We are finished with the month of January. The previous year has been reviewed. This upcoming year has been previewed. If you haven’t seen those two posts, then check them out! But with that out of the way, it’s time to do a closer look into the month that we are currently in – February 2023.
And actually, it’s looking to be a fairly healthy month at the box office. January started off the year in a decent fashion, thanks mostly to the holdovers. “Avatar: The Way of Water” remained at No. 1 for the entire month and crossed the $2 billion mark worldwide box office, while inching closer to the $718.7 million mark of “Top Gun: Maverick” domestically, the current highest grossing movie of 2022 in the United States. Meanwhile, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” quietly had a great month as well, becoming the leggiest wide release of 2022. And on the 2023 front, “M3GAN” was the story of the new releases, opening to $30.4 million and being close to the $100 million mark domestically, while already having passed $150 million worldwide. And we’re your production budget is just $12 million, that’s going to make the studio very happy.
While January mostly played the holdover game, February provides moviegoers with a wide variety of options that should help build positive momentum on the year going into a March that is looking rather stacked. So let’s jump in and take a look at what the month has in store! 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 subject to change.
February 3 – 5
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| Universal's "Knock at the Cabin" |
Rolling in just behind “Knock at the Cabin” in second place with $12.7 million was the adult-targeted comedy 80 for Brady, which thus knocked “The Way of Water” down to third place this weekend. “80 for Brady” was specifically targeting an older female audience as it’s about a group of older females traveling to the Super Bowl to finally see their hero Tom Brady. Coincidentally, Tom Brady in real life, who did not make it to the Super Bowl this season, announced his retirement just days before this movie was released. Despite retiring last season before coming back, Brady claims this is for real this time. Another interesting point surrounding this movie is that, according to a Deadline report, “80 for Brady” actually sold more tickets this weekend than “Knock at the Cabin” as Paramount held discount matinee ticket pricing all day for most theaters nationwide. The average ticket price was $9.79 compared to $12.30 for “Knock at the Cabin.” Whether or not this strategy worked can be debated. On the one hand, it did not beat “Knock at the Cabin,” despite selling more tickets. But on the other hand, perhaps more people came out to see it that otherwise wouldn’t have? The report also noted that 47 percent of the opening weekend audience were over the age of 55, while 69 percent were female. This demographic is also not known for rushing out to the theaters, so there’s a solid chance that the movie enjoys good holds throughout February.
On the… non-movie related box office news from the weekend, two special events made a decent impact. Opening in fifth place with an estimated $5.1 million was BTS: Yet to Come in Cinemas, which was a theatrical showcase of the group’s free show at Busan’s World Expo in October. A bit further down the chart in ninth place was the season 3 finale of The Chosen, taking in $3.6 million. While this opening is lower than the $8.7 million that the first two episodes of season 3 opened to this past November and the $4.2 million that the 2021 holiday special opened to, it’s still nevertheless impressive that it managed to make that much despite being available for free just a few days later. And the total certainly continues to help fund further seasons of “The Chosen.”
February 10 – 12
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| Warner Bros.' "Magic Mike’s Last Dance" |
In which case, it might work out nicely that this weekend’s Super Bowl challenger is Magic Mike’s Last Dance, which is another movie that is perhaps primarily targeting a female audience. That said, there’s a fairly large number of people in critics circles that found both Magic Mike movies to be surprisingly well-done, despite being a male stripper movie, so maybe the movie might not be targeting a female audience as much as one might think? While not a perfect box office comparison given that the previous Magic Mike movies both opened in the summer, the first movie nevertheless opened to $39.1 million. An opening on that front would be a new Super Bowl record. However, the sequel “Magic Mike XXL” opened to a much smaller $12.8 million. It’s also worth noting that “XXL” opened on a Wednesday, over the fourth of July holiday weekend. Its five-day opening was $27.8 million. If diminished returns are continued to be expected, perhaps a $15-20 million is what the movie is looking at.
