Movie Preview: December 2023

December is already one weekend in, with the second weekend about to start. The goal with this monthly post is to always get it out before or during the first weekend of the month, or as quickly as I can thereafter. However, at the end of November my computer died and I didn’t get the new one set up until a day or two ago. So that’s why this post is delayed a bit this month.

That said, we’re in December and this has always been a bit of a backloaded month anyways, so we haven’t missed too much. So we’ll recap that first weekend and dive into what the Christmas season has in store, which is quite a bit, actually. At least in terms of quantity of releases. What movies will connect with audiences? That remains to be seen. I’m not sure I see many guaranteed box office smashes, but there’s certainly plenty that at least have decent potential. And if something doesn’t open high, no need to immediately sound the alarms. December is a unique time of year where things often open smaller and hold much better throughout the holiday season and into January as opposed to being so reliant on the opening weekend totals.

And for the sake of the market as a whole, let’s hope something manages to hit. November was a very rough month to start the holiday season with a double dose of massive Disney failures in “The Marvels” and “Wish,” with a Hunger Games prequel that opened to less than half of the previous low in the franchise.

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

December 1 - 3 

"RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé"

The weekend following Thanksgiving is often a more quiet one. Studios often load up for the Thanksgiving holiday, then give themselves a bit of a cool down phase before priming up for the Christmas holiday. Typically it’s a good idea to have your biggest releases as close to the holiday as you can instead of opening right after the holiday is finished.

That said, there was a decent amount of releases that made for a somewhat busy weekend. Headlining everything was Beyoncé seeing the massive success Taylor Swift had earlier in the year and wanting to join the party with her own concert movie, RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé. This was announced shortly after the Taylor Swift concert movie was announced, which was presumably Beyoncé’s camp seeing those pre-sales and deciding they want in. It was either that or an interesting coincidence. Either way, this could end up as a decent new trend. Not that Taylor Swift started the trend, but her making more money in one weekend than any other attempt had in their entire runs certainly might spark new interest. Now “RENAISSANCE” was never expected to hit the heights of “The Eras Tour,” which opened to $92.8 million and so far has made $178.9 million domestically and $249.6 million worldwide, but a $21.8 million first place opening for Beyoncé is certainly nothing to scoff at. It’s actually more par for the course for this type of event. Before Taylor, the previous high was “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” in 2011, which made $73.01 million after a $29.5 million opening.

“RENAISSANCE” was initially scheduled as the only major release this weekend, but making huge headway leading up to its release, mostly due to buzz and word of mouth was Toho Studios’ Godzilla Minus One. It was initially planned to only open in moderate release for just a week or two, but that plan certainly changed after becoming one of the best reviewed films of the year. It wound up opening in third place with $11.4 million. Now this isn’t the American MonsterVerse with Godzilla and Kong that is four movies in, with a fifth coming next year. This is the Japanese studio that initially debuted Godzilla in 1954 and has now made 33 total Godzilla movies, with “Minus One” being No. 33. Their previous movie was “Shin Godzilla” in 2016, which only made $1.9 million total in America as it made most of its $75.6 million worldwide gross overseas. So “Minus One” is already far past that in just a few days. The movie takes Godzilla back to his origins as a monster, not a protector, and a setting of post-World War II Japan.

Those two movies were mostly it for the major headlines of the weekend. The rest of the top five was filled up by Thanksgiving holdovers. But we did have a trio of smaller releases towards the bottom of the top 10. Opening in seventh place was the Indian film Animal. Indian Cinema has actually done pretty well in the states this year. And the studios distributing this movies have their system down of knowing where to release the movies. Despite opening in just 700 theaters, “Animal” made $6.5 million this weekend, which ended up higher than the two movies we’ll get to in a second, despite them having double or tripe the theater count. “Animals begins as a movie about a father and son, but apparently goes quite a few directions in its 204 minutes of runtime, including it turning into some sort of action/war epic at some point.

Below that at No. 8 is the Angel Studios release of The Shift. The movie stars Neal McDonough and is about a man trying to escape a dystopian world in order to return to his wife. In regards to Angel Studios, they are mostly known for the TV series “The Chosen” about the life of Christ, but found massive success earlier this year with “Sound of Freedom.” “The Shift” has them experimenting a bit more with genre, with this labeled as a sci-fi film, and instead of being another massive hit ends up more along the lines of their previous release, “After Death,” a documentary that opened in 2,645 theaters with $5.05 million. “The Shift” opened in a similar 2,450 theaters with $4.3 million.

Rounding out this trio of smaller releases was Silent Night, opening in ninth place with just $3.01 million, albeit in a slightly lower 1,870 theaters. As you can probably tell by the title, this is a Christmas themed movie, but specifically its a Christmas action movie from Lionsgate, the studio who released “John Wick,” which they will probably remind people in every action movie they release for the foreseeable future. Joel Kinnaman is the lead and he’s out to get revenge against a ruthless gang on Christmas Eve. Unlike “John Wick,” this movie was met with mediocre reviews at best and was unable to catch on with general audiences.

December 8 - 10

GKIDS' "The Boy and the Heron"

Moving forward to the current weekend that we’re in, there’s only one major release this weekend. But like the first weekend, there’s a couple of moderate releases and a massive limited release title. But the one major release is Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron. For the last several years this movie has been labeled as the final movie from acclaimed anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Fans certainly hope Miyazaki finds the pool of eternal life and lives forever, but in his perspective he feels that maybe he might not have quite as many years left on Earth, so he wanted to come back and make one final film as a tribute to his posterity after previously making his other final film, the 2013 movie “The Wind Rises.” Turns out there’s buzz, partially from Studio Ghibli themselves, that Miyazaki might actually have a few more final films after this one, which I’m sure no one is complaining about. However, it’s still a major event in that it’s been 10 years since his last movie. The movie was a massive success in Japan earlier this year and is looking to dethrone Beyoncé for the top spot in America this weekend with a projected $10-15 million after coming out on top Thursday night with $2.4 million.

In terms of theater count this weekend, the next highest release is Waitress: The Musical, which opened Thursday night in 1,214 theaters. It might pick up more heading into the weekend proper and come somewhat close to the 2,200 theaters of “The Boy and the Heron.” But regardless, this is an event wherein Fathom Events has paired with distributor Bleeker Street to release this recording of the Broadway musical “Waitress.” The musical was based on the 2007 movie of the same name, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and the book by Jessie Nelson, and began its run on Broadway in 2016 after first premiering in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2015. The musical played on Broadway until 2020 and has done a few other tours since. This particular recording of the musical that’s being released was recorded 2021 during its limited run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York in an attempt to slowly reopen Broadway following the COVID shutdown.

Releasing in about 640 theaters is the Book of Mormon war epic The Oath from LDS filmmaker Darin Scott, formerly known as Darin Southam, a somewhat popular LDS actor who most notably played the lead in the movie “Ephraim’s Rescue.” For the last 13 years, Darin has had a long-term goal of writing and directing the first major Book of Mormon war epic. And in 2023 his dream is finally coming true after a very long journey. This will probably perform best in Utah and Idaho, but as noted they did manage to get it into over 600 theaters nationwide. After seeing the success of “Sound of Freedom,” Darin has high hopes that his movie will be the next major phenomenon. Whether or not that actually happens feels unlikely, but at least one can respect his perseverance and optimism for this project.

That’s it for the wide releases, but finally hitting limited release this weekend is the potential best-picture front-runner Poor Things. This will start in just 9 theaters this weekend and slowly expand outwards. The goal here is probably not necessarily be a holiday hit, but make itself known as the awards season progresses. The movie is the latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who is known for his odd, off-kilter movies like “The Lobster,” “Dogtooth,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Favourite,” the latter of which received 10 Oscar nominations, definitely putting Yorgos in the awards spotlight. His next movie has been highly anticipated and has been met with near universal praise since its premier at the Venice Film Festival in September and is predicted to compete with the likes of “Oppenheimer,” “The Holdovers” and “Barbie” for the best picture prize. Whether or not this connects with general audiences is a different story. Yorgos is very much an acquired taste as a director and this is essentially his version of a Frankenstein-like story with scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe, bringing a young woman named Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, back to life, where she then explores all sorts of things regarding this thing called life.

