Movie Preview: March 2023

We made it through the first two months of the year. And even though it was cold and snowy throughout much of the United States, the box office output wasn’t terrible. As previously mentioned, “Avatar: The Way of Water” propelled itself to being the third highest grossing movie worldwide, helping bolster an otherwise mostly nonexistent January in regards to new releases. And February was helped by “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” becoming the fifth straight movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to open north of $100 million. Sure, the extremely mixed reaction resulted in a record second weekend drop for the MCU, but it still made for a decent month overall, even though not much from the rest of the slate really stood out. “Cocaine Bear,” “Jesus Revolution,” and “80 for Brady” had good performances compared to expectations, while “Knock at the Cabin” and “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” were the exact opposite. But outside “Quatumania” opening to $106 million, the next highest was “Cocaine Bear” with $23 million.

March, on the other hand, should look to catch things on fire, or at least start to warm things up a bit more. Whether or not there’s a $100 million opening weekend is up for debate. Perhaps not? But it’s certainly looking like an early summer month with the releases that are scheduled, which, outside COVID, has recently been the case with March, so let’s dive in and see what there is to look forward to!

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. 

March 3 – 5

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor's "Creed III"

The first weekend of March will start things off with a bang. Or maybe a punch? Or a knockout? Whatever boxing metaphor you choose to use, it’s Creed III that leads us off. What started off as a spin-off to the Rocky franchise is now surviving well as a franchise on its very own, which parallels the story arc of Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed in the initial “Creed,” as he was trying to make it on his own rather than feeding off the legacy of being the son of Apollo Creed. This will also be the first movie in the franchise that doesn’t include the character of Rocky Balboa as Sylvester Stallone has fully passed the mantle of the franchise to Michael B. Jordan. This will also be Jordan’s first time directing a movie in this franchise as he follows in the footsteps of Stallone in that way, too, as Stallone directed the second through fourth Rocky films as well as “Rocky Balboa.” In fact, this is Jordan’s first time directing anything and so far he’s received positive remarks for his directorial debut. “Creed” opened to $29.6 million in November 2015 and was followed by a $35.6 million debut from “Creed II” in November 2018. Now “Creed III” strays away from the November release and into March, negating the direct comparison to a degree, but nevertheless its projected to improve upon its predecessor yet again as Box Office Pro has it pegged at $43 million in their weekend forecast.

Fighting for a spot somewhere in the top five amidst the competition from “Creed III” as well as holdovers from “Quantumania,” “Cocaine Bear” and “Jesus Revolution” will be the anime Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village. “Demon Slayer” is a breakout success as an anime. A 26-episode first season aired in 2019, adapting the manga, which began in 2016. That was followed by “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train” in 2020, which became the highest grossing film ever in Japan. After a staggered worldwide release, “Mugen Train” opened in April 2021 in the United States with $22.8 million, a number which definitely indicates potential breakout for “To the Swordsmith Village. “Mugen Train” was edited into six episodes, with one new episode preceding it, and was followed by a new 11-episode arc, which made the total 18-episode season 2. “To the Swordsmith Village” will be kicking off the third season of the show, which is set to premier in April, so there’s sure to be a decent amount of hype for this movie, which could lead it to a second place finish if all goes well.

Perhaps on the outside looking in will be the is Guy Ritchie’s new film Operation Fortune: Ruse de Geurre. Guy Ritchie is a director who developed an early niche following as an action filmmaker due to films like “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” Since then he’s also gone bigger, directing both of the Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” movies and later being swept up by the Disney machine to direct the live-action remake of “Aladdin.” Mixed in with that success, though, has been a decent amount of misses, specifically with his last two films, “The Gentlemen” and “Wrath of Man,” both of which were seen more as generic action films rather than having his specific style, leading to subpar box office performances, opening to $10.7 million and $8.3 million, respectfully. “Operation Furtune” has also had a bit of a journey as it was initially scheduled for early last year before STX removed it, reportedly due to poor timing of having Ukrainian villains at the same time as the Russian/Ukrainian conflict. Rumor also has it that the movie almost went straight to streaming, but was recently bought by Lionsgate, who is giving it a theatrical release. Reaction has also been mixed, so all things considered, the expectation is for it to open even further below the previous two movies.   

