Movie Preview: November 2024

The month of November is now upon us! Hope everyone had a happy Halloween and a lovely October. In regards to the box office success of the month, after a very successful second half of the summer and a September that was the highest in the post-COVID era, October was… not able to maintain that success. I mentioned in my October preview that the month was bookended by two big comic book films that, on paper, were both expected to do really well. At one point in their pre-release cycles, both were projected as $100 million openers at point. The story is that both of them failed to meet expectations. “Joker: Folie à Deux” failed so badly that, a month into its run, it’s already almost gone from theaters. This upcoming weekend as of me posting this it’ll only be in 72 theaters, with a box office total that’s currently at $58.3 million domestically. Compared to that, “Venom: The Last Dance” is doing significantly better. It’s actually held decently for a comic book film and did well internationally, but it’s $51 million opening is still $40 million less than its predecessor, which opened in October 2021 when COVID was still a big issue. When both your big tentpole releases fail, that’s a bad formula for the month as a whole. “The Wild Robot” ended up as the highest grossing movie of the month and that was a late September release.

November will be better, though. Nothing is a guarantee, of course, but there’s two movies at the end of the month that seem as close to a guarantee as they get, and a couple more that also could do quite well. And yes, we are beginning the second of five weekends this month, so this is again a bit late. But as you’ll see, not much happened in that first weekend, anyways. And this second weekend isn’t expected to do a whole lot better. All these near guaranteed hits I speak of come in the second half of the month as we approach Thanksgiving and the holiday season. So we’ll recap the small releases in weekend one and then preview what the Thanksgiving side of the holiday season has in store!

As always, release date information is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.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 1 – 3

Sony's "Here"

In the first weekend of the month, it was “Venom: The Last Dance” that ruled supreme. After a disappointing opening of $51 million, the lack of any major competition helped it stay at the top with $25.9 million, a drop of just 49 percent. It’s usually rather common for a comic book movie to drop in the 60 percent range, give or take 5 percent either way. “Joker: Folie à Deux” set a lot of bad records with an 81 percent drop in its second weekend just a few weeks ago, so a 49 percent drop for “The Last Dance” is pretty good.

I anticipate that Hollywood studios also anticipated a much bigger opening for “The Last Dance” and decided to avoid the weekend because of that. The biggest new release was Robert Zemeckis’ Here, starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, which opened down in 5th place with $4.9 million from 2,647 theaters. The story or the gimmick behind this film is that it’s about one particular plot of land, with the camera essentially in the same spot the whole time. While the time span goes to the very distant past in parts, most of the movie is about the couple living there, which are played by Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, making this a “Forrest Gump” reunion with Zemeckis, Hanks, and Wright. The movie spans the life of this couple from them being a young married couple all the way up to them being an old couple. The movie uses artificial intelligence to de-age the actors in their younger scenes, which might be one of the reasons why many have been turned off by this. I think there’s also many who expect or hope for a return to form at some point from Robert Zemeckis, director of “Back to the Future,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Cast Away.” But this does not appear to be it. He’s had a long string of disappointments for the last decade plus and this adds to them. In addition to the subpar box office opening, the movie also earned a 36 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 57 percent audience score.

There’s two other new wide releases that opened in theaters this week. However, both of them opened below the top 10. Down in 12th place with $1.4 million from 1,500 theaters was the new Liam Neeson movie Absolution. Ever since starring in “Taken,” Liam Neeson has spent most of his time essentially making the same low-budget action movie, which has especially been the case the last five years. Dating back to “Honest Thief” in October 2020, all of them have opened with less than $5 million, but above $1 million, from a moderate amount of theaters. Most of them have had a very similar premise and about the same reaction. And he’s averaged two of them per year. “Absolution” is the latest. An aging mob enforcer attempts to outrun his past and reconnect with his estranged daughter and grandson after discovering he has CTE and only a short time to live. Hey, if Liam Neeson is having fun doing these and he has a specific niche target audience who enjoys watching them, then all is well.