December 15 - 17

Warner Bros.' "Wonka"

While the first two weekends obviously brought a high number of movies into the market, at least in regards to a lot of those moderate to small releases, the third weekend of December is where the holiday fun begins. There’s only one wide release, but it’s a family film with potential to win the month and that’s Wonka. This is the third major theatrical film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s popular novel that probably doesn’t need much of an introduction. The book was released in 1964 and has had a very long life since then, first being adapted in 1971 with a bit of an inverted title, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Then in 2005, Tim Burton took has stab at it, reverting the title back to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” while casting Johnny Depp in the lead. And now Timothée Chalamet gets his turn as the character in “Wonka,” which focuses on a young Willy Wonka before he opened his famous chocolate factory. The movie is directed by Paul King, director of the two live-action Paddington movies, and based on early reaction is looking to be quite the crowd pleaser over the holidays. What hasn’t been pushed to heavily is that this is a musical. When that word comes out, the buzz could potentially higher.

Given that I mentioned the release of “Poor Things,” I feel the need to briefly mention a couple of other awards contenders hitting limited release this weekend. The first of that is the winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and that is American Fiction, a movie starring Jeffrey Wright as a novelist who is upset at the establishment for consistently profiting off of “Black” entertainment. So to prove a point, he creates an anonymous pen name to write his own “Black” novel. In regards to Oscar correlation, the winner of the People’s Choice Award at TIFF has a pretty strong correlation with best picture nominations. The last 11 winners were all nominated for best picture. Going back to 2008, five of them have won best picture. This year it would appear “American Fiction” has too much competition to actually win, but it would appear its chances for a nomination is at the very least is pretty strong.

While perhaps not on quite as strong ground as “American Fiction,” nevertheless the other notable limited release this weekend is Zone of Interest. This movie has also hit just about every major festival this season and has built quite a bit of buzz, but the subject matter has also lent it to receive some push back. The movie is about Rudolf Höss, a German officer during Nazi Germany, showing him and his wife trying to build a good life for him and his family. While the premise is certainly not showing him as a justified protagonist, perhaps not everyone will be on board for a movie about Nazi Germany. But still, it will at least be in the conversation this season. The movie is directed by Jonathan Glazer, who most recently directed the 2013 movie “Under the Skin,” so he’s not exactly one who directs movies with easy or comfortable subject matter.

December 22

Warner Bros.' "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom"

There are, count it… EIGHT movies hitting wide release over the Christmas weekend. With Christmas falling on a Monday this year, five of them are taking a more traditional route of releasing on the Friday before Christmas, while the other three are releasing right on Christmas Day, so the Monday after the weekend. Because of that, instead of my traditional format of separating by weekend, I will separate these movies by their release day, either on the 22nd or the 25th.

Leading things off is the final movie in the “SnyderVerse” continuity of DC movies, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. There’s perhaps a lot of people, both inside the studio and as DC fans, that are very happy to move on from this phase of the DC Universe. James Gunn has taken over at DC and will begin a new chapter at DC with his Summer 2025 release of “Superman: Legacy.” What the correct move was in hindsight for Warner Bros. and DC can be debated, but it certainly feels like announcing at the end of 2022 that the Universe will be rebooted, then continuing to release four “lame duck” DC movies in 2023 was not timed the best as the previous three - “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash,” and “Blue Beetle” - all failed pretty miserably. Will James Wan’s Aquaman sequel buck that trend and perform well or will it be the latest to fail? There’s not a lot of confidence for it at the moment, but nevertheless an opening weekend performance will not be the thing to judge it by, especially with Christmas Eve on Sunday, a day where people don’t usually go to theaters. The first Aquaman only opened to $67.9 million in this same December slot, but legged it out to $335.1 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide, making it the only movie in the DCEU (“SyderVerse”) to cross $1 billion and the second highest domestic gross behind “Wonder Woman” at $412.6 million. So if there’s any DC movie right now that still has potential to do will, it’s this one.

Another movie to definitely not count out is the latest animation movie from Illumination, Migration. Ever since breaking onto the scene with “Despicable Me” in 2010, Illumination has been on fire, with pretty much zero misfires on their resumé. In fact, this year they’re at their absolute peak as they’re fresh of the release of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which made a staggering $1.363 billion worldwide. Their now 13 animated features have averaged $286 million at the domestic box office and $725 million worldwide. “Migration” is them taking a bit of a risk. It’s an original movie, not based on a previous property or a sequel of a previous film. As such, its obviously not expected to do as well. It’s opening 3-day weekend is currently projected in the $15-30 million range. But again, that means less in the holiday season. In 2016, Illumination opened “Sing” around Christmas to $35.3 million and that wound up with $270.8 million. Just Christmas year DreamWorks opened “Puss & Boots: The Last Wish” to just $12.4 million and that held on to eventually make $185.5 million. So if this little movie about a family of ducks catches on, it has the potential to hang around.

Anyone looking for a drama film around Christmas has the option of seeing The Iron Claw, a movie about the Von Erich family, a family dynasty of professional wrestlers. Fritz Von Erich, born Jack Adkisson, was the father of six sons, one of whom died at the age of six and the other five having been professional wrestlers, following in the footsteps of their father. The movie primarily focuses on three of the sons instead of all five and is headlined by Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich. The brief Wikipedia summary of the plot mentions that the popularized the iron claw wrestling hold, hence the name of the movie, but also mentioned that in addition to fighting their battles in the ring, they had a long string of personal tragedies outside of it. And if you click on the ensuing link to learn about their family, boy did they have quite the long list of personal tragedies, which I’m guessing the movie is going to dive into. Initial reviews on this one are very positive and this could be the type of movie that manages to ride the line of being successful with general audiences while also possibly getting a decent amount of awards attention.

Rounding out the list of varying genres this Christmas, the next genre on the list is romance, with Anyone But You, released by Sony and starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as our lead couple. The premise sees the couple having a great first date, but then finding their relationship turning ice cold until they are unexpectedly reunited at a wedding in Australia where they decide to “pretend” to be a couple. This certainly has the star power to work, and is directed by Will Gluck, director of “Easy A,” “Friends with Benefits,” and “Peter Rabbit.” But despite that, tracking has this barely on the radar, so perhaps awareness isn’t super high. Or maybe it’s the wrong holiday they’re releasing this on.

The final movie for this initial half of the Christmas weekend is the Indian film Salaar: Part 1 Ceasefire. As mentioned at the top of this post, Indian Cinema has done quite well. We quite frequently see Indian films come seemingly out of nowhere, releasing in a moderate number of theaters, but doing very well on a per theater average. So it’s hard to count this one out. This one appears to be an action film where the leader of one gang tries to keep a promise made to his dying friend by taking on the other criminal gangs.

December 25

Warner Bros.' "The Color Purple"

Fast forwarding just three days to Christmas Day on Monday, there are the three additional releases. The major one from this trio is The Color Purple. The origins of this movie date back to 1985 with the original movie “The Color Purple,” directed by Steven Spielberg, a movie about a Southern black woman struggling to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father and others over several decades. The movie was nominated for 11 Oscars. It took home none of those. But double digit nominations is still an impressive feat. While it would be accurate to describe this 2023 version as a remake, a more accurate description would be to note that the movie was adapted into a Broadway Musical in 2005. This current movie is a movie adaptation of the musical. As such, if the movie catches on, musicals have a very positive history around the Christmas box office. Early reactions suggest that this could definitely be a big crowd-pleaser. And if it’s even luckier, how close can it come to matching the nomination total of the original at the Oscars?

Not a competition vs. Ford this time around, but next up on Christmas will see NEON get Ferrari ready to ride. This comes from director Michael Mann, who directed a trio of 90s hits in “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Heat,” and “The Insider.” He had a fairly decent streak in the early 2000s as well, but has only done one movie since 2009 and that was 2015’s “Blackhat.” So he is back in business and the story he has to tell takes us back to 1957 where Enzo Ferrari, played by Adam Driver, decides to enter the 1,000 mile race across Italy called the Mille Miglia, this after a string of losses puts some of his personal life and business at risk. This also could be a potential awards player, but the early reaction has been a tad bit more mixed than would be necessary for it to break through like “Ford v. Ferrari” did a few years back. But it will at least try to attempt to attract a similar crowd as that one.

