. So to hear so many people in the film community that I trust and follow ravagingly thrashing this movie in a tone of loud laughter and mockery… just from watching the trailer… had me confused. Some even took it a step further and read the Wiki plot of the play and were more certain than ever that this would be an epic disaster. And again, these are trusted people in the film community that I follow and listen to, not just some trolls on Twitter wanting attention.

Yet this toxic response was to the same exact play that the musical community loved and praised so much that they gave it the highest honor of best musical at the Tonys.

That’s why this is a very interesting phenomenon to me.

Like I said, it left me rather confused. Was I to join my musical friends in praising this to the high heavens or was I going to join the film community in calling this an epic disaster waiting to happen? I didn’t know. And I certainly wasn’t going to spoil the plot of it by reading the Wiki page. At least one of my musical friends assured me in my confusion that there was solid resolution to the conflict people were pointing out, that of our main protagonist lying about his relationship with a fellow classmate who just committed suicide after an awkward misunderstanding leads into an even more awkward conundrum. I mean, I watched the trailer. I saw that premise unfold. But I assumed that there was a point to it beyond what it initially looked. And I also assumed based on the song that I loved that this was a movie that was going to bring awareness to the issues of depression and suicide among teens.

Yet I remained confused, so I become increasingly curious to figure it all out for myself. What was all the hype about from the musical crowd? And what was all the negativity directed at from the film community? And where on that already divisive spectrum was I going to fall?

Part of me would’ve loved to have gone into it completely blind, having no idea what the reviews were. But it was kinda hard to do that when the movie debuted at TIFF in early September. That crowd wasn’t kind to it at all. A podcast I listen to called “Awards Radar” was the first to let the cat out of the bag for me. The host of that podcast, who went to Toronto for the festival, revealed his feelings that the movie was really bad. From then on, reviews kept trickling in until the explosion of them leading up to the weekend of release and critics were absolutely lighting this movie on fire. It currently sits at a very poor 32 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. And even when you read that third of them that are positive, most of them really aren’t that positive.

So yes, I went in knowing very well that most of the critics I follow hated this movie. And I feel like being very transparent with that. Does that cloud my judgment with how I ended up feeling? Maybe. I don’t know. But I can assure you that it gives me zero pleasure in this instance to come here and tear this movie apart. Sometimes that is fun. Sometimes it’s very therapeutic after watching something that really rubbed you the wrong way. But in this instance, I find it very stressful. And whether or not you believe me, I tried really hard with this one. I went in very neutral, despite knowing the toxic reaction, because I’m also very aware of how many people love this musical. And I’m also even more aware of the fact that the musical crowd are the most ruthless and vicious fan base around. They will not, and I repeat, THEY WILL NOT accept your opinion if you don’t like the thing that they love. They will thrash you. They will harass you. And they don’t even see an avenue in their brains where it is possible that even one negative thing can be said about their majestic masterpiece.

Believe me. I’ve been down this road before. I still don’t hear the end of it in regards to “The Greatest Showman.” And that movie came out four years ago. It has become the bane of my existence. And it’s not the only time that’s happened. The “Les Mis” movie from 2012 was a torrential disaster. Both in terms of my personal reaction to it and in terms of how I was treated for that opinion. And I find it frustrating because most musicals I watch I do enjoy. But from a positive opinion I get a high five or a pat on the back. But then it’s back to jumping down my throat for the ones I have negative things to say about. I even had one of my friends attack me pretty harshly for me trashing that dumb “Cinderella” adaptation from about a month ago. So again, I find zero happiness in all of this.

But the fact still stands.

“Dear Evan Hansen” is a train wreck. In my opinion. 