Opening right below that in 13th place with $1.2 million was the animated movie Hitpig! This was released in 2,055 theaters, so the per theater average is a bit uglier. The movie is about a bounty hunter pig who gets hired to capture an elephant, but ends up on a cross-country adventure with said elephant instead. The movie stars the voice talents of Jason Sudeikis, Lilly Singh, RuPaul, Flavor Flav, and Rainn Wilson, which feels like an especially random assortment of actors that were picked out of a hat. The movie comes from Viva Pictures, which has done a few of these low-budget animated films as of late, directed at a young audience. Others include “Rally Road Racers” and “The Amazing Maurice.” They all seem like the type of animated movie that eventually winds up on Netflix and does a good job at distracting the younger kids. Given the box office numbers, clearly a big marketing push for its theatrical release wasn’t a high priority.

Wrapping up the weekend with the moderate releases, two Indian films, “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3” and “Singham Again” both opened in about 700 theaters each, actually ending up in the bottom half of the top 10, higher than the previous two wide releases mentioned. “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” opened in 630 theaters with $385,442. “The Carpenter” opened in 500 theaters with $137,906. And the biggest limited release was “A Real Pain,” which is directed by Jesse Eisenberg and stars him along with Kieran Culkin from “Succession.” Culkin is getting a lot of Oscar buzz for this role after dominating the Emmys in “Succession.” The movie had the highest per theater average of the week, opening in 4 theaters with $228,856 and will look to expand wide at some point.

November 8 – 10

A24's "Heretic"

“Venom: The Last Dance” is looking to potentially three-peat at the top of the box office this upcoming weekend, but it does have some competition this time around with the latest A24 horror film Heretic, which is looking to give horror fans something to be excited about this weekend as it’s currently at 93 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes with 152 reviews counted. In addition to the horror crowd, this seems to have especially captured the attention of people in Utah as the movie is about two sister missionaries who knock on the wrong door and get trapped by a psychopath played by Hugh Grant. Utah crowds, and other LDS church members, have noted the surprising level of accuracy from the trailers in portraying mission life. Prior to the capture, anyways. And both lead actresses were at one point at least members of the Church, so there’s a level of authenticity there that’s unique to Hollywood when portraying missionaries in big studio films. What happens to these sisters after capture is the real mystery here and the main appeal to horror fans. It seems like Hugh Grant’s character will be putting them through a series of psychological “games” or traps that are similar to the “Saw” franchise, although perhaps not as graphic or violent. $8-12 million is the expecting opening range, which has been common for a lot of lower-budget horror films this year, but should be pretty good for A24 standards, which usually opens its films in a smaller number of theaters and expands outwards. But they instead put “Heretic” right into 3,000+ theaters, which is the second time they’ve done that this year, the first being “Civil War,” which opened to $25.5 million. “MaXXXine” was also given an immediate wide release, but in 2,450 theaters and not 3,000+.

For those wanting to get a jump on the Christmas season, the other major wide release this weekend, also opening in 3,000+ theaters, is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which comes from Dallas Jenkins, director of “The Chosen,” which he filmed as a side project in between seasons 3 and 4 of “The Chosen.” And while there is some footage from “The Chosen” that Jenkins includes in parts of this movie, this is primarily based on the 1972 novel by Barbara Robinson, which has been adapted into a play as well as a 1983 TV movie. The original novel is about a group of six misfit children from the Herdman family who volunteer to star in their town’s Sunday school Christmas pageant, ending up teaching the town the true meaning of Christmas. This new movie seems to be more or less the same idea, but perhaps in a slightly more modern setting. For a religiously-themed Christmas movie, it has a surprisingly high critics score, currently in the upper 80s, so this appears to be a movie that manages to appeal to a more wide audience of people who in enjoy Christmas rather than just a religious crowd. But that means the target religious audience will probably like it even more. It’s expected to open in the $6-8 million range, although good word of mouth could push it higher. “Heretic” beat it out on Thursday preview totals, so it’s probably looking at a third place finish.

The previous two movies are the only major wide releases, both opening in over 3,000 theaters. But there are a handful of moderate releases also opening. The highest theater count of this tier of releases will be the movie Elevation opening in 1,400 theaters. This movie is a post-apocalyptic action thriller starring Anthony Mackie, Morena Baccarin, and Maddie Hasson who venture from the safety of their home to face monstrous creatures in order to save the life of a child. The advertise it as being from the producers of “A Quiet Place” and “The Purge,” but it’s actually directed by George Nolfi, who worked on neither of those things. He worked as a writer on “Ocean’s Twelve” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” but the movies he’s directed include “Adjustment Bureau” (2011), “Birth of the Dragon” (2016), and “The Banker” (2020). Early prognostication isn’t looking particularly positive with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 52 percent, but it could be a decent escape for those wanting a simple sci-fi action movie.