The final movie of the long Christmas weekend sees George Clooney back in the director’s chair with The Boys in the Boat. The title of this movie is a fairly appropriate description. It’s about some boys in a boat, specifically taking us back to the 1930s to tell the story of University of Washington’s rowing team that went from their beginnings in the Depression Era to competing at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. This movie has not yet screened to any critics or awards pundits at the time of me posting this and doesn’t seem to be pushing heavily for awards, but along with “Ferrari,” it does give people a second option for a sports movie over the Christmas. Neither are tracking super high at the moment, so maybe directly competing for the same audience might not have been the best idea. And with so many total options, it might be hard for everything to do well in competition, but if reviews turn positive, you never know what could stick around for a bit.

December 29 - 31

There is a final weekend of December. But there are no new  wide releases. Whatever movies surface to the top of the box office during a busy Christmas will have plenty of breathing room before something new comes to join the market. 

Movie Preview - November 2023

Outside a duo of very notable hits, it was a fairly quiet October at the box office. After a pretty huge summer, things have taken a huge dip in the fall and are working their way back up. At a domestic total of $553.9 million, it’s up a bit from September ($472.8 million), as well as last October ($469.1 million), but not as high as October 2021 ($623.3 million). As expected, Taylor Swift led the way with her Eras Tour concert movie. Although it didn’t open as astronomically high as some were expecting, it still became the highest grossing concert movie in just three days with a $92.8 million opening weekend. Said opening was the second highest opening all time in October, behind only 2019’s “Joker” at $96.2 million.

And speaking of that list, following two Venom movies at third and fourth (“Venom: Let There be Carnage” with $90.0 million and “Venom” with $80.3 million), “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is now fifth on that all-time October openings list with $80.0 million. So having two all-time October openings in one month is very impressive. But yeah, everything else just cleared the way for these two movies, which makes the overall total a tad bit low despite that.

A dip like this is pretty normal, though, for this time of the year - down over half from the billion dollar summer months. November, though? It’s the holidays and that’s where things start going back up. One additional variable here that has definitely had an effect on the box office is the ongoing actor’s strike. While everyone hopes it’s resolved soon, with a deal that the actors are happy with, not having actors available to work not only effects a lot of movies next year that have delayed due to them unable to finish filming, but some studios have elected to push other finished movies back a bit so that they can have their cast available to help promote their movie. And that has impacted November in a very large Dune-sized way that we’ll get into more in the first weekend section, but there’s still plenty of other titles hitting theaters, especially as we get closer to Thanksgiving, so let’s jump in and see what November has to offer!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy  of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

November 3 – 5

A24’s "Priscilla"

As referenced in the intro to this post, this initial weekend has a very Dune-sized hole in it. The previous “Dune” wasn’t actually a massive box office hit. It had a domestic opening of $41.0 million and finished with $108.3 million. The worldwide total wound up being $391.8 million, so it’s not like the movie was a failure on its $165 million budget, but for a massive sci-fi epic based on a very popular novel, Warner Bros. was probably expecting a tad bit more? The reaction was very positive and the movie wound up with 10 Oscar nominations, winning six of them. So “Dune: Part Two” is expected to be much bigger, and given that Warner Bros. kinda needs it to be much bigger to justify continuing the franchise by adapting “Dune Messiah,” it kinda makes sense for them to wait until the likes of Zendaya and and Timothee Chalamet are available to help promote the film. So the movie got pushed to March.

In the meantime, it would’ve made sense for something to move up into this spot to kick off the holiday season. At the very least, “The Marvels” moving up a week to give it extra time before the Thanksgiving rush would’ve made a lot of sense. But that didn’t happen. Instead, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is poised for a second box office win, even though it is expected to have a massive fall from its $80 million opening. Granted, most horror films tank hard in their second weekend, but this one seemed to be especially boosted by fans of the franchise, which usually is an indication of heavy frontloaded. But still, a second weekend in the $20-30 million range is an easy No. 1 hold when there’s no competition.

The highest profile new release of the available options is the nationwide expansion of the movie Priscilla. We’re on a bit of an Elvis Presley kick in Hollywood right now, especially after the musical biopic “Elvis” was a massive success. “Priscilla” tells the story from the vantage point of… Priscilla Presley, Elvis’ ex-wife, who serves as an executive producer on the film. The movie is directed by Sofia Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, director of the first two Godfather films. Sofia over the years has made a name for herself in the film industry instead of just being the daughter of one of the most famous film directors as in 2003 she was a triple nominee at the Oscars for writing, directing, and best picture for her movie “Lost in Translation,” winning her Oscar for best original screenplay. “Priscilla” is thought to be a potential Oscar player and so far has decent response. It’s done very well in limited release and has an 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and played well at the festival circuit. Whether or not that translates to mainstream success is a different story. “Dumb Money” had similar success in September, but only opened to $2.4 million in its nationwide expansion. “Priscilla” will be opening in 1,450 theaters and is expected to earn $5-8 million.

There are two other moderate releases vying for adult audience’s attention. In 1,492 theaters, Bleeker Street will be playing What Happens Later, which sees the return of Meg Ryan to a new romantic comedy. She plays a girl who ends up snowed-in at an airport overnight with one of her ex-lovers, played by David Duchovny. Meg Ryan is, of course, most known for other rom-coms such as “When Harry Met Sally…,” “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle,” so this return could easily be a nostalgic play for those who are fans of her previous work. Not only does she star in the movie, but she’s also directing this one, which is only her second time directing a feature-length movie after directed the 2015 movie “Ithaca.”

The other moderate release will be Roadside Attractions releasing the movie The Marsh King’s Daughter in 1,055 theaters. Perhaps this is not from as notable of a filmmaker as Sofia Coppola or Meg Ryan, but this is from Neil Burger, director of “Limitless,” “Divergent” and “Voyagers.” The actual draw might be the cast of Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn, or perhaps someone who is in the mood for a crime drama instead of a romantic comedy or historical biopic as this is about a woman, played by Daisy Ridley, who is out seeking for revenge against the man who kidnapped her mother. Neither “What Happens Later” or “The Marsh King’s Daughter” is expected to debut in the top five, but both will be fighting for a spot in the top 10.

November 10 – 12

Marvel's "The Marvels"

After a quiet initial weekend, at least for most, the second weekend of November is where things will start to kick into gear as Marvel Studios will be releasing the 33rd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, this being the sequel to the massive 2019 hit, “Captain Marvel.” This is not just the next solo adventure of Captain Marvel, though, as this sees Marvel do what they enjoy doing the most, a team-up film to fight a big baddie. Roped into this adventure are a couple of characters from the Disney+ shows, Monica Rambeau from “WandaVision” and Kamala Khan from “Ms. Marvel,” played by Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani, respectively. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Marvel movie with another appearance from Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Our villain here is a character named Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton, and she has the powers of Carol, Monica, and Kamala all entangled, hence the forced team-up to stop her. This movie is not from the directors of the initial “Captain Marvel,” but sees Nia DaCosta take over, she most notably being the director of the 2021 “Candyman” reboot, which was a pretty decent success.

The biggest question in regards to “The Marvels” is how well is this actually going to do. And while many are championing the idea that Marvel is dead and that no one cares, especially in regards to a Captain Marvel sequel that no one wants, it’s worth reminding people that, in the midst of a heavy internet campaign to tank the first movie, the movie opened to $153.4 million and finished with $426.8 million domestically and $1.129 billion worldwide. That said, it’s also worth noting that “Avengers: Endgame” came out a month later and provided a massive boost to the movie. People were wanting to make sure they were caught up before seeing “Endgame.” Yes, things have changed a lot since 2019 for Marvel, and Captain Marvel isn’t necessarily the most popular character. The team-up idea might bounce off many who skipped “Ms. Marvel,” which was one of the lowest viewed Disney+ Marvel series. So yes, there’s a lot going against this movie, especially with no Avengers movie next month. But to those who claim that the MCU is dead, the most recent MCU release was “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and that did very well.  And, believe it or not, we’re on a streak of six straight MCU releases to open above $100 million. So is the MCU really dead? I say no, even if it is more vulnerable than in the past.