It’s not as bad production wise as that “Cinderella” movie. And it’s not as big of a nightmare across the board as “The Greatest Showman.” It is a competently made film in terms of the actual filming techniques. The songs themselves are really good. And the singing is excellent. So if that’s all you care about, then sure. But the plot of the movie itself and the themes that it presents are horribly misguided. And if you missed the title of this review when you clicked on it, me illustrating exactly why requires me to dive into spoilers. I’m not going to break down every last element of the plot, especially since I’ve already written a review and a half of setup, but I need to talk about the general plot direction of this disaster and why the resolution of the events here really upset me. And I know many of you are curious to hear those exact reasons because I’ve spent this whole weekend talking about this with people who are already baffled as to how a single soul could ever say anything negative, yet I refused to get into the meat of it because I didn’t want to openly discuss spoilers on Facebook or around those who haven’t seen the movie, yet all of the reasons have everything to do with the resolution of this movie.

So here we go. Disagree with me if you want. But I hope you can at least respect my opinion and understand all of this that I’ve discussed so far.

As I’ve already discussed,  and as you are already very aware, “Dear Evan Hansen” is a movie that makes an attempt to discuss the very sensitive subjects of mental health, depression, anxiety, and suicide. It is not a crowd-pleaser. It is not a popcorn flick where you can turn off your brain and enjoy a bunch of people dancing and singing. It is very deep and heavy. And that’s the type of thing that director Stephen Chbosky is already experienced in as he previously wrote and directed “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” in 2012, which is also a very heavy movie that I think is very well done. He also directed “Wonder” in 2017, which is a very heartwarming film about a young kid who doesn’t fit in. So Chbosky knows how to do this type of movie. In principle, anyways. Given that this is an adaptation of a previously written musical and not something he did on his own, I’m not going to give him too much flack for the specific direction this took. But the point is I’m well aware of the director’s history and thus knew the type of movie I was getting myself into.

And maybe because of that, I was more hyper-focused on the exact outcome of this dilemma that Evan Hansen in this movie finds himself in. I wasn’t sitting casually in my seat enjoying the music they were singing. I even found that to be a bit distracting because I thought a heavy, emotion story like this could’ve done with less bursting out into song when the tensions became high. A conflict of tone perhaps. A musical adaptation of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” sounds like a horrible idea, yet that’s kinda how things felt at times. But nevertheless, I needed to know how Evan proceeds with this deception of his.

Which, quite frankly, felt rather bogus to me in the first place. I can relate to Evan being extremely anxious and nervous, not knowing what to do and how to react in certain situations. Not shy, perhaps, but very socially awkward. And I think from an acting perspective, Ben Platt pulls that off really well. He obviously knows this character quite well and how he’s supposed to portray him. But the idea that if you somehow ended up in the situation of the parents believing you were best friends with a guy who was a jerk and bully to you that you would lie to them about everything, within days of him committing suicide? No I don’t buy it.

Evan writes himself a letter. Evan is honest in the letter about how he feels. This is an assignment from Evan’s therapist. Yet Connor steals this letter, walks away with it, then kills himself. And in a horribly awkward turn of events, Evan’s letter that Connor steals just happens to look like a suicide note from Connor, a final letter to a supposed friend of his?

I don’t buy that this is a thing that would happen. We’re watching a movie that tries to discuss the emotional and mental anguish that many are secretly going through, yet our main plot point involves a bogus situation that I don’t think anyone would realistically run into? That in and of itself is a problematic scenario. A conflict of tones. Everyone involved wants to tell a story of about mental health, yet the core of the plot is a crazy and wild thing of fiction that just does not seem believable to me.

But not just that, when Evan is approached by Connor’s parents, who now think Evan is best friends with Connor, Evan avoids telling them the truth? This is a very easy situation to resolve, even for a socially awkward person who doesn’t know how to handle himself.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Murphy. Connor didn’t write that letter. That’s a letter that I wrote to myself. Connor stole it from me and folded it up in his pocket. I didn’t actually know Connor too well outside of a few random occurrences where we crossed paths.”

Boom. There we go. Situation resolved. Movie over.