March 10 – 12

Paramount's "Scream VI"

Another franchise film will be leading the box office each of the next three weekends in March, with this second weekend being led by the horror film Scream VI. Despite the potentially confusing numbering scheming in this franchise, “Scream VI” is in fact a sequel to last year’s entry, simply titled “Scream,” as it walked in the footsteps of the Halloween franchise by having a reboot/sequel that had the same title as the original. Instead of being super confusing by going for “Scream 2” or a subtitled sequel, this entry simply goes back to “Scream VI” as the sixth entry in the franchise, which began in 1996 as a meta horror/comedy by Wes Craven that at the same time also managed to be a successfully intense and thrilling entry into the genre it was providing horror commentary on. Fast forward nearly 30 years later and last year’s “Scream” was a surprisingly well-received entry that also opened to $30 million. And you know the rules of horror franchises. When you make back your budget in just one weekend, you continue as soon as possible. So with a very quick turnaround, the Ghostface killer is back just a year later and the marketing has people hyped. And although not a perfect comparison due to ticket price inflation, the unadjusted record opening for the franchise is “Scream 3,” which opened to $34.7 million in 2000. “Scream VI” has a solid chance of topping that unadjusted record.

While the Ghostface killer will be out terrorizing people, dinosaurs will also be wandering the Earth in the new Adam Driver led sci-fi film 65. No, this is not like “Jurassic Park” with dinosaurs in today’s world, but rather sees Adam Driver traveling back in time into the world of the dinosaurs, with his only human companion being a young girl. The goal, obviously, is to survive this dangerous, prehistoric world, while assumingly trying to figure out a way to get back home. Driver has become one of today’s biggest stars, not just from his role as Kylo Ren in the new Star Wars trilogy, but also a decent resume of more prestigious awards films that has helped build his resume. He makes for a decent draw. But of course the draw will also be the dinosaurs as the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies will witness. In fact, it’s probably been a while since we’ve had on-screen dinosaurs not from a Jurassic movie, so this will be an interesting test. The other challenge for the movie will be a very crowded, very male-centric month at the box office and original films have more of an uphill battle than franchise films, but this definitely has the potential to be a sleeper hit, or at the very release provide another option for filmgoers.  

Coming in the rear this weekend will be Focus Features releasing the sports drama Champions. Again, competing with dinosaurs, Creed, and the upcoming superhero film and John Wick movie this month makes it difficult for a sports drama to succeed in the middle of that, especially with a mildly generic movie title. But nevertheless, this movie sees Woody Harrelson star as a former minor league basketball coach who is ordered by the court to coach a team of players with intellectual disabilities. And with that premise, one can see the danger of this walking right down a generic path of a sports movie that people have seen a thousand times. Granted, there are only so many directions one can take a sports movie, but nevertheless an element of creativity in the writing or proper execution of the familiar premise would be necessary for this to succeed, thus meaning reviews and reaction might be key to this movie’s success rather than just feeding off of star power or franchise recognition that a lot of these other movies will be relying on. A potential comparison could be to the Ben Affleck basketball movie “The Way Back,” which had the unfortunate timing of opening a week or two before COVID hit in March 2020. But nevertheless it still managed $8.2 million in its opening weekend before the world shut down.  

March 17 – 19

Warner Bros.' "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"

No slowing down this month as the third weekend of the month sees the opening of Shazam! Fury of the Gods. This will be the first of, yes, four DC films this year, the other three being “The Flash” (June), “Blue Beetle” (August), and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (December). It’ll be a very interesting test for all four movies as James Gunn recently took over as head of DC and laid out a very specific plan for the studio’s future. Whether or not any of these characters is a part of that plan is up in the air and may depend on how well they do with fans. The uncertainty of these characters’ futures may in turn cause a bit of hesitation among more casual audiences. That added to the fact that the first “Shazam!” wasn’t necessarily a smash hit, either, provides an even more difficult uphill battle for “Fury of the Gods.” The positive, though, is that “Shazam!” played very well with the people who did see it, which may have helped give it a life beyond its initial theatrical release. Warner Bros. was confident enough to give it a sequel and said sequel will see Billy Batson and his entire family fight as a superhero team for the entirety of a whole film instead of just in the final act, with the conflict being the Daughters of Atlas, played by Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu. The first movie opened to $53.5 million and I’m sure the team around this hope for an improvement on that. Director David F. Sandberg tweeted recently that he’s been told nothing in the Shazam! films contradict the future plans for DC, so whether or not they play a role in the future will depend on if people show up for this film.

There’s not really any direct competition for “Fury of the Gods” on this specific weekend. The competition will be what is surrounding it in the weeks before and after release. But nevertheless there are two smaller films scheduled and the first is Moving On, a film starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two old friends who reconnect at a funeral and decide to get revenge on the widower who messed with them decades before. In addition to that strong duo as the leads, the movie is directed by Paul Weitz, who has previously directed movies such as “American Pie,” “About a Boy” and “Little Fockers,” so there’s some prestige there. But since “Little Fockers” in 2010, he’s only directed one movie that opened in wide release and that was back in 2013, so he’s been fairly quiet since and it doesn’t seem like there’s much awareness on this one, so this might be a moderate to smaller release instead of a super wide.

