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.