And even if you completely fumble that initial situation because your brain freezes and you didn’t know what to do, if you have a heart and if you have a soul, you’re going to figure out a way to fix that as soon as you can in your next meeting with these parents. And if you don’t know how to do that, the logical path for the character of Evan, who is so full of anxiety and social awkwardness, is to avoid them at all costs. That’s not the right decision, either. But it’s a decision that kinda makes sense for this character.

But instead, he’s going to go to dinner with them? He’s going to immediately go to his only friend and figure out a way to create email interactions between the two of them, even though I highly doubt that high school students from Gen Z socially communicate through email in an age of cell phones and social media? And he’s going to take advantage of Connor’s suicide to finally date Connor’s sister?

All of these situations just felt gross to me. It made me uncomfortable. And it felt unrealistic. At every twist and turn with this movie, I wanted so desperately for Evan to come clean as soon as he could, so then we could actually focus on the suicide of this kid, why he committed suicide, and have a real discussion about mental health awareness. But yet instead of attempting to have this conversation, we instead decided to go deeper and deeper into this insanely awkward rabbit hole that just started to make me feel worse and worse. Especially since none of it felt like real things that the character we set up would actually do. And we started to focus more on the movie becoming a teen romance that came completely out of left field, while sidelining what should’ve been our real focus and cheapening the potential message that could’ve been told.

Yet even up to this point, I was willing to suspend my disbelief and accept this plot that was happening, as long as we had some sort of resolution that made me feel positive about this movie that I was watching.

But then I hit the breaking point.

And in the worst turn of events, this breaking point just happened to be the moment I was most anticipating. The performance of the song that I had loved for years. “You Will Be Found.”

This could’ve been the moment where Evan came clean. Not just to Connor’s parents, but to everyone else. I knew that a speech was coming. I knew there was a big moment where he sings this song, which is absolutely incredible. This could’ve been an honest moment and an honest performance. He reveals that he didn’t know Connor. That he wrote the letter that made Connor’s parents believe they were friends. Then give some sort of emotional speech about mental health awareness that implements this beautiful song. Maybe we then shift focus to Connor and why no one knew him and why it is a tragedy that this led him to take his life. That maybe if someone had become his friend, perhaps he would still be there with them. Something to that effect could’ve actually made this the movie of the year.

But instead, that performance of the song is actually the most despicable, heartless thing that Evan does. Because he sings a song to the whole school, which becomes viral to the whole community, wherein he continues this lie and tells everyone that him and Connor were best friends. And throughout the whole song, I was screaming in anguish, devastated that this song that I had loved may have just been ruined forever because it’ll be hard to disconnect the context from the actual music and lyrics.

From this point on, I hated Evan. I thought he was a horrible character and a horrible person. Yet it still made no sense for him to do these things because it felt out of character. So the movie tried to make me conflicted. It tried to give him emotions. But he had just done a heartless act that felt unforgivable. And it is only made worse throughout the movie as he proceeds to stand at the head of this organization set up to bring awareness to Connor’s situation, having completely fooled the parents and the sister, now girlfriend, while also getting the whole community to donate to this and dragging along the innocent popular girl along with it, forcing her to lie and deceive the whole community without her realizing it.

And when does he FINALLY come clean? Only when he is painted into the most desperate of corners, perhaps months after the initial chain of events. And it all just made me feel sick.

Evan Hansen is most undoubtedly the villain of this movie. And one of the most malicious villains I’ve seen portrayed in film. He ends up making a video to Instagram confessing what he had done and told everyone to not hate the family, but to hate him. And that was easy for me. I did hate him.

Now the question you might be asking yourself is why do I think “Dear Evan Hansen” is such a gross film, yet in the same sentence say that “Joker” is my favorite film of 2019 or that “Breaking Bad” is one of the best TV shows that I’ve ever watched?