The other major headline from this weekend is not a new release by any stretch of the imagination, but is rather the 25th Anniversary re-release of Titanic. Interestingly enough, we have a bit of a James Cameron duel going on over at the all-time charts. As of the typing of this post, “Titanic” is third all-time worldwide with $2.194 billion, while “Avatar: The Way of Water” is fourth with $2.176 billion. While “The Way of Water” is just $20 million behind “Titanic” and is poised to pass it for third place, “Titanic” will get the chance to retake that third spot right back. This is also not the first time “Titanic” has seen a domestic re-release. In April 2012 it got the 3D re-release treatment, where it opened to $17.2 million. On the James Cameron front, the re-release of “Avatar” last year in preparation for “The Way of Water” saw “Avatar” open with $10.5 million. Somewhere along those lines might be the expectations for this weekend’s “Titanic” re-release.
The final movie of the weekend is not one that I have a whole ton of faith in with regards to the box office, but nevertheless opening somewhere on the charts will be the horror movie Consecration. This is a movie starring Jena Malone as a doctor named Grace who travels to Scotland after the alleged suicide of her priest brother. Not believing the church’s account of what happened, she’s on a mission to discover what really happened. A recent comparison that “Consecration” reminds me of is last month’s “Fear” that I briefly talked about, which opened on the final weekend of January down in 12th place with just $1.2 million from 974 theaters. It seems like “Consecration” is in line for a debut somewhere along those lines.
*UPDATE: I typed this weekend’s segment a week ago. Before finishing this post, a personal matter delayed me and finishing this blog post became low on my priority list. I made the decision to keep what I wrote instead of re-typing it. I also wasn’t too far off with this weekend’s movies. “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” opened in first, but with only $8.2 million. What I didn’t account for there is Warner Bros. barely promoting the movie and only releasing it in 1,500 theaters, which seems like a bit of a strange decision. Meanwhile, “Titanic” returned with $6.4 million in its 25th anniversary release while “Consecration” barely registered, opening below the top 10 with just $365,000.
February 17 – 19
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| Marvel's "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" |
Onto this month’s main event film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the third movie in the Ant-Man trilogy. There are some comic book fans that have marveled at the idea that Ant-Man has now gotten a trilogy before other comic book characters that may seem like they would’ve done so first, but one of course has to realize that this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Labeling it as the 31st film in this MCU saga might be a more accurate label. Even though Ant-Man hasn’t been the biggest headlining character throughout the MCU, the specific realm that he and his comrades deal with look to be a key factor in the future of the MCU, namely their adventures in the Quantum Realm. Also, as introduced in the TV series “Loki,” this next chapter’s big baddie, Kang the Conqueror, will make his official cinematic debut. In “Loki,” Kang was simply known as “He Who Remains,” but Marvel fans will begin to learn more about his shenanigans here in “Quantumania,” before things assumedly culminate in “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty,” set for a release in 2025. IMDb also has him listed as a cast member in the following year’s “Avengers: Secret Wars” in 2026, so perhaps his story will cover both Avengers movies, like Thanos’s final arc did in “Infinity War” and “Endgame.”
On the box office side of things, the first “Ant-Man” was one of the lowest MCU openings with $57.2 million, but built off positive word of mouth to becoming one of the MCU’s leggier runs as it finished with $180.2 million domestically, 3.15 times its opening. “Ant-Man and the Wasp” in 2018 opened slightly higher with $75.8 million and then had a more average run in terms of legs, making 2.86 million times its opening, finishing with $216.6 million. In looking at last year’s three MCU films, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” opened with $187.4 million, “Thor: Love and Thunder” opened to $144.2 million, and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” opened with $181.3 million. Again, Ant-Man isn’t as high profile of a character as any of those three, but as the official beginning of Phase 5 in the MCU, as well as the presence of Kang, it should be the highest Ant-Man opening. Box Office Pro’s current long range forecast has it pegged as opening between $101-125 million.