And speaking of movies that may not have much awareness, the-numbers.com claims that A Snowy Day in Oakland is releasing in wide release this weekend, so I’ll quickly bring it up, but there’s not many other indications on the internet that this is much of thing as I can’t even find a trailer that has even more than 5.7K views. Nevertheless, this is comedy about a girl who works as a psychologist who breaks up with her boyfriend and moves from San Francisco to Oakland, in a predominately black neighborhood. Given that this is also from a new studio called PoC Studios, my guess is that this will be in a few hundred theaters rather than a few thousand. 

March 24 – 26

Lionsgate's "John Wick: Chapter 4"

Only one new movie this weekend, but there’s a world in which this may be the top release of the month and that is Keanu Reeves returning for John Wick: Chapter 4. What initially began as a simple, low-budget, low-key action film in October 2014 has quickly grown to what may be one of the most popular action franchises today. Yes, “John Wick” came out of nowhere and only opened to $14.4 million on a $30 million budget, but it’s very stylistic action and strong word of mouth grew quick and that led to two much larger sequels in terms of the world itself, which has gotten bigger with each subsequent movie, and the overall success, which culminated with “Chapter 3” opening to $56.8 million and making $171 million domestically, with $327 million total worldwide. Not bad at all for a $40 million budget. Now eventually franchise trends in general suggest diminishing returns at some point and the previous movie set a pretty high bar, but there still seems to be plenty of hype for this movie, especially since “Chapter 3” ended in a way that left the gate wide open for a sequel rather than this feeling like a forced entry. Again, lots of competition this month. But this might be the competition that hurts the other films rather than the other way around, so I’m guessing this does quite well. 

March 31 – April 2

Paramount's "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"

The final major movie of the month is not one that’s going to impact the calendar gross of March very much, opening on the final day of the month, but nevertheless that movie is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant, this is looking to be a big budget, CGI monster fest fest that attempts to bring to life the world of Dungeons & Dragons in a big summer blockbuster style popcorn movie. And honestly this could be the type of movie that ends up getting a 30 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, paired along with an 80 percent audience score. Based on trailers, it looks like the filmmakers here are at least aware of the lore of Dungeons & Dragons, in an attempt to bring specific niche creatures and characters into the movie that might please the niche D&D audience, while completely bouncing off others who have never explored the worlds of D&D and thus don’t get the excitement of what’s happening. Said phenomenon might be similar to the 2016 “Warcraft” film, which has almost that exact divisive Rotten Tomatoes score. Also like “Warcraft,” this movie has the chance to randomly explode in some international markets, even if it doesn’t do well domestically. “Warcraft” opened to $24.2 million domestically, then fell off a cliff and only made $47.4 million total domestically, but made a whopping $213 million in China and $391 million total internationally, for a $438 million total worldwide.

Opening alongside “Dungeons & Dragons” are two smaller films, the first being Zach Braff’s new film A Good Person. Zach Braff is the director of “Garden State,” “Wish I Was Here” and “Going in Style.” His latest is a movie starring Florence Pugh as a girl whose life falls apart after being involved in a fatal accident. By the looks of the trailer, it appears this character will have some lessons to learn about life from Morgan Freeman, which perhaps would benefit anyone. Not that it’s relevant, but director Zach Braff dated star Florence Pugh from 2019 to 2022. Braff wrote “A Good Person” during COVID and it appears the movie was filmed in late 2021, before the couple broke up in early 2022. Just in case you wanted your daily dose of celebrity relationship gossip.

The other smaller film of the month is the Sundance film A Thousand and One. This is a movie directed by new filmmaker A.V. Rockwell in her feature-length debut and stars Teyana Taylor, also fairly new to the acting scene, as a woman who kidnaps her son from foster care and sets out with her son to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability in a rapidly changing New York City. The hook for this film is that it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year, which is the top prize at Sundance. In the last decade, other Grand Jury winners include Whiplash, Minari, and CODA, all of whom went onto get nominated for best picture, CODA winning the prize a year ago. Sure, it’s very hit and miss otherwise when it comes to Sundance winners going onto being Oscar players, but Oscars or no, it’s typically a sign of a really good indie film that people liked that is worth checking out. “A Thousand and One” currently has a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes after its first 24 reviews, with a 7.7 average score from said critics. So if you’re looking for a smaller indie film as a change of pace from these bigger blockbusters that the month will provide, this might be a solid option.