All that said, the expectation is on the lower end of MCU releases, perhaps in the $50-75 million range. The lowest opening is still “The Incredible Hulk” with $55.4 million. While a handful of other early MCU films also fell in that range, maybe a more recent comparison might be “The Eternals” at $71.3 million, “Shang-Chi” at $75.4 million, or “Black Widow” at $80.4 million. Granted, those still aren’t perfect comparisons as that was a part of the COVID recovery phase, but nevertheless that’s still about the expectation here.

There is competition for “The Marvels.” Well… kinda. Opening in what’s expected to be about 1,800 theaters (“The Marvels” will be in around 4,000) is Sony getting a head start on the Christmas season with Journey to Bethlehem. Yes, this is a retelling of the classic Christmas story, the birth of Jesus. That’s easy to discern from the title. The spin here is that this is a musical version of that, described as weaving classic Christmas melodies with humor, faith, and new pop songs. The movie is directed by Adam Anders, a first time director, and written by him and Peter Barsocchini. Anders has been a writer and producer on a variety of projects, but has mainly worked in the musical department, while Barscocchini is most notable for being the writer for “High School Musical” and its sequels, which, yes, is one of the musical departments that Anders helped with. So a musical version of the story of Jesus from the people who worked on High School Musical? That’s certainly a curious combination.

The other notable release this weekend is the expansion of Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. Similar to the aforementioned “Priscilla” and “Dumb Money,” this was another festival movie that just had its platform debut in New York and Los Angeles at the end of October. While those two had a decent response from festivals and critics that might not translate into awards play and go somewhat unnoticed by mainstream audiences, “The Holdovers” might be a very different story. It had an excellent response from festivals and has a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, and is currently seen as an awards frontrunner. And it has a premise that could actually play very well with mainstream audiences, especially around the Christmas season. Paul Giamatti plays a grumpy, older instructor at a New England prep school who has to remain on Campus during Christmas break with people who have nowhere to go, including a troublemaker played by newcomer Dominic Sessa and the school’s head nurse, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who has recently lost a son in Vietnam. Maybe this won’t have a massive opening in its expansion this weekend, but it should be a decent word of mouth hit that plays well over the whole holiday season.

November 17 – 19

Lionsgate’s "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes"

A week after “The Marvels” hits theaters sees a very busy pre-Thanksgiving with quite the allotment of movies hoping to get holiday attention. Leading the way will be what might feel like a trip to about a decade ago with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. While the first Hunger Games movie was a March release in 2012, the other three that followed were on this exact weekend in consecutive years, the weekend before Thanksgiving, a slot that other YA movie adaptations such as Harry Potter and Twilight also had success in. All four Hunger Games movies opened north of $100 million, making it easily Lionsgate’s most lucrative franchise. Thus it makes sense that when Suzanne Collins decided to write another book, released in 2020, Lionsgate immediately started production on making that a movie. This is a prequel that takes us back to the 10th Hunger Games, following Coriolanus Snow as the main protagonist, who 64 years later becomes the main antagonist of President Snow in the main trilogy of books.

The biggest question on this one is do people want to go back into the world of the Hunger Games? While yes, all four previous movies opened above $100 million, the third and fourth movie had diminishing returns compared to the first and second. And looking at the even bigger picture, this genre of a YA Dystopian movies adapted from books is one that kinda died. Many tried to follow Hunger Games. Most failed. And even initial popular movies like Divergent failed so hard that they couldn’t even justify finishing the series. So if interest in the genre as a whole died off, are people going to care to come back? Perhaps a recent comparison is the Fantastic Beasts spin-off of the Harry Potter franchise. While that spin-off series started off decently enough, the most recent one last year opened to $42.2 million, finishing with $95.9 million domestically, a final domestic total that is lower than many of the previous opening weekends in the franchise. If the expected $35-50 million that Box Office Pro is currently projecting pans out for “Songbirds & Snakes,” this might be the final swan song of the franchise.  

Onto the other movies of the weekend, though, DreamWorks Animation is putting their name back in the hat with Trolls Band Together, the third movie in the popular Trolls franchise. It also marks the franchise’s return to theaters after “Trolls World Tour” got COVIDed out of theaters and decided to go straight to PVOD. Although official numbers weren’t available, Universal at the time boasted that the movie played excellent on PVOD. On top of that, the initial movie remains super popular, so it makes sense for DreamWorks to continue the franchise. Speaking of DreamWorks, they just recently suffered their most abysmal release with “Rudy Gillman, Teenage Kraken” being completely dead on arrival this summer, opening to $5.5 million and finishing with $15.7 million. But their release right before that was a massive success. “Puss and Boots: The Last Wish” only opened to $12.4 million, but legged all the way out to $185.5 million. If “Trolls Band Together” can put together a weekend of $20-30 million, then hold well throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas, that’ll be a win for DreamWorks. It does have some Disney competition literally five days after its release, but we’ll get to that in a second. Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake return for this sequel. And speaking of Timberlake, his band *NSYNC also reunited for the first time in 20 years to write a song for this movie, titled “Better Place.” That’s certainly notable.

This weekend provides something for pretty much everyone as Eli Roth has a treat for horror fans with his new slasher flick themed for the holiday and titled simply Thanksgiving. While on the surface this may seem like a run of the mill slasher flick, and while viewing the movie that might the end result, this nevertheless has a more interesting backstory on how it came to be. In 2007 there was a movie called “Grindhouse,” a movie presented as a double feature of Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof.” As a part of the experience, there were a handful of fictional movie trailers for fake films. One of those fake movies was a slasher film called “Thanksgiving,” directed by Eli Roth, who directed the fake trailer. Fast forward 16 years and now we have an actual movie based on the fake movie trailer. “Grindhouse” fans have been hoping for a long time that this would become an actual reality. And now they have their wish. Eli Roth’s shtick is usually very bloody, graphic horror films that land in the “torture porn” or “splatter fest” subgenre of horror, so this is definitely not going to be for the faint of heart, but rather a fun, niche surprise for “Grindhouse” fans.

Rounding out this weekend is an indie sports drama from a little known director named Taika Waititi, presenting his new movie Next Goal Wins. OK, yes, that introduction was a bit tongue-in-cheek. But before Taika directed two Thor movies, “Ragnarok” and “Love and Thunder,” while also being involved a bit with “The Mandalorian,” smaller indie films were what Taika did best. Yes, “Jojo Rabbit” happened in between Thor films, but before that was “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” two movies that have been discovered more in the years since Taika directed “Ragnarok.” With “Next Goal Wins,” Taika steps away from the big blockbuster, at least for a bit, to go back to his roots with a smaller film. The movie tells the story of the infamously terrible American Samoa soccer team, in which they lost a FIFA match in 2021 by a score of 31-0. Michael Fassbender in the movie plays a new coach who comes in to try to help them at least be able to score a goal. While the movie isn’t expected to be an Oscar player like “Jojo Rabbit” was, it nevertheless has the potential to be a solid feel-good movie over the holidays for those interested in a sports drama or curious about Taika’s next film.

November 22 – 26

Disney’s "Wish"

Advancing five days into the future, movies opening on the week of Thanksgiving open on a Wednesday instead of a Friday, hence the longer date span here. And while all the movies from the previous weekend are still going to be in play, Disney enters into the ring with their new animated movie Wish. On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney Studios was founded by two brothers, Walt and Roy Disney, initially as the Disney Brothers Studio. I bring this up, not necessarily for a history lesson that everyone already knows, but to point out that Disney this year has been celebrating 100 years of Disney and “Wish” seems very much tied into that as a movie about a new 17-year-old female protagonist named Asha who makes a passionate plea to the stars when she senses a darkness in the Kingdom that others might not see. All of that feels perfectly aligned with classic Disney as a tribute to Disney of old. And while not reverting completely to a classic hand-drawn animation style, this is nevertheless a combination of modern computer animation with Disney’s historical watercolor animation. And yes, it’s also a new Disney musical, led by Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and others who worked with Disney on “Frozen.”

