Luckily for me, there’s not a whole to recap in the first two weeks of September. While this summer brought quite the list of huge successes that made this feel like a normal, pre-COVID summer movie season, studios forgot to schedule things at the tail end of the summer. Of the past three weeks, two of those weeks saw the No. 1 movie at less than $10 million, while the other week was barely above $10 million. While this is fairly typical of late August and early September, “Shang-Chi” proved last year that movies CAN succeed at this time of year, so there’s no longer an excuse for studios to simply not try. But nevertheless, it is what it is. And that means we’re still in good shape on the preview front because the most interesting titles were in the end of September anyways, so let’s get going.
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide theatrical release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
September 2 – 4
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| Focus Features' "Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul." |
What actually won the weekend was “Top Gun: Maverick” in its 15th week of release. Sure, it only required $6 million to win the weekend, but it’s still an impressive feat considering the movie opened on Memorial Day weekend and managed to outlast everything that came after it to return to No. 1 on Labor Day weekend. Interestingly enough, the original “Top Gun” pulled off a nearly identical feat in its release in 1986 as it also opened in May then held well enough to go back to No. 1 in September. “Maverick” has also now passed the $700 million mark domestically, entering the top five of the highest grossing movies ever at the domestic box office.
As far as new releases this weekend, there was not much to write home about. The top new release was Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul., which opened way down in 13th place with $1.4 million from 1,882 theaters. That’s a per theater average of $756 over the weekend, which is not particularly good. Lots of empty or mostly empty screens. For those who did see it, a bit of confusion seems to be the story. No, this is not an evangelical Christian movie. It’s actually a satire of organized religion that came out of Sundance. Critics were fairly nice with it, awarding it a 72 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were not kind, though, as they gave it a 26 percent to go along with a 5.3 on IMDb. One can imagine that a Christian satire might be naturally polarizing. It’s also possible that people just did not get what they expected from this or may have been confused as to what it was in the first place.
Amusingly, the other semi-wide release that opened two spots below “Honk for Jesus” was the exact opposite in terms of reaction. Gigi & Nate suffered a miserable 14 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but its audience score was sky high at 95 percent. Granted, the sample size here is not exactly very, but the critics who did write a review were generally not impressed, while the small number of audience who did see it were rather pleased. It opened with less than a million, $990,361 to be exact, from 1,184 theaters. It’s about a man named Nate who is left as a quadriplegic after a near-fatal illness and is helped through it all thanks to a service animal named Gigi, who is a capuchin monkey.
If you missed either of these two releases and are curious, you might have to wait for PVOD or streaming because, given the low totals, they’ll probably be gone from theaters before September concludes
September 9 – 11
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| 20th Century Studios' "Barbarian" |
Coming in right behind “Barbarian” in second place at the box office with $4.5 million was a movie out of India titled Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva. Indian cinema has actually been decently popular recently, so a movie like this coming seemingly out of nowhere to do very well is fairly common. That $4.5 million might seem a bit low, but with only 810 theaters, that count becomes more impressive. Although the report is that this is one of the most expensive Indian films ever made, so it’ll have to have much more help in other countries around the world, especially its home country of India. This movie is actually the first of a planned trilogy that has been in development since 2014. It’s a fantasy action-adventure film about a DJ named Shiva who learns he has a connection with the element of fire and holds the power of Brahmastra, a supernatural weapon that is able to destroy the universe.
Beyond the top two, the actual Christian movie Lifemark opened at No. 7 with $2.2 million from 1,531 theaters. “Lifemark” saw the Kendrick Brothers team up with Kirk Cameron to make a movie about a boy who was almost aborted, but whose mother chose adoption instead. This is a bit on the nose with recent events, but is also par for the course when you consider said filmmakers involved. And the other movie that hit wide release was Medieval down in 14th place from 1,311 theaters. Speaking of expensive international films, this is reportedly the most expensive Czech film ever made and is a historical drama about the life of Jan Zizka, a Czech military general who lived from 1360 to 1424 and never lost a single battle, despite being completely blind in his last stages of life.
September 16 – 18
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| Sony Pictures' "The Woman King" |
The other notable release on the weekend is the return of Kevin Smith with Clerks III. Now the fan base for Kevin Smith is a bit of a niche one, but for that audience, “Clerks III” is a big deal as “Clerks” is a 1994 film that gave Kevin Smith his start. He wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the movie. And it was his first time doing any of that on a feature length level. Since “Clerks,” he’s gone onto make movies such as “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma,” “Mallrats” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” while recently doing the likes of “Tusk” and “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.” But returning for a third Clerks movie after “Clerks II” in 2006 is a big deal. How it impacts the box office is almost irrelevant. Kevin Smith movies often have unique release patterns. “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot” had a travelling tour sort of thing and “Clerks III” started a similar thing back on September 4 in Red Bank, New Jersey. And it’s also co-released by Lionsgate and Fathom Events. And any sort of Fathom Events thing can be a bit unpredictable. But nevertheless, Kevin Smith fans will find a way to see this at some point.
Opening on a slightly smaller scale, although looking at a top 5 debut given the current competition, is the horror movie Pearl. The unique thing about this movie is that it’s a prequel… to a movie that came out earlier this year, that being “X.” While “X” only opened to $4.3 million and made just $11.8 million total, the A24 horror film had very strong reaction amongst the film community and many on Film Twitter especially have listed it among their top movies of the year. So it seems like it’s the type of horror movie that will develop a solid cult following as a fun throwback to classic slasher horror. “X” is set in 1979 rural Texas as a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film that obviously goes quite wrong. All that context is important because “Pearl” is a prequel to “X” about how the movie’s killer, named Pearl, played by Mia Goth, becomes the vicious killer that’s seen in “X.” Current tracking has the movie earning around a similar total to the $4.3 million that “X” opened to in March.