The answer is quite simple actually. First off, Walter White and Arthur Fleck feel like real characters that could exist in reality. Decisions that they made felt like real decisions that their characters could’ve made. The stories become a character study and a warning sign as to how someone who has a good heart and is a good person could devolve into someone so malicious and terrible. And they frame their main characters properly. As villains. Like with Evan Hansen, there is a point in “Breaking Bad” where I felt Walter White crossed a line that made me never like him again. But that was the point. These were the emotions that I was supposed to feel. There was never a point where the writers tried to make him sympathetic or redeemable. They didn’t ever ask me to like the character of Walter White, rather they purposely tried to make me feel sad for where he ended up and devastated at the consequences that this created. And when everything imploded in the episode “Ozymandias,” I was so emotionally traumatized that I had to wait a day or two before finishing the show, which had an episode or two after that. And I watched this several years after it had already finished. And that’s what I was supposed to feel. “Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson successfully created the greatest episode of television ever  Because everything was framed to perfection.

Now maybe you disagree with me, and you’re allowed to have that opinion, but the reason I felt so upset at “Dear Evan Hansen” is because I personally felt that the writers and the director tried to make Evan Hansen feel relatable and sympathetic. If they had owned up to him being a sociopath and purposely made him a hateable character and framed it as such, while making decisions that such a sociopath would realistically make due to being so emotionally depressed and traumatized, then maybe this works. But I felt like they still painted him as a hero. They wanted you to make you like him. And they even gave him an attempted redemption arc with him researching who Connor was and finding a video clip of him playing the guitar, sending it to the family as some sort of peace offering, which they seem to accept. This arc is a further insult to an already detestable film and was apparently invented for this movie, which is really strange. The same dude who wrote the play had the opportunity to fix anything about his play, but ended up making it unnecessarily worse?

So here we are at the end of the movie and Evan is sitting there with his now ex-girlfriend in this field or orchard that Connor actually did like being in. And they were there for reasons that I didn’t understand. And while they were talking, I was thinking to myself, “Please don’t end here. Please don’t end here. Please don’t end here.” The movie was already super long, but it didn’t feel like they had given any sort of resolution to this plot that was already frustrating and distracting from what the movie could’ve been. But there had to be more. No way they were going to end this thing like this.

But it ended.

Dang.

A hopeful me became completely deflated and I angrily stormed out of the theater. While listening to the rest of the people in my theater give it a round of applause. And I knew I was in for it. People are going to love this movie and they weren’t going to let me hear the end of it or accept my negative opinions of this thing. And that sucked.

The real unfortunate thing is that there is a potential movie in here that could’ve been really good. Ben Platt knows how to sing. The songs are well written and well composed. The actors are all really good. And there are story arcs that could’ve worked really well. I thought Connor was set up in a great way. I could tell he was an angry and mentally broken human being. We could’ve explored that more. Halfway through the movie, the super popular, outgoing girl who is in charge of everything in the school reveals to Evan that she is dealing with a lot of the same things he is. That whole sequence was really incredible. Because, yes, not all people with mental health issues are socially awkward, outwardly depressed people. There are a lot of people who look like they have everything figured out and you would never know that they are actually completely broken inside. And I loved that whole sequence.

But instead of focusing on all of that, they focused on this lie. And they took us through a chain of events that never felt believable. And they made Evan make a series of decisions that didn’t make any sense for his character. And they resolved things in a horrifically gross way. All while sidelining the parts of the movie that I thought could’ve worked really well. And I think the result is a movie that does a real disserve to the issues that it’s attempting to discuss.

I don’t know what grade to give this. I don’t know if there’s a number that could sum up everything that I experienced. So I’m not going to give it one. It’s a very competently made, well sung movie musical that is so horribly misguided that it made me sick inside. Whatever grade you think accurately sums that up, that’s the grade that it gets.

But again, my whole theater was sobbing and they all gave it a round of applause. And I’ve already had baffled friends chew me out all weekend. So what do I know?

