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.