Based on the-numbers’ article reporting upcoming theater counts on the weekend, other moderate releases include Small Things Like These opening in 799 theaters, Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom opening in 550 theaters, and Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point opening in 405 theaters. Specific counts for Weekend in Taipei weren’t specifically mentioned in this article, but it seems like it’s also opening somewhere in the realm between “Small Things Like These” and “Elevation.” So that gives plenty of options for those heading out to theaters, wanting some sort of escape or entertainment. “Small Things Like These” comes from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company and is a historical drama set in the 1980s starring Cillian Murphy about the infamous Magdalene laundries in Ireland. “Weekend in Taipei” is an action thriller were a DEA agent and a former undercover operative revisit their romance, only to learn that doing so leads to dangerous consequences. “Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom” is an anime film that’s an offshoot of the “Overlord” anime series that began as a light novel series and a manga before being adapted into an anime series beginning in 2015 that now has four seasons. And “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” provides another option for people wanting to celebrate an early Christmas, a comedy about a chaotic family gathering for what could be the last holiday in their ancestral home.

November 15 – 17

Amazon MGM's "Red One"

The first two weekends of the month provided a large amount of quantity of options. But the last three weekends is where the big releases show up. And that party begins with the Christmas action comedy Red One. And while there could end up a few movies sneaking into moderate release, “Red One” is the only current wide release on the schedule and its projected to launch in over 4,000 theaters. If you’ve been to theaters at any point recently, you’ve probably seen this heavily advertised. The movie stars J.K. Simmons as Santa Claus and he’s been kidnapped. Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, and Lucy Liu lead a team of people attempting to go rescue Santa Claus and it appears that a lot of shenanigans ensue in what seems like a somewhat complex holiday world in a movie that seen as the first in an attempted Christmas franchise. Before they get to the franchise part, they’re going to have to make sure this first one is a success. The movie was actually originally scheduled for a debut straight on Amazon Prime in December 2023, but got delayed for a few different reasons, one being the actors strike, and is now being released theatrically by Amazon MGM. This is one of those movies that seems like it has the potential to be a big, fun Christmas blockbuster that is enjoyed by families throughout the season, especially with the cast being led by Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. But it’s going to have to survive its initial wave of negative reviews, which have not been nice to the movie at all. But Dwayne Johnson has done big, dumb action movie plenty of times over, so critic reviews might not matter if it manages to connect with family audiences during the season. The most recent tracking by Box Office Pro has it anywhere in the $20-40 million. That means it’ll take the No. 1 spot without any competition, but how high it opens and how well it holds are big wild cards.

November 22 – 24

Universal's "Wicked"

As mentioned, “Red One” is a wild card this month that could be the kick-off of a very lucrative holiday season at the box office. But regardless of how that one does, this weekend is where the real fun begins, with a double feature event that has the potential to be reminiscent of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon last year, which saw “Barbie” open with $162.0 million, followed by “Oppenheimer” with $82.5 million, both on the July 21, 2023 weekend. “Glicked” isn’t a term that’s had nearly as much usage as “Barbenheimer” and the internet hasn’t completely exploded yet with this showdown, but yes we’re talking about “Wicked” vs. “Gladiator II,” both of which have had a lot of buzz and great early reaction. And both we’ll be released on this weekend, five days before the release of “Moana 2” right before Thanksgiving. Is this going to be an excellent Holy Trinity of holiday movie-going?