Disney certainly has been very mortal at the box office of late. COVID combined with the hard push for Disney+ trained much of their audience to not show up to theaters for their animated movies, both from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, but rather to wait for Disney+. In the year or two since the initial huge streaming push, studios have learned again that theaters and not streaming is what makes them the most money, yet it’s been hard for Disney in their attempt to retrain their audience to go back to theaters. Last year for Disney Animation Studios, which is where “Wish” specifically comes from, “Strange World” opened to just $12.2 million, while in 2021 “Encanto” opened to just $27.2 million, before it later became a Disney+ phenomenon. And that’s not even mentioning the struggles of Pixar, who saw several movies in a row skip theaters altogether and is still recovering from that. But in pre-COVID days, this Thanksgiving slot has been very good for Disney. In 2013, “Frozen” opened to $93.9 million over the 5-day, “Moana” in 2016 to $82.1 million, and “Ralph Breaks the Internet” in 2019 to $84.8 million. The traditional 3-day opening (Friday to Sunday after Thanksgiving) for the latter two were both in the $56 million range, which is about where Box Office Pro projects “Wish,” with a $40-60 million 3-day range, which would probably translate to a $60-80 million range for the 5-day. And long legs throughout the holidays at the box office if it’s a popular hit.

As you’ve seen, it’s primed to be quite the varied selection of options for Thanksgiving. Along with everything else, Ridley Scott will also be joining the party with his new movie Napoleon. This one is one of the wild cards of the month as no one really knows exactly what to expect. Ridley Scott is a very prominent filmmaker with movies like “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Gladiator,” “Black Hawk Down” and “The Martian” on his resume. But recently you don’t know if you’re going to get another classic like this or something that’s almost universally disliked. “Napoleon” could realistically go either way. With Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte and Vanessa Kirby as Empress Josephine, it could be an excellent historical war drama that becomes a sleeper hit. Or it could wind up as a dud. With poor word of mouth, it could be a blip on the radar. As an awards hopeful, what it did NOT do was play the festival circuits, then do a limited run theatrically. That could be seen as a red flag. It’s also not yet had any pre-screenings for critics. But maybe it ends up being a good crowd pleaser for mainstream audiences while not really caring about playing the awards game?

The final movie that I’ll be mentioning here is one that, unlike “Napoleon,” HAS played the awards game. And that’s Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. This is Fennell’s second directorial feature following “Promising Young Woman” in 2020, which vaulted her onto the scene in an impressive way. Granted it was 2020, so the awards season that year was slimmer pickings, but the movie nevertheless managed five Oscar nominations, including a best picture nominee and an original screenplay win for Fennell. Fans of the movie have been curious to see what she comes up with next and “Saltburn” apparently a very out-there film that’s wild and crazy, certainly a movie that’s not for everyone. It’s about an Oxford student who is drawn in by a classmate into said classmate’s eccentric family estate. It debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in late August and hit several other festivals along the way. It currently holds an 81 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from those who have seen it. It’s slated for its limited release on November 17 before starting its nationwide expansion on November 22. Barry Keoghan is the lead in the movie.

Movie Preview: October 2023

It was an expectedly slow month at the box office in September. Based on expectations and budget, both “Expendables 3” and “The Nun II” performed admirably. “Expendables 3” opened with almost the exact same total as the previous two, which made the franchise even more impressively consistent. It finished September with $85.2 million, so not holding quite as well as the first two, despite the consistent opening. But that was good enough for the top movie of the month, which tells the story of September. The Nun II finished the month with $75.5 million domestically, in second place. With a responsible budget of $38 million and a worldwide total of just under $235 million, that’s another win for The Conjuring franchise. But continuing to tell the story of the month, “Barbie” was third place, adding $33.8 million. Nothing else was able to top that, as movies like “A Haunting in Venice,” “Expend4bles” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3” mostly failed to register. “PAW Patrol” and “Sax X” had solid openings in the final weekend, but only counted for two calendar days in the month. 

Which then means we look forward to October, our current month. Historically speaking, October is also not known to be a very big month at the box office, even though it’s often a slight step up from September. But this October, even though there’s not much on the calendar in terms of quantity, is actually looking at a few big releases as we celebrate the Halloween season while also beginning the rollout for awards season. The biggest theatrical event of the month, though, won’t even be a movie. It’s a concert. A concert released in theaters that looks to scare away all the competition. Of course we’ll get to the details of Ms. Swift’s concert and all the rest in detail below, so let’s dive in and explore!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently listed for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

October 6 – 8

Universal's "The Exorcist: Believer"

Spooky season officially was kicked off at the end of September with the release of “Saw X,” which had a respectable opening of $18.3 million. While that wasn’t as high as the franchise’s peak, it was nevertheless a big step up from both “Jigsaw” and “Spiral,” the previous two entries. And with a budget of just $13 million, there’s at least a financial justification for an eleventh film if they want it. Now just one week later, another horror franchise entry is currently haunting theaters with The Exorcist: Believer. If I’m not mistaken, this is approximately the 1,786th Exorcist movie to hit theaters since the original completely changed the horror game back in 1973.

OK, yes, I confess that that number is an exaggeration. In terms of the actual Exorcist canon, there is the original trilogy, “The Exorcist” in 1973, “Exorcist II: The Heretic” in 1977, and “The Exorcist III” in 1990. Then there were two prequel films, “Exorcist: The Beginning” and “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,” released in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Then there was a TV series titled simply “The Exorcist” that ran for two seasons from 2016-17 before getting canceled. And finally there was a novel written in 1971 that predated the movie, with a follow-up novel titled “Legion,” published in 1983. So I suppose that’s actually not a ton of official entries, but the reason I mention that it feels like there’s been a lot is that there’s been a very long list of horror films that have used the Exorcism concept, even though most of them aren’t directly connected with the official franchise. And probably the reason why there’s been so many is that “The Exorcist,” released in December 1973, finished its initial theatrical run with $193 million domestically. Subsequent releases has boosted it to $230.3 million domestically and $428.2 million worldwide. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, that domestic total STILL is the 4th highest grossing horror film ever. And that’s only if you count “Jaws” and “I am Legend.” If you specifically look at R-rated horror films, “The Exorcist” held that record of the highest-grossing R-rated horror film ever for 44 years until 2017’s “IT” topped it.

Putting that into more context, given that “The Exorcist” was released in 1973 and still has made more money than almost every other horror film, despite ticket prices today being much higher than they were back then, if you adjust for ticket price inflation, “The Exorcist” would clock in as the 9th highest grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, that based on data compiled by Box Office Mojo that was continued by Wikipedia. For some reason Box Office Mojo stopped updating that list in 2019, so Wikipedia has kept it up to date with their own calculations added. They estimate, based on 2022 ticket prices, that “The Exorcist” would have made the equivalent of $1.171 billion domestically in today’s money. That’s two slots higher than 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which updates to $1.145 billion in today’s ticket prices. So if you remember the phenomenon that “The Force Awakens” was, that’s what “The Exorcist” compares to.

Anyways, with that box office history lesson behind us, “The Exorcist: Believer” hails from director David Gordon Green, who most recently did an updated trilogy of “Halloween” films. And now he’s giving “The Exorcist” the same treatment, with “Believer” being approached as a direct sequel to 1973’s “The Exorcist.” Like “Halloween,” this will also be a planned trilogy, with “The Exorcist: Deceiver” currently set for April 2025 and as of now an untitled third movie with a TBD release date, although the pattern would suggest maybe 2027. “Believer” was received poorly, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 23 percent as of me typing this post. Despite that, it’s still on pace for an opening close to $30 million.

While “The Exorcist: Believer” is the only official new wide release of the weekend, Disney is re-releasing Hocus Pocus in 1,430 theaters for Halloween season. In moderate release, IFC Films will be releasing the new horror film When Evil Lurks in 659 theaters before it becomes available on Shudder on October 27. So perhaps if you’re in the mood for a new theatrical horror experience and the new Exorcist movie doesn’t interest you, it’s possible that this one might be near you. “When Evil Lurks” follows two brothers who come across a demon-infected man that they try to get rid of, but end up making things much worse. It was initially released at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and has so far been almost unanimously enjoyed. It has a limited 40 reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes, but nevertheless has a 98 percent score through those 40 reviews.