Movie Preview: September 2021

We made it through the 2021 summer box office season. On a personal note, it was great that we actually had a summer box office season again, despite the pandemic being far from over. The Delta Variant of COVID-19 certainly made the second half of the summer a bit precarious and many have understandably chosen to stay away from theaters yet again. But theaters remained open, movies have stayed on the schedule, and enough people have been willing to venture out to justify studios continuing to release movies. That’s a positive sign for movie fans who are tired of the constant studios delays and also a positive sign for studios and theaters that rely on movies being released to maintain their business. While I quickly go find some wood to knock on so that I didn’t just curse things, let’s look forward to September, which, outside a major Marvel release, is looking quite empty. But that’s no surprise. September is historically one of the weakest months at the box office, pandemic or no pandemic.

Data for the release dates talked about in this post come courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. Release dates subject to change. The movies mentioned are mostly movies that are scheduled for a wide theatrical release in the United States and Canada. Movies coming out in limited release or streaming exclusively are typically not included, mostly due to it being difficult to forecast what will actually be released in those mediums.

 

September 3 – 5

Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"

Set to blow away the Labor Day weekend record at the box office is Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Quickly on that record, before we dive into the movie itself, Labor Day weekend has always been a bit of an enigma at the box office. It’s often seen as a cursed weekend where no movie can succeed. But that’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy as Hollywood has been so scared of that weekend that they never schedule anything major to be released. You can’t test to see if that curse is real if you never actually release anything that has the potential to make any money. That’s why the record is currently held by Rob Zombie’s 2007 “Halloween” remake with $26.4 million. Warner Bros. is the one that actually figured out that early September can be fruitful when “IT” exploded in 2017 with an opening of $123 million. Warner Bros. found further success the next two years with “The Nun” and “IT: Chapter Two,” but that was all in the second weekend of September.

Back to “Shang-Chi” itself, this is the movie that finally introduces the Ten Rings properly in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an organization referenced as early as Marvel’s first movie with “Iron Man” in 2008. In the comics, the Mandarin is Iron Man’s arch nemesis and is the leader of the terrorist group known as the Ten Rings, which give him his power. After building up to that in the MCU, they famously pulled a major bait-and-switch in “Iron Man 3” as Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin turned out to be a fake, which angered a large portion of fans of the Iron Man comics. “Shang-Chi” sees Marvel essentially making an attempt to redeem themselves by bringing the real Mandarin into their universe and his Ten Rings organization. Although obviously not as Iron Man’s foe, but as Shang-Chi’s foe. How deep they dive into all of that is something that I’m waiting to find out by seeing the movie, so we’ll find out together. There’s also a very heavy martial arts focus here as the filmmakers have talked about this being the Marvel movie with the most hand-to-hand combat.

What the box office potential for “Shang-Chi” is will also be something we find out together. I’m assuming it’ll beat the $26.4 million of 2007’s “Halloween,” but by how much? The lowest opening for an MCU film is 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk” with $55.4 million. “Ant-Man” in 2015 barely topped that with $57.2 million. The typical range for origin stories and lesser solo outings for the MCU are between that and $80 million. But is the Labor Day curse real? And how much will COVID impact that total? “Black Widow” opened to $80 million in July, but she’s also a character people have known and loved for a whole decade. It’s worth noting that “The Suicide Squad” bombed in August with $26.2 million, mostly due to a lack of interest. Early critic reviews are really high for “Shang-Chi” at 91 percent, but what’s the interest level from general audiences here? I think the Marvel brand, combined with the theatrical exclusive (no Disney+ hybrid release this time), gives “Shang-Chi” an advantage over the likes of “The Suicide Squad,” but this remains a mostly obscure character released during a pandemic. Although I would tend to believe that a $50 million opening seems most likely, an opening as low as $30 million wouldn’t be too terribly surprising, all things considered.