Let’s start with the movie that’s going to be the winner on the weekend and that will easily be Wicked. This is a movie and a musical that needs no introduction. It’s currently the fourth longest running Broadway show of all time, behind only “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Chicago” and “The Lion King.” It’s also the second highest grossing Broadway show of all time, behind only “The Lion King.” It’s opening date was October 30, 2003, so it recently passed its 20th anniversary. The show is a loose adaptation of the 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” which in turn was based off of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz.” It is, of course, told from the perspective two witches, Elphaba and Galinda, who eventually become “the good witch” and “the bad witch” in “The Wizard of Oz.” The story explores their complex relationship and Elphaba’s eventual tragic fall when she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. The movie adaptation has been in the works for quite some time and will finally arrive in theaters, with Cynthia Erivo playing Elphaba and Ariana Grande playing Galinda. The movie is directed by Jon M. Chu, who has quite the varied resumé. That’s included two “Step Up” movies, Justin Bieber’s musical documentary “Never Say Never,” “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” “Now You See Me 2” and “Crazy Rich Asians.” But his most recent movie is very relevant to the “Wicked” conversation, and that’s him doing the fellow movie musical “In the Heights” in 2021, which feels like his audition to doing “Wicked”? Now while everyone knows “Wicked,” everyone might not know that this is Part 1. That makes sense given that the original play is done in two acts. And Chu has stated that there was simply too much to shove into one movie and their goal is to do the whole production justice. But they haven’t exactly advertised that in the trailer. So some might be surprised when the movie ends halfway through the story, but “Wicked: Part 2” is currently scheduled for next year, so people shouldn’t have to wait too long to get that closure.

The competitor to “Wicked” in the box office arena is, of course, Gladiator II. While the film adaptation of “Wicked” has definitely been long awaited, I’m not so sure a sequel to “Gladiator” can quite make the same claim. In fact, when it was announced that Ridley Scott was doing a sequel, that got met with a lot of skepticism and negativity, yours truly being part of that. “Gladiator” was a massive success back in 2000, opening in May of 2000 to $34.8 million, eventually grossing $187 million domestically. According to the-numbers’ inflation adjusted tool, that would be the equivalent of a $69.6 million opening and a $375.4 million domestic total. It held very well, was very highly regarding, and eventually won best picture, which is not common for a movie of its size or a movie that opened in the first half of the year. But despite it’s massive success, is it a movie that needed a sequel? The world wasn’t sure, but Ridley Scott said yes. Ridley Scott is a great director, but he’s had his fair share of duds as of late, so he doesn’t the most clean record, which has been part of the skepticism. But the movie stars Pedro Pascal, Paul Mescal, and Denzel Washington, among others. The trailers came out and started to win people over. And now the movie has been screened by critics. And although there’s no official reviews posted yet, the early Twitter reaction has been very positive. So it looks like while one crowd of people will be off to see the big movie musical, another crowd of people will be off to see one of the final big action blockbusters of the year. And both of these can coexist with each other just fine.

But how high will each go? Conservative estimates from Variety in an article published back on November 4 says “Wicked” aiming for $80-85 million, while “Gladiator II” is looking at $55-65 million. However, Box Office Pro’s most recent Long Range Forecast has “Wicked” tracking between $100-130 million and “Gladiator II” tracking at $60-80 million. Of course we know from last month that tracking can be a funny game. But reactions to both have come out and early social media reactions have been very positive for both. “Wicked” fans have been waiting for this movie for a long time and would’ve shown up regardless. But if this movie turns out to be everything they’ve hoped for, that only helps it even more. Could it get to the high end of the tracking and potentially even get close to $150 million? I have no idea. But at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised. And has pointed out, the original “Gladiator” opened to what adjusts to around $70 million in today’s ticket prices. A lot of people love “Gladiator” and if the sequel does it justice, this also looks like a big winner. And that’s why I bring up “Barbenheimer.” Even if “Glicked” isn’t the same cultural phenomenon, the box office numbers have the potential of coming close. “Barbenheimer” combined for $244.5 million on their opening weekend. It seems reasonable that “Glicked” could combine for at least $200 million, if not more, if all goes well.

Certain to be lost in the shuffle of all of this is a third wide release of this weekend, Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin, the latest movie from Angel Studios. The title and especially subtitle there does a good job of describing this movie on its own, but this is a historical drama that tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor who lived during Hitler’s Nazi regime who was very vocally opposed to the Nazis and joined a deadly plot to try to assassinate Hitler. A journey over to his Wikipedia page informed me how that went, but I won’t share that here. But an Angel Studios movie about a historical character of faith reminds me very much of “Cabrini” from March of this year, which opened to $7.2 million and made $19.5 million total domestically. Angel Studios might never replicate the success of “Sound of Freedom,” which made nearly $200 million in its run, but if this catches on with the target crowd, a run similar to that of “Cabrini” could be considered a success.