October 13 – 15

Taylor Swift from The Eras Tour

As mentioned in the intro to this post, the biggest theatrical event of the month will not be a movie. It will be a Taylor Swift concert, officially titled Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Taylor Swift of course needs no introduction. Everyone knows who Taylor Swift is, whether they want to or not. The Eras Tour is the ongoing sixth concert tour for Swift, which began at Glendale, Arizona in March of this year and will continue through November of next year, finishing in Toronto. Taylor described this as a journey through or an homage to all of her albums up to this point. There’s a set list of 44 song divided into 10 sections. The filmed version of the concert that’s being released in theaters is listed as 169 minutes long. And actually, this isn’t the first time Taylor has filmed one of her concerts and released it to the masses. She filmed and released a recording of her Reputation Tour for Netflix in 2018, that’s still available to be watched for those who haven’t seen that. But “The Eras Tour” filming is unique because she’s putting it in theaters, both here domestically at least at AMC and Cinemark theaters, but also worldwide.

The announcement of this came it late August and the response has been very positive. I mean, who of Taylor’s fans wouldn’t want to go see a filmed version of her concert in theaters? It’s more expensive than your typical movie, with ticket prices reportedly being either $19.89 or $13.13, but that’s of course incredibly cheaper than paying for a concert. How much will this end up making at the box office? Well… a lot. While the idea of a concert movie isn’t a new one, one at this scale being released in theaters does seem like a more unique event and thus official prognostication might be hard to pinpoint exactly. However, it was reported that presales at one point were comparable to the presales of “Avengers: Endgame.” I’m not sure that means this will open to $300+ million like “Endgame” did, but most do seem to think that a $100 million opening for this concert film is pretty much guaranteed. And that might be the very low end, safe expectations. I mean, Taylor went to a football game to watch her maybe boyfriend Travis Kelce play and that led to jersey sales and Instagram followers for Kelce to soar through the roof. The next week, when Taylor also attended the Sunday Night Jets vs Chiefs game, that became the most watched NFL game since the Super Bowl. And if Swift fans can make that happen just because she went to a football game, I imagine a theatrically-released concert film will be very well attended.   

And no, there is no competition for Taylor. Some might find that unfortunate given that Friday the 13th in October is actually happening this year. “The Exorcist: Believer” was the horror film that was planning on taking advantage of that date. But the second Taylor announced her concert film on this weekend, Universal noped “Believer” right out of that date and onto the first weekend of the month, which was recently vacated by “Kraven the Hunter,” the latest solo movie from a Spider-Man villain following “Venom” and “Morbius.” “Kraven the Hunter” moved to August 30, 2024 due to the ongoing actor’s strike, which will hopefully be resolved soon, given that the writer’s came up with a deal and ended their strike last month.

October 20 – 22

Apple TV+ and Paramount's "Killers of the Flower Moon"

Taking a break from both Halloween and Taylor Swift for a moment, the third weekend of the year will be the kick-off of what should be a major awards contender this season. That movie is Martin Scorsese’s latest release, Killers of the Flower Moon. This is a movie based on the nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” published in 2017 by journalist David Grann. The story here from the book and the movie, as referenced in the subtitle of the book, chronicles the story of the Osage Nation, a Native American tribe who lived in Osage County, Oklahoma, in the early 1900s. The Osage Nation became very wealthy when it was found that there were large oil deposits on their land. And given that Native Americans were found to be lesser by many white people back in the day (and perhaps still now to at least some degree – unfortunately racism still exists), the big scheme involved many of the Osage Tribe getting murdered for their money. The newly formed FBI eventually got involved and that led to the conviction and trial of many involved. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro portray two of the main suspects involved, with Jesse Plemons playing the lead FBI agent and Lily Gladstone getting a lot of praise for her portrayal of one of the Native American women.

The box office prospects of this movie are interesting. Scorsese has been a reliable draw for a very long time, with his first feature-length directorial effort coming in 1967 via “Who’s That Knocking at My Door.” The first movie of his to get Oscar wins and nominations was “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” in 1974, while Scorsese got his first individual nomination in 1980 with “Raging Bull.” His most recent movie was “The Irishman,” and while that was very successful with 10 nominations, it was also a Netflix film. The one before that, “Silence” in 2016, had a very muted campaign and, although it was liked by many, didn’t do much in terms of awards or box office, which wasn’t necessarily the movie’s fault. So then we have to go back to 2013 for the last Scorsese film to have a proper theatrical run combined with strong awards play. That was “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which opened to $18.4 million domestically over the Christmas holiday and finished with $116.9 million, a final total that seems within the range of possibilities for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” especially since it’s had its release in several film festivals and has been met with very high praise. The kicker for general audiences is that Scorsese in his later years doesn’t exactly seem to be a fan of short films. This one is a big ask at 3 hours 26 minutes. But in a year where the 3-hour, R-rated historical biopic of “Oppenheimer” has made close to $1 billion worldwide, maybe the runtime here also might not be a huge deal? It’s projected by Box Office Pro to earn somewhere between $29-38 million in its opening weekend.

Like with “The Exorcist: Believer” and Taylor Swift, “Killers of the Flower Moon” doesn’t exactly have much competition this week. In addition to re-releasing “Hocus Pocus” earlier in the month, Disney will also be giving The Nightmare Before Christmas a re-release this weekend leading up to Halloween. Similarly, Fathom Events will be putting on a re-release of Back to the Future on Saturday, October 21, honoring what is now the Anniversary of when Marty McFly arrived to the future in 2015. 

And finally, certainly a potential attention-grabbing title that could make you do a double take is the nationwide expansion of Dicks: The Musical. Yep, it’s exactly what you think. From the director of “Borat” and at least one of the producers of “The Greatest Showman,” this is advertised as A24’s first musical. And you’d expect nothing less than a heavily raunchy musical from the director of “Borat.” The actual plot, if one cares about that, is somewhat of a “Parent Trap” premise. Two business rivals discover that they’re twins and decide to swap places to get their divorced parents back together. Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, Megan Mullally, Nathan Lane, and Megan Thee Stallion headline the cast.   

October 27 – 29 

Universal's "Five Nights at Freddy’s"

Whenever there is a new Saw film released, it’s the tradition to release it right on Halloween weekend. And that’s exactly what “Saw X” initially had in mind. But like “The Exorcist: Believer” being scared away from Friday the 13th by Taylor Swift, “Saw X” was scared away from this weekend by the impending release of Five Nights at Freddy’s, a PG-13 horror film that could potentially do huge numbers, regardless of what the critical reaction will end up being. Movie night for teens around the world right before Halloween, based on the popular video game franchise that many of them have probably played. There’s actually been nine of these games released in the main series, with a handful of spin-offs as well, the first being released back in 2014. The idea here in the games is that you’re a night time employee at a family pizza place, similar to something like “Chuck E. Cheese,” and you have to survive the animatronics that come alive and try to kill you. So like in the games, so it is in the movie. Josh Hutcherson plays a character named Mike Schmidt who gets a night job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, that was once successful, but is now abandoned. And it’s because anyone there after midnight have to not get killed by the animatronics. The movie is distributed by Universal and produced by Jason Blum, who is a master at taking low budget horror films and getting them to make a ton of money.  The production budget is $25 million and it’s currently projected to easily pass that in its opening weekend.

Like is the case with every other weekend this month, we have one main event and perhaps a collection of smaller releases to supplement them. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is definitely the main event here. But there are four smaller movies on the schedule officially listed as having a wide release scheduled. My guess is that one or more could end up in just a couple hundred theaters rather than being a huge wide release, but it’s hard to tell exactly at this point.

Of the group, one would assume that Freelance would be the one to actually get the most attention, based on the cast of John Cena, Allison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba, and Christian Slater. This is an action comedy where ex-special forces operative takes a job to provide security for a journalist interviewing a dictator, when the three of them suddenly end up on a survival mission together. It’s from the director of “Taken” and “Peppermint,” so why the trailer on YouTube only has 18K views right now is a bit of a mystery. Relativity Media helped distribute “Hypnotic” this year, a Ben Affleck-led sci-fi movie directed by Robert Rodriguez. That opened to $2.4 million from 2,118 theaters, so maybe that’s the comparison here. Unless some marketing kicks in soon.

The other potential somewhat big release is After Death, a documentary from Angel Studios, who distributed the surprise hit “Sound of Freedom” this summer, which earned $183.9 million at the domestic box office. Documentaries don’t usually register too high at the box office, so it’s hard to believe this will be another massive surprise, but “After Death” follows the stories of a handful of notable people who had near death experiences or some touch with the afterlife. This at the least could do well in certain markets.