While “Shang-Chi” is the only theatrical release this weekend, hence me giving it more time (especially since it’s the biggest release of the month), I would feel slightly irresponsible if I didn’t at least quickly mention the opening of Cinderella on Amazon Prime. No, I don’t often talking about streaming releases. There’s too many of them and they’re hard to predict, but “Cinderella” was *supposed* to be a theatrical release, before Sony sold it to Amazon. This is the umpteenth version of this story, so I don’t need to tell you much about it. But this time it’s pop singer Camila Cabello that steps into the role of Cinderella. Joining her in the cast is Nicholas Galitzine as the Prince, with Billy Porter as the “Fabulous” Godmother and Idina Menzel as the Stepmother, with a whole host of others in supporting roles. The trailer promises lots of singing and dancing here, something that Disney’s 2015 adaptation had almost none of. And it appears to be at least mostly original numbers, as well.

 

September 10 – 12

Warner Bros.' "Malignant"

As I mentioned in talking about Labor Day, Warner Bros. has recently hit a gold mine with the second weekend of September. And if you didn’t notice, all three films were horror films. So their motto here is that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. They’ve got another horror film to release on the second weekend of September and this one is Malignant. The big draw here is that this is directed by James Wan, a modern master of the horror genre who can draw audiences simply by having his name attached to a movie, especially if he’s the one directing. The most recent trailer features James Wan himself talking about how he wanted to do something different with “Malignant,” while also going back to his roots. The premise is described as a woman whose visions of grisly murders torment her as she realizes those dreams are actually a reality. Although the trailer suggests that there might be a whole lot more going on than that. There’s been a lot of horror movies released the last few months, but the chance of seeing a James Wan horror film might be enough to bring horror fans back yet again.

The other wide release is the crime comedy Queenpins from STX Entertainment, the studio that released “Bad Moms” and “Hustlers,” as the advertising points out. The movie stars Kristen Bell and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, co-stars from “The Good Place,” as two housewives that create a $40 million coupon scam. Paul Walter Houser, Vince Vaughn, and Bebe Rexha also co-star. And as I look through the major films released this year, there really haven’t been a whole lot of straight-up comedies that have hit the big screen. Sure, “The Suicide Squad” and “Free Guy” both came out last months, but I would classify both as more action comedies rather than straight-up comedies. Maybe that’s because comedies like “Queenpins” have found a good home on streaming, with the likes of Adam Sandler and Melissa McCarthy finding great success on Netflix and other services. What that means for “Queenpins” is uncertain to me. Could it break out due to their not being many theatrical comedies in the market? Or will it be a dud because people have decided they’d rather watch this genre at home?

Two other quick releases to mention as I’m not sure what the theatrical count for both of these will be. They could be more limited releases as opposed to wide releases. But nevertheless, Focus Features will be releasing The Card Counter, which is an awards-hopeful that is currently playing at the Venice Film Festival. The movie is directed by Paul Schrader, screenwriter of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and is a thriller about an ex-military interrogator turned gambler who is haunted by the ghosts of his past. The movie stars Oscar Isaac and Willem Dafoe. Also being released by Sony Pictures is Show Me the Father, part documentary, part drama, featuring stories of faith about the fatherhood of God. This is produced, but not directed, by the Kendrick Brothers, who directed the likes of “War Room” and “Courageous,” so the obvious target is the Christian communities who have been known to turn up in droves for Kendrick Brothers films, even when the movies aren’t on the radar for the rest of the country.

 

September 17 – 19

Warner Bros.' "Cry Macho"

The third weekend of September has a bit of a hole in it. NOT being released here is “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” which was slated for this weekend until Paramount pulled it from the schedule in August. They don’t have a new release date for it. They’ve just said “during 2021.” So it might show up at some point. Also NOT being released this weekend is “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” Sony pushed that to October, which kinda makes sense, anyways, since the first “Venom” was a huge hit in the month of October.