November 27 – Dec 1

Disney's "Moana 2"

Completing the “Holy Trinity” of movie-going this Thanksgiving is the one that could potentially be the biggest of the three and that’s Moana 2. As an animated movie directed at a family audience, this movie’s target audience is much different than both “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” which are both different from each other. That means it’ll be easier for all three to co-exist, reaching different audiences over the course the Thanksgiving week and beyond. And yes, “Moana 2” is the only new release of this final weekend of November and it opens on Wednesday the 27th, a five-day stretch that Disney really loves. It’s been their tradition most years to release either a Pixar movie or a Walt Disney Animation Studios movie on this weekend and they’ve seen a lot of success, including the original “Moana” itself back in 2016. The story behind this sequel sees Disney appearing to learn from their recent mistakes. When COVID hit, Disney went all-in on their Disney+ strategy, thinking that was the future of movies, so they tried to get a head start and pushed everything to Diseny+, often ditching the theatrical window. Maybe in the moment that didn’t seem like the worst idea. A lot of studios thought streaming was the future of cinema. But no, the theatrical experience has very much survived and has proven to be the more financially successful route. Streaming is still good. But you give the biggest movies their theatrical run first and then put them to streaming. And I bring this up in context of “Moana 2” because this was initially set to be a straight-to-Disney+ streaming show. It wasn’t until earlier this year that they decided to that multiple episode show into a “Moana” sequel and put that into theaters instead. Might it backfire in regards to movie quality to edit a series into a movie late in the process? Perhaps. But financially it’s poised to be a great decision.

The first “Moana” in 2016 opened to $82.1 million over its first five days in this exact window in Thanksgiving 2016. It’s traditional Friday to Sunday 3-day opening officially goes down as $56.6 million. So that’s the baseline level of success here and about the range that many of these Disney movies have opened to in the past. “Moana” finished with $248.8 million domestically and $686 million worldwide. It wasn’t even the highest Disney movie that year or the highest animated movie over the holidays that season. “Sing” from Illumination ended up outgrossing it. But it’s cultural relevance has certainly outlasted just about everything. YouTuber Dan Murrell has a weekly box office and streaming show where he gathers streaming data from various sources on a weekly basis and “Moana” still manages to make the weekly top 10 in most weeks when it comes to library titles across all streaming services. It’s become one of the highest, if not the highest streamed movie across all streaming platforms. It was one of the highest streamed movies overall of last year, close to a decade after its release. And it’s almost certain to be Disney+’s highest streamed movie ever. So that’s why we’re going both a “Moana 2” right now and a live-action remake of “Moana” in 2026. When Disney gets numbers like these, they capitalize. And thus it makes sense that Box Office Pro has “Moana 2” tracking to make $120-150 million over its 5-day weekend. I personally look at “Frozen 2” because of this. That movie opened the weekend before Thanksgiving, so it’s not the perfect comparison, but that had an opening of $130.3 million domestically before eventually become the highest grossing animated movie off all-time worldwide, a mark it held until “Inside Out 2” topped it this year.

Movie Preview: October 2024

Happy Halloween, everyone! Spooky season is upon us and this month the box office has a few spooky things in store for audiences to enjoy. Now this time of year is not necessarily known to be massively productive at the box office. There’s almost always a bit of a lull between the big summer months at the box office and the end-of-year holiday box office as vacations end and people go back to the grind of school and work, even during pre-COVID years where the box office was in a much better state. In total this past September finished with $591 million at the domestic box office, which is a fraction of what the previous three months earned (July was the high on the year with $1.18 billion), but not bad for September standards. It was actually the highest September post-COVID and almost half of that total was “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which finished the month with $251.4 million domestically, and is certain to have some holdover success, given the Halloween season. But outside that, there just wasn’t a whole lot on the calendar, as “Transformers One” disappointed and “The Wild Robot,” which over-indexed a bit, was only in theaters for the final four days.

But October has potential at the box office as it’s book-ended by two comic book movie sequels, with a scattering of horror in between and a sprinkle of awards season affair as the big film festivals have concluded and studios are starting to roll out their big awards season contenders. I don’t know if there’s any guaranteed smash hits coming out, but there should be enough variety to entertain those who want to spend part of their Halloween season in theaters. And it should be a decent enough boost to the box office as we prime for the final two holiday months to take this year home. So let’s take a look at what the month has to offer.