Opening just below “Pearl” in around the same number of theaters (about 2,500) is Disney releasing See How They Run via their Searchlight banner. Searchlight has had a very strong history with smaller to moderate releases as they’ve gotten into the best picture race pretty much every year and have won the award with “Slumdog Millionaire,” “12 Years a Slave,” “Birdman,” “The Shape of Water,” and “Nomadland.” This is not that awards movie. Searchlight’s big awards contenders this year will probably be either “The Banshees of Inisherin" or “Empire of Light,” but nevertheless, the studio’s history is still notable to point out. “See How They Run” is a throwback whodunit murder mystery comedy set in the 1950s with a sleazy Hollywood film director setting out to adapt a popular stage play when things come to a halt when the director is murdered. The movie stars Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, and David Oyelowo in various roles and has received mostly positive reviews as it currently sits in the low 70s range with both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nope, we’re not quite done yet. The fifth and final wide release of the weekend is a Christian-themed baseball movie called Running the Bases. This comes from UP2U Films, whose YouTube channel and movie credits currently include… this movie. So they appear to be a new film company who don’t even have a Wikipedia page yet. But nevertheless they’ve built enough hype to get “Running the Bases” released into just over 1,000 theaters and hope to be fighting for a spot in the top 10, although they might fall just short of that. But the movie is about a small-town baseball coach who gets hired to coach at a larger 6A High School, but gets into a bit of hot water as the school’s superintendent doesn’t exactly like the way he’s mixing coaching baseball with religion, so he feels like he’s stuck between trying to choose what he’s being asked to do with what he feels God wants him to do. While there’s a lot of choices this weekend, “Running the Bases” does have the advantage of a PG rating, meaning there’s potential appeal to both family audiences and religious audiences.
September 23 – 25
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| Warner Bros.' "Don't Worry, Darling" |
No other new wide releases this weekend, but it is worthy of pointing out that James Cameron is bringing back “Avatar” back to theaters in preparation for December’s release of “Avatar: The Way of Water.” No introduction needed on this. “Avatar” was released in 2009 and became the highest grossing movie ever both on the domestic and worldwide charts. It is currently fourth place now on the domestic chart, as it has been passed by “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Avengers: Endgame” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” on the domestic charts, putting it in fourth place. And it also briefly got passed by “Endgame” on the worldwide charts before a Chinese re-release in 2021 brought it back to No. 1. This current re-release probably won’t make a huge dent in the box office, but for the sake of comparison, “No Way Home” opened to $5.3 million on Labor Day with its re-release, so there’s your current bar that’s been set. While “Avatar” shouldn’t be underestimated, it would take $60 million for it to pass “No Way Home” on the domestic chart to re-take No. 3 and another $100 million for it to pass “Endgame” for No. 2. And it’s highly unlikely for it to get close to those numbers.
September 30 – October 2
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| Paramount Pictures' "Smile" |
But anyways, October means Halloween and that means horror films looking to cash in on the holiday. Before we get to the big one with “Halloween Ends” in mid-October, Smile will be looking to draw in that horror crowd. Paramount has been pushing this really hard for quite some time now. And they’ve had a good year so far, so it’s hard to bet against them right now. “Smile,” if you haven’t seen the trailers everywhere yet, is a movie where a woman starts seeing people smile in bizarrely weird ways. She is a doctor or a psychologist of some sort and sees this first with a patient of hers, who quickly dies. According to the trailers, this smiling is a bad omen wherein most people who’ve seen it also die within a week, giving it an “It Follows” or a “Truth or Dare” sort of feel, the latter of which might be a fairly apt comparison. “Truth or Dare” was a critically panned movie at 15 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but yet still opened to $18.7 million in April 2018. If reviews for “Smile” end up being positive, or at least some degree of lukewarm, then the narrative could be even better. It’ll get its first test prior to its wide release as it opens at Fantastic Fest on September 22.
For those not into horror or otherwise not interested in checking out “Smile,” the other option in terms of a new release is the romantic comedy Bros. This is directed by Nicholas Stoller, whose filmography varies from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” to “Neighbors” and “Storks.” So quite the variety there. The advertising is zeroing in on that “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” rom-com connection, which is smart. The obvious difference there is that this is a romantic comedy centering around two gay men, one being a more “traditional” gay man who is a museum curator who falls in love with a macho, “manly” gay man. So you have two guys on the opposite side of the gay spectrum in a trailer and movie that seems to be trying to be as gay as humanly possible. And I mean that in an objectively descriptive way, not in any sort of derogatory sense. Now LGBTQ romance movies are far from a new thing in Hollywood, but this movie still hopes to connect with that audience in a way to bring them out for this. And if “Smile” tanks and burns, there is definitely an avenue in which this over-performs and takes the weekend.
There is also an avenue in
which both underperform and “Don’t Worry, Darling” ends up strong enough to
take a second weekend at No. 1. But of course, all of that will come down to
audience reaction to these movies that aren’t guaranteed for success. That
before “Halloween Ends” and “Black Adam” destroy everything in October. But
more on that in next month’s preview, which will hopefully come much earlier in
the month.