Speaking of shuffled release dates, while typing this, Paramount announced that they are moving “Top Gun: Maverick” from November of this year to May of next year. So I guess I didn’t knock on wood hard enough. That doesn’t effect this month, but it shows the release schedule is still volatile. Studios could continue to push their major releases. Or they could do what Sony did with “Hotel Transylvania 4” and remove it from the schedule altogether and put it on streaming. That’s another movie that was supposed to come in either late September or early October. That one was a surprising move because family films have done really well in theaters recently and the “Hotel Transylvania” franchise has been quite consistent theatrically.

What IS coming out is a handful of smaller releases, one of which could take the weekend, depending on how “Shang-Chi” and “Malignant” perform. The biggest one of these is Cry Macho, the latest movie from Clint Eastwood, who both directs and stars in the movie. The last time he was a star and director was “The Mule” from 2018, which opened to $17.5 million and was incredibly leggy, finishing with just over $100 million domestically. If the Clint Eastwood faithful show up, this could have potential. The other comparison is “Richard Jewell” from 2019, his most recent directorial effort, which he did not star in. That opened to $4.7 million and finished with $22 million domestically. So there’s your high and low for “Cry Macho.” This movie has Eastwood star as a former rodeo-star and horse breeder who takes a job helping getting a young man away from his alcoholic mother.

It should be noted that both “Cry Macho” and last week’s “Malignant” are Warner Bros., which means they’ll also be available on HBO Max. If either don’t get strong buzz, that could cause people to simply watch at home. That led “Reminiscence” in August to open to just $2 million.

The other three releases I will knock out in one paragraph. Again, I don’t know how wide they actually are, even though the-numbers.com currently has them as wide releases. They could end up in 500-1,000 theaters or they could be actual wide releases. The most likely to be a wide release is CopShop, an action film from Open Road, starring Gerard Butler. Butler has had decent mid-range success with a string of throwaway action films, most notably with the “Fallen” trilogy, but also “Greenland,” “Den of Thieves” and “Geostorm.” Open Roads themselves has also found success in the pandemic with such as “Honest Thief” and “The Marksman.” So this could open anywhere from $5-15 million if it’s lucky. This weekend also has Blue Bayou from Focus Features and The Eyes of Tammy Faye from Searchlight. Those are two more awards hopefuls whose success will be based on how strong the word is on them. As such, their box office success will be reliant on having strong legs rather than a big opening weekend. So I would put money on them opening closer to the 500 theaters range.

 

September 24 – 26  

Universal's "Dear Evan Hansen"

If “Hotel Transylvania 4” had chosen to stay in theaters, this would’ve been a perfect time to open. This final weekend of September has historically been a great one for animated films. The first two “Hotel Transylvania” movies both opened above $40 million on this exact weekend. I would’ve pegged “Hotel Transylvania 4” to at least $20 million, maybe $30 million.

But alas that’s not the case. Instead, the lone wide release to end September will be the movie adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. The original Broadway musical opened in 2016 and went on to win the Tony Award for best musical in 2017, as well as a whole bunch of other awards. Ben Platt won best lead actor while Pasek and Paul won best score. Ben Platt will be reprising his rle in this movie adaptation. Pasek and Paul are also on board for the music. They’re most notably responsible for “La La Land” and “The Greatest Showman.” Ben Platt will be joined in the movie by the likes of Amy Adams and Juliane Moore, and many others. And the director here is Stephen Chbosky, who directed “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Wonder,” both of which received high critical praise. So on paper this has everything going for it.

But will it translate from the stage to the big screen? “In the Heights” from this year also seemingly had everything going for it, but was a massive financial disappointment in early June, despite even getting strong critical and audience praise. It’s also of note that audiences for a stage production and audiences for a movie often have two different sets of expectation. And the reaction to the “Dear Evan Hansen” trailer by Film Twitter was extremely toxic. Many were appalled at learning of the premise of the musical, while others felt that Ben Platt, now 27, looks way too old to be reprising his role as a high school student. How “Dear Evan Hansen” plays out will depend on which crowd ultimately wins out. This could be a late September hit that plays well through the fall. Or it could be a dud like “In the Heights.”