As always, release date information is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.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.

October 4 – 6

Warner Bros' "Joker: Folie à Deux"

I mentioned that the month will be book-ended by two comic book sequels and with that, we begin with Joker: Folie à Deux. And first off let me say that whoever programmed the Alt Codes on the keyboard is grounded for making “à” as Alt-133 and “á” as Alt-160. Why aren’t those two accents back to back? It took me way too long to find the correct one for this title (EDIT: after all that - I got them wrong initially). Anywho, if you’re curious about slightly more important things in regards to this movie, the phrase “folie à deux” is a delusion or mental illness that’s shared by two people in a close association. It translates literally from French as “madness for two.” In that context, it makes perfect sense as this is a movie where Joker meets Harley Quinn. This being Todd Phillips’ Joker continuity, which is its own separate thing from DC’s other two or three current Gotham timelines. The first movie saw the character Arthur Fleck descend into madness after getting rejected by society and become the Joker. And now he is in Arkham awaiting trail and meets Harley Quinn, as played by Lady Gaga. How much of the movie is reality vs. being a shared delusion (folie à deux) is for the audience to find out. And there may or may not be a few musical numbers scattered along the way, because… why not?

Now in regards to the box office for this movie that just happened, a month ago Box Office Pro was very confident in their initial long range forecast and said it was on track to make $115-145 million in its opening weekend. Fast forward to this past weekend and it got nowhere close to that. It opened to a very poor $37.7 million, which is a shocking result considering the first movie in 2019 opened to $96.2 million, made $335.5 million domestically, and finished with $1.063 billion worldwide, being the first R-rated movie to cross the $1 billion mark. What went wrong to lead to such a disaster for the sequel? Well, it was probably the perfect storm of bad things rather than just one thing. First off, despite the first movie being such a huge financial success, and also getting 11 Oscar nominations, it had a mixed reaction from critics, with just a 68 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. So if a lot of critics weren’t happy about that first one, they certainly weren’t excited for more. A lot of comic book fans who loved the first also hated the idea that this second one was a musical. And outside that crowd, a lot of people felt like the first movie was a good, standalone comic book film. And that might even have been the initial intent from the director, too, until Warner Bros did a bit of convincing otherwise. Ain’t no way they were going to let a $1 billion movie go sequelless. All of that led to the perfect storm of negative buzz, as mentioned, with a 33 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 31 percent score from audiences. And now after being initially projected to open to $100+ million, it looks like its final domestic total will come in lower than the $96.2 million that the first movie opened to. And that’s rather embarrassing. If there was ever an idea for a Joker 3, that’s probably now gone.

“Folie à Deux” is the big story of the weekend, but there were a few other options out there. And another sequel as well, to a movie that you may not have thought would get a second one? That would be Lionsgate’s White Bird: A Wonder Story. The movie “Wonder” came out in 2017 and told the heartwarming story of Auggie Pullman, a young fifth grader who was born with facial differences and had to now deal with going to a mainstream school for the first time. It actually did quite well for a movie of its type and size, earning a total of $132 million domestically and $310 million worldwide. Lionsgate has used it in their marketing quite a bit since for future movies as “From the studio that brought you ‘Wonder’” has shown up quite a bit in trailers. And now they’re doing another movie in this universe. Because the author of the original “Wonder” novel wrote a follow-up a graphic novel in 2019. This movie does not have the character Auggie Pullman in it, but rather one of his classmates Julian Albans, who has left that former school and gets visited by his grandma, who tells him of her time living in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. So if you had on your 2024 Bingo Card a sequel/spin-off to “Wonder” that is actually a Nazi-centered World War II movie, congratulations. Give yourself a point. “Wonder” opened to $27.6 million in Fall 2017. “White Bird” made a whole lot less, making just $1.6 million. Although those who did see it apparently loved it as it earned an A+ on CinemaScore. That might keep it in conversations moving forward and could lead it to a successful post-theatrical life.