The other two listed on the schedule are two that definitely don’t seem like they’ll be released too wide, although I could be wrong. The movie Sight is a biopic following the story of Doctor Ming Wang, one of the world’s top laser eye surgeons. It stars Terry Chen and Greg Kinnear. I’m having a hard time even hunting down a trailer for this, but it’s from the director of 2018’s “Paul, Apostle of Christ” and 2015’s “Full of Grace,” so I’m guessing there’s some Christian angle to this. The director also had a movie called “The Blind” that released last month to a bit of a surprise $4.4 million from 1,715 theaters, so maybe I’m underestimated this.

The other movie is Inspector Sun, a Spanish animated movie that in some countries is called “Inspector Sun and the Curse of the Black Widow” and was released in Spain back in December of 2022 and several other countries in between then and now. It appears that the United States is among the last to get it. Despite that, it also doesn’t appear that there’s a lot of information on this one. It seems like a fun whodunit detective movie for younger kids where the main detective is a spider and the various other characters are different bugs and small animals. Maybe it won’t attract a huge American audience, but it could be a fun thing that a handful of people end up stumbling upon.

Movie Preview: September 2023

The summer of 2023 has come to an end. As is often par for the course, with summer winding down and kids getting ready to go back to school, August was the quietest month of the summer. The top two movies of this August were our two July phenoms, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” accounting for nearly half of the month’s $800 million domestic total. That said, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and “Meg 2: The Trench” performed fairly decently compared to expectations. But there was nothing on the scale of a “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “Suicide Squad” to help the month stand out. “Blue Beetle,” even though it did slightly better than expectations, still managed to be the second worst opening in the DCEU, while “Gran Turismo” got off to a decent start but has only been in theaters for a few days now. “Strays” certainly didn’t help things out as it was a surprising misfire.

A quick recap of the game we played in last month’s preview, that of what can beat “Barbie” at the weekend box office, both “Blue Beetle” and “Gran Turismo” did manage to get weekend wins. “Barbie” made those races very close, though, and wound up back ahead in the weekday box office. So even though it ceded the top spot twice, by the time the month officially ends, “Barbie” will still manage to have topped the box office 27 of 31 days in August, including finishing on top on the final day (I don’t have final totals of August 31 as of me typing and releasing this post).

Moving forward to September, historically this joins August and October as one of the awkward parts of the year in regards to the box office, being the months between peak movie season. Hollywood has proven time and again now that movies CAN open huge in these quieter months. So release date doesn’t actually matter that much. But yet studios still mostly maintain tradition in releasing their biggest tentpole films in the optimal spots, hence this being a bit awkward. Also, the ongoing actors and writers strikes is going to contribute to the awkwardness the longer they carry on. Actors being unable to promote their films has motivated some studios to postpone said films. Movies that weren’t yet finished when the strikes began aren’t able to be finished if there’s no actors or writers to help finish them. So as long as studios continue to not give the people making their films proper compensation, options for viewers will continue to diminish.

All that said, there is a franchise film attempting to attract audiences on each weekend this month, so we’ll see how this pans out. As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are probably even more subject to change than usual with the strikes.  

September 1 – 4

Sony's "The Equalizer 3"

Labor Day weekend has historically been one of the worst weekends for movies. There are many reasons for that, although two years ago Marvel proved that it was probably more of a self-fulling prophesy than anything, meaning that movies didn’t do well because studios avoided the weekend, thinking it was cursed when maybe it actually wasn’t? Prior to 2021, the biggest 3-day Labor Day weekend total was Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” in 2007 with $26.4 million. But in 2021, while the box office was still in recovery mode to a degree from COVID, Marvel released “Shang-Chi” to a $75.4 million 3-day opening. Perhaps that will make studios more confident going forward.

With that in mind, while in some years this would mean “Barbie” would have a chance to take the weekend box office again had there been no significant new releases, “Barbie” will definitely be blocked by Denzel Washington’s action movie The Equalizer 3. While it may be a surprise to some that this franchise ended up being a trilogy, it nevertheless makes sense in a John Wick era with other franchises trying to cash in on that success. Both Equalizer movies have also been incredibly consistent. In 2014, the first movie opened to $34.1 million, finished with $101.5 million domestically, and $192.9 million worldwide, all on a $55 million budget. Off that success, “The Equalizer 2” in 2018 increased that budget to $77 million, but opened to $36.0 million, finished with $102.1 domestically, and $190.4 million worldwide. It would be fun of “The Equalizer 3” also came within $2 million of those numbers, but at the very least one would expect it to open with $25-30 million and finish around the $100 million mark.

For the weekend, Box Office Pro is projecting $31 million for the 3-day and $37.6 million for the 4-day. In addition to Denzel Washington obviously returning in the lead role, so does Antoine Fuqua as director. So fans of the first two naturally should show up for the third, even though it’s been five years and a COVID pandemic since the last movie came out. There’s also a hurricane that hit the southeast United States this week that could cause theater closures or lower attendance in that area. That Mother Nature variable could impact things at least a bit.

While “The Equalizer 3” is the only new wide release coming out this weekend, MGM will be expanding the indie film Bottoms into wide release after a successful weekend in limited release last weekend that saw it earn $461,052 from just 10 theaters, which was the fifth highest per theater average of the year so far. The movie is an LGBTQ teen sex comedy involving two teen girls who set up a fight club that they tell the other girls is for the sake of self-defense, but their secret plan is to hook up with the cheerleaders. The movie currently has a 95 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from 112 critics, paired with a 97 percent audience score. Whether or not this translates to success with general audiences is yet to be seen. R-rated comedies have struggled quite a bit this summer, even the ones with great reviews, but this still could end up as a decent sleeper hit, especially with the market a bit bare.  

September 8 – 10

Warner Bros.' "The Nun II"

While studios have spent many years completely avoiding Labor Day weekend, Warner Bros. learned back in 2017 with “IT” the weekend after is a very good one for horror. Perhaps “IT” would’ve done well in any weekend, but nevertheless it shattered the September opening weekend record with a staggering $123.4 million. Warner Bros. has understandably put a horror movie on that weekend almost every year since, including the very next year with “The Nun,” which opened to $53.8 million.

That of course is relevant because on this weekend finally sees a sequel to that movie arrive, The Nun II. The discourse here is an almost identical conversation as to one we had last month with “The Meg” and “Meg 2.” In August 2018, “The Meg” was a huge success, but yet it took five years for a sequel to come out. Yes, maybe the COVID of it all could’ve postponed the production of both sequels, but it’s still a bit baffling that “The Nun” opened to $53.8 million, made $117.5 million domestically, and $363.4 million worldwide, all on a $22 million budget, yet took five years to get a sequel out. “The Conjuring” wound up with a higher domestic total than “The Nun,” but the rest of those numbers - the opening weekend and the worldwide totals - are the highest in the Conjuring Universe.

Perhaps a reason for the delay came with the reaction to the movie? Despite the high totals that showed how effective the scene with the haunted Nun in “The Conjuring 2” was, “The Nun” itself wound up with a 24 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 35 percent from audiences. An insane amount of hype for this spin-off led to super high attendance, but resulted in lots of disappointment across the board. A poor reaction to a horror movie usually doesn’t stop a studios from producing a long string of sequels if people keep showing up anyways, but perhaps in the years since, they’ve maybe come up with an idea that will please audiences a bit more? The trailers seem to show them going in a slightly different direction with this sequel that lines up better with the sequence from “The Conjuring 2.” The director is different from the first, but it’s Michael Chaves, the director of “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” and “The Curse of La Llorona,” two other Conjuring movies that got low reception. This all probably means it doesn’t hit the heights of the first, but it might not be too much lower and also doesn’t need as much to be considered a success.

On a discussion of third films in a franchise that you maybe didn’t think would wind up as a trilogy, as I mentioned earlier with “The Equalizer 3,” the other wide release of this weekend is My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. It’s also a possibility that you didn’t realize they even made a second one of these. The first one was quite the box office phenomenon, though. Opening on April 19, 2002, it was in theaters for nearly an entire year, its final weekend being the weekend April 4, 2003. It never hit No. 1 and its best individual weekend was only $11.1 million in August 2002, but still legged out to $241.4 million domestically, the type of run that doesn’t happen anymore. They came back with the sequel in 2016 and that opened to $17.9 million, higher than any individual weekend of the first, but it finished with $59.7 million. Now it’s been an addition seven years since that and over 20 since the first one was in theaters, but nevertheless we’re going on another adventure with this wacky Greek family. I’m not sure audiences will be too enthused over this one, but you never really know.