Much, much further down the list on the box office this weekend will be the latest Liam Neeson adventure, Marlowe. Ever since the release of “Taken” in 2009, Liam Neeson has seemed to enjoy acting as an action star and even more recently has seemed content with starring in a long string of low-budget action films that barely register at the box office. Since 2020, he’s had “Honest Thief,” “The Marksman,” “Blacklight” and “Memory,” all of which have finished with a domestic total below $20 million, the last two finishing below $10 million. The respective opening weekends have been $3.6 million, $3.1 million, $3.5 million, and $3.1 million, in other words, they’ve been highly consistent in their performance and yet they’re still being released. Now in the defense of “Marlowe,” it’s set in the 1930s and has the look of a neo-noir detective thriller and is directed by Neil Jordan, who is an Oscar winner in 1992 for his screenplay of “The Crying Game.” So that could give one optimism that this is more than just another generic Liam Neeson action film. But then one watches the trailer and says, “Well, maybe not.” And early tracking has it right in line with the previous four mentioned here. It’s also opening on Wednesday the 15th, so that might spread its opening out a bit.
That’s actually it for wide openings on the weekend. Although there are a couple more worth mentioning real quick. Also opening on the 15th, listed as a Fathom Events special engagement, is Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. This one is a curiously amusing case of Winnie the Pooh becoming public domain the other year and someone immediately taking advantage of that by turning it into a live-action, bonkers, violent horror movie. Christopher Robin has left his toys and come back years later, learning that they’re very mad at him and are out for revenge. So yeah, not exactly the Winnie the Pooh movie one would expect, but the type of strange thing that can happen when a property becomes public domain. But perhaps the fact that it’s a special engagement and not a traditional wide release is evidence of the filmmakers or people in charge of distribution seeing the writing on the wall and not being confident enough to book enough theaters for a wide release?
For those who read the January post, you might remember me talking about an “Untitled Crunchyroll” film that was on the schedule. That wound up being “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Scarlet Bond.” Unlike other surprising Crunchyroll or other anime releases, it did not open high, but rather opened in 8th place with a reported $1.5 million. I mentioned in that post that there was another “Untitled Crunchyroll” in February. Now that this post has been delayed long enough to get closer to the actual release, this one is Kaguya-sama: Love is War – The Kiss That Never Happened. This appears to be a continuation of the series “Kaguya-sama: Love is War,” which started in 2019 and currently has three seasons released – 39 episodes. It’s also listed as a “special engagement” and not a wide release. On Valentine’s Day, for that matter. So it’s not looking like another breakout anime hit, but will definitely be something for fans of the series to check out, either now or later.
February 24 – 26
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| Universal's "Cocaine Bear" |
From crazy bears to Christian movies this weekend, the other notable release is Jesus Revolution. This is a Christian movie set in the 1970s about a pastor who decides to let a bunch of hippies join his congregation, which may have made some of the older people not too happy, but sent a message that everyone is allowed to worship, even if they don't look or act the same as others. As a whole, this highlights the great American spiritual awakening in the 1970s as it adapts Greg Laurie's book of the same name, which highlighted his experiences in that era. As a 19-year-old in 1973, Laurie was allowed to lead a Bible study of about 30 people from pastor Chuck Smith, which eventually grew to be one of the biggest congregations in the United States. The movie is directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle, who worked on the 2018 hit "I Can Only Imagine," which opened with $17.1 million, so this definitely has potential if it hits the right niche audience. Other movies directed by Erwin, like "American Underdog," "I Still Believe," and "Woodlawn," opened more in the $5-10 million range.
The final movie of the weekend and the month is another one of those movies that may or may not actually exist. Or may be a smaller release than the initial schedule makes it out to be, but nevertheless the movie is My Happy Ending. From the official trailer, released February 2nd and currently having 6,311 views, Roadside describes this as a movie about a famous actor who goes incognito to find treatment for a severe medical issue, stage 4 cancer I believe, finding three friends along the way to help her - an aging rocker, a young mother, and a retired school teacher. The movie stars Andie MacDowell in the lead role. Could be a nice drama that serves as a change of pace. But Roadside is going to have start advertising their movie if they want people to see it. Otherwise it's a candidate for most people to find later, after its theatrical run.
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