Opening in moderate release is our first dive into the Halloween season this month with Monster Summer, a movie that seems to play off of the 80s/90s nostalgia with a group of kids hanging out and going on adventures, much like “The Goonies” or “The Sandlot.” With baseball playing a big part and the kids being scared of a mysterious old man in a house, perhaps this gives more of “The Sandlot” vibes, except these kids start taking the supernatural as they start seeing weird things happen that they can’t explain. So they end up getting help from the “scary” old man, who turns out to be a retired police detective played by Mel Gibson. Funny thing is, I started typing this post at the beginning of the weekend, before getting distracted with other things. Now after weekend totals came out, no box office numbers were reported for this movie. And I can confirm that it was released because it’s in several theaters near me. The advertising was also almost non-existent and there were only 18 reviews submitted to Rotten Tomatoes from critics, so the distributor here, Pastime Pictures, doesn’t quite seem to be on top of things with this. But the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 82 percent and just over half of the 18 critics who submitted a review gave it a positive note (56 percent), so if you do find it near you, perhaps it’s worth checking out if you’re curious.

Also on the moderate front is another movie where the reporting was a bit funny and that is The Outrun. My main source for weekend numbers is the-numbers and they’re usually pretty on top of things. They also didn’t have “The Outrun” listed on their weekend chart, which surprised me because it’s a slightly more high profile release and is in a lot more theaters around me than “Monster Hunter.” I went over to Box Office Mojo and the DID have it listed, opening with $334,249 from 508 theaters. That’s a terrible per theater average, but a high enough theater count to warrant bringing up. Anyways, this is a movie that plays more on the awards front, led by actress Saoirse Ronan. It’s a movie about a girl who is attempting to come to terms with her troubled past and goes to Scotland’s Orkney Islands where she grew up in an attempt to heal. So yeah, a very indie/awardsy premise there. Many pundits early on have felt that maybe this is the movie that finally gets Saoirse Ronan an Oscar as she’s been on the verge for a while now, having been nominated four times without a win, her first nomination coming way back in 2007 with “Atonement,” but the other three coming in the latter half of last decade. So she’s approaching the overdue narrative, hence the idea that this could be her year. Given the low box office and the muted reaction, maybe that’s more of a long shot now, but there’s currently a lot that’s up in the air in regards to awards this season, so no one really knows at this point.

As a footnote to the weekend, you may have also noticed Sam and Colby: The Legends of the Paranormal around you. It only opened in 302 theaters. These are two YouTubers who investigate the paranormal and now they’ve put one of their latest adventures in theaters. Despite opening in a lower theater count than “White Bird” and “The Outrun,” it opened higher than both with $1.8 million, so their fans showed up to see their recent adventure.

Also, GKIDS released their latest anime Look Back this weekend and it made $688,253. Box Office Mojo claims this only opened in 2 theaters, which seems wrong. The-numbers says it opened in 535 theaters, which feels more correct given the total (same figure reported by both sites), but it’s also playing nowhere near me, so I don’t know what to think about that either. But the movie is about two very different girls who are brought together with their love of drawing manga. The movie is only 58 minutes long, but has had very high praise across the board from those who have seen it

October 11 – 13

Cineverse's "Terrifier 3"

The second weekend of October seems to be a weekend in which most studios kept their big titles away from “Joker: Folie à Deux” as to not open in that movie’s second weekend. Perhaps in hindsight that may not have been completely necessary, but nevertheless there doesn’t seem to be anything poised to open even remotely huge enough to open No. 1. But there are certainly quite the large variety of movies that will all be fighting for spots in the top 5 and top 10.

To start things off, let’s get into the spirit of the season with the release of Terrifier 3. “Terrifier… 3?” You might ask? Yes, this is the third movie with Art the Clown and the underground swell for this now modern horror franchise has been quite interesting to witness. “Terrifier” first was shown in 2016 at the Telluride Horror Show Film Festival and wasn’t picked up until 2018, when it got a very limited theatrical run, earning just under $340,000 domestically. But it slowly built a cult following since then. That led “Terrifier 2” to come into existence and start making waves in 2022, where it made a total of $10.9 million domestically, after starting with an opening of just $805,000 in 886 theaters, which on its own was double what the first one made in its whole run. And now “Terrifier 3” opens this weekend and is expected to take in $5-10 million in its opening weekend. For a mainstream horror that might not seem like much, but for a small, indie horror film that initially only made $340,000, that’s not bad at all. Art the Clown is an evil, killer clown that shows up only on Halloween to terrorize anyone who comes into his path. And yes, this is a throwback to old 80s slasher horror films with lots of blood and gore. So know what you’re getting yourself into. But fans of slasher horror films now have a new horror icon to attach to instead of getting the same franchise reboots of past horror icons. If this movie does as well as it’s expected, a “Terrifier 4” is in the works and will probably also come out sooner rather than later.