September 15 – 17

20th Century Studios' "A Haunting in Venice"

On first glance you may think that this next film is another random horror film. However, it’s also a third film in a franchise, the third film in the Hercule Poirot franchise, this one titled A Haunting in Venice. If the name Hercule Poirot doesn’t ring a bell right off the bat, he is a fictional detective from Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, appearing in 33 novels, two plays, and 51 short stories from the span of 1920 to 1975. In the film adaptation world of these stories, he was first played by Albert Finney in the 1974 movie “Murder on the Orient Express.” He was then played by Peter Ustinov in six different movies, “Death on the Nile” (1978), “Evil Under the Sun” (1982), “Appointment with Death” (1988), “Thirteen at Dinner” (1985), “Dead Man’s Folly” (1986), and “Murder in Three Acts” (1986), the latter three mentioned being TV movies. He was also played by David Suchet in the British ITV series “Agatha Christie’s Poirot,” which had 70 episodes over 13 seasons that ran from 1989 to 2013. There were also various other films and projects where the character showed up in.

In context of this modern series, Hercule Poirot is played by Kenneth Branagh in both “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2017 and “Death on the Nile” in 2022. And now he returns for a third time in “A Haunting in Venice.” Kenneth Branagh has also directed all three films in addition to starring as Poirot. “A Haunting in Venice” is based on the Christie novel “Halowe’en Party” in 1969, which initially garnered largely negative reviews, but has recently had a bit of a reassessment in modern years. The trailers of the movie have also given off the vibes of it being a slight departure from the traditional murder mystery genre of the other two and having a bit more of a supernatural/horror spin, which may have led it to not quite having as high awareness as the first two. “Murder on the Orient Express” did wind up with $102.8 million domestically and $351.8 million worldwide, which is why they’ve been able to continue, but after a long series of COVID delays and other issues, “Death on the Nile” wound up with just $45.6 million domestically and $130.3 million worldwide, opening to $12.9 million, less than half of the $28.7 million opening of the first.

This makes “A Haunting in Venice” a bit more of a risk for Disney/20th Century Studios after the troubles of “Death on the Nile,” but Disney is obviously hoping for a bit of a rebound. It has the advantage of being the only wide release of the weekend, which is why I’ve spent a bit more time on it. There’s also only one additional wide release the following weekend, which is a completely different target audience at that. But if awareness isn’t too terribly high, that might not mean much. Box Office Pro’s most recent long range forecast gave it a predicted opening weekend range of $11-16 million, which might not even be good enough for No. 1 depending on how big “The Nun” opens and how much it falls in its second weekend.

September 22 – 24

Lionsgate's "Expend4bles"

As referenced in the previous weekend, only one new wide release this weekend after just the one new wide release the weekend before. And it’s another franchise film, Expend4bles. Because apparently replacing a letter in the title with the sequel’s number is something studios still think is a cool thing to do. Anyways, this is the fourth film in The Expendables franchise, which initially sold itself as an action franchise that had a long list of former action stars, with each ensuing chapter adding a few more. The curious part of this is that each of the first three films were just two years apart, 2010, 2012, and 2014. Even with that close proximity, though, they all saw diminishing returns. “The Expendables 3” got more negative backlash after reducing down to a PG-13 rating, after the first two were rated R, and thus only made $39.3 million total at the domestic box office after the first two made $103.1 million and $85.0 million respectively. All of them were pretty big worldwide hits, which helped them keep going ($268.3 million, $311.9 million, $209.5 million), but nine years after a poorly received third chapter, are people ready and excited for the first?

“Expend4bles” does return to the R rating, which might make some happy. It also returns Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgreen, and Randy Coutre from the first three, which is a positive, but I’m not sure 50 Cent, Megan Fox, and Andy Garcia are the exact brand of “action stars” that is representative of the franchise? That said, it does add Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais, who are very popular international action stars, so if they goal is to appeal mainly to an international audience where the first three made the bulk of their money, that’s not a bad approach. Box Office Pro’s long range forecast pegged it at $13-18 million for its opening, which isn’t good. But if it can manage to get a couple hundred million from overseas markets, the domestic total may not matter.

September 29 – October 1

Lionsgate's "Saw X"

After the massive success of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” which garnered the nickname “Barbenheimer,” some jokingly suggested the next double feature phenomenon would be “Saw Patrol.” That’s obviously not going to happen, especially with massively different audiences, but nevertheless that’s what will conclude September and move us into October. This actually could be a close race for the top spot, but let’s start with the horror film Saw X. A new Saw film used to be a Halloween tradition. Beginning in 2004, there was a Saw film every Halloween for seven straight Halloweens, finishing in 2010 with the seventh film, “Saw 3D.” It began with James Wan directing and Leigh Whannell writing and has since rotated through a lot of different writers and directors. Attempted revivals in the franchise happened with “Jigsaw” in October 2017 and “Spiral” in May 2021, which had the only non-Halloween release date. The general premise surround a serial killer named Jigsaw, who trapped his victims and forced them to participate in violent “games” in order to survive, forcing them to harm themselves. To the chagrin of some Saw fans, this also helped inspire the term “torture porn” or “splatter film” as its own subgenre of horror.

Now how excited for a new Saw film are people really? Granted, its core fan base who has loyally gone to all of these films will probably show up. And the attempted revival of the franchise proper might be a more intriguing prospect than the spin-offs of “Jigsaw” and “Spiral,” neither of which did particularly well. Even better, “Saw X” chronologically fits in between “Saw” and “Saw II,” as a direct sequel to the original, following the recent trend started by the latest “Halloween” trilogy. But it’s still worth pointing out that it’s been 13 years since the series proper. “Halloween” and “Scream” both proved that franchise revivals of popular horror films can be done successful, but there’s still no guarantee that this does well. It was also initially set for Halloween weekend, but moved to this spot to seemingly avoid competition with “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” That does give it the entire month of October as its runway, which could end up being a positive, but “The Exorcist: Believer” also just moved up a week, putting it in the second weekend of “Saw X,” which is not great.  

“Saw X” could very well win the weekend, but don’t underestimate the power of “PAW Patrol” as PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie also sees a release this weekend. In regards to both movie’s immediate predecessors, “Spiral” opened with just $8.8 million in May 2021, while “PAW Patrol: The Movie” opened to $13.1 million three months later, in August 2021. Granted, a return to the era of the first two Saw movies could see “Saw X” open closer to the franchise average, which is $23.2 million, or even higher if it hits the $30 million range of the second through fourth movies, but this PAW Patrol thing has been around for some time and is quite popular with the younger audience. The main series began in 2013 and is currently in season 10, having aired over 200 episodes, with a handful of other films, games, video games, and lots of merchandising. And as you can see, family audiences haven’t been given a lot to go to theaters for recently. It’s mostly stuff targeted at adult males, so this could be perfect positioning for this newest PAW Patrol movie, brewing up the potential upset.

“Saw X” and “PAW Patrol” aren’t the only two movies getting a wide release this weekend. In poetic fashion, we began with a movie starring Denzel Washington and now we finish the month with a movie starring his son, John David Washington, for a Washington Family sandwich. John David’s movie is The Creator, which is described as a post-apocalyptic thriller involving a war between humans and AI. And if I lost you with that premise, given that it’s one we’ve see a hundred times, it’s possible I could get your interest back if I tell you this is a from director Gareth Edwards. And if that exactly name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, it will when I tell you that his last directed film was this little known indie film called “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Before that he did the 2014 reboot of “Godzilla.” And given that the bar here isn’t incredibly high, if Disney decides to give a good advertising push, a weekend win over “Saw Patrol” isn’t a crazy idea. After a month full of adult-targeted male action flicks and horror films, a sci-fi action thriller could appeal to a more broad audience. But that depends on how much awareness it gets. “65” was a similar sci-fi film this year that should’ve done a lot better, but only opened to $12.3 million after poor reviews and low awareness.