It felt right to lead with the evil clown in this October/Halloween preview, but it might be true that the animated documentary Piece by Piece could open slightly higher. While the theater count for “Terrifier 3” is not known exactly, “Piece by Piece” is anticipated to open in about 1,800 theaters. This is a very unique take on a documentary/biopic as this documents the life and musical career of singer/producer Pharrell Williams… by the means of an animated LEGO movie. Why are they doing it this way? Well, I guess Pharrell might say… why not? While this is directed by Morgan Neville, who is probably most well known for directing the 2018 Mr. Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” Pharrell himself has been on board as a producer this whole time, so maybe he might dance around the more controversial points of his career, as is often the case with musical biopics or documentaries with the subject matter being involved in the making of it. They can tell the story they want to be told rather than the full story. But at the same time, this is a fun way for Pharrell to tell the story of his life in a way that turns what could’ve been a by-the-numbers, familiar documentary into something that feels unique and fresh. Is it a gimmick or is it fun? That’s for the audience to decide. But the movie premiered at the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals and has had mostly positive reviews so far. How this all translates into a mainstream box office run is a bit hard to say, but it should perform decently.

With the next two films, we get a quick dive into the awards front again, with the first being a very timely political drama, The Apprentice. In case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s an election coming up soon and a man by the name of Donald Trump is trying to win back the White House. “The Apprentice” is a movie that stars Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump who is beginning to start his real-estate business in the 1970s and 80s, with the help of his lawyer Roy Cohn. And yes, this is most likely a liberal, Hollywood take on Donald Trump, attempting to paint him in a dark light right before the election comes out. How you react to this movie and their angle might depend on how you think of the man Donald Trump himself. I’m fairly certain that the pro-Trump audience isn’t going to be the biggest fan of this movie, while a lot of the anti-Trump audience might be more willing to praise the movie if they agree with the movie’s portrayal of the man. And then there’s the people who, regardless of their political position, might just not care to watch a two hour movie about the early life of Trump and perhaps not quite see the point in the journey. They know who he is. They lived in the country during his presidency. They might not care to experience. So one way or another, this is certain to spark conversation and often that gets a movie noticed more.

And in a less controversial piece of awards news, this week also sees the wide expansion of Saturday Night, which is scheduled for a limited release on October 4. This is a movie that goes back to the night of October 11, 1975, the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live. Specifically this tells the story of the 90 minutes leading up to that first broadcast and stars a very long list of actors playing the different personalities and people that helped begin the huge phenomenon of Saturday Night Live. The movie premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, followed by Toronto a week later, and got a mostly positive reaction from those festivals. Although its 79 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes through its first 91 reviews does suggest a little bit of mixed reaction that could hold it back from being a major awards player. So maybe it’s not a huge play to actually win best picture, but it could still be in contention for nominations. And at the very least might be a fun movie for those who are a fan of Saturday Night Live. A good shot of nostalgia at the theaters usually doesn’t hurt too many people.

On the anime front, we also have the domestic release of My Hero Academia: You’re Next. This was released this summer back in Japan and is the fourth theatrically released movie from the popular anime series following “Two Heroes” (2018), “Heroes Rising” (2019), and “World Heroes’ Mission” (2021). “My Hero Academia” started as a manga in 2014 and currently has 41 volumes as of August 2024. The anime television series began two years later in 2016 and is currently finishing its seventh season. In terms of the three spin-off movies from the show, “Two Heroes” opened to $1.4 million and finished with $5.4 million domestically. “Heroes Rising” opened to $5.9 million and finished with $13.6 million domestically. And finally, “World Heroes’ Mission” opened to $6.2 million and finished with $9.8 million domestically. So that’s about the range that can be expected from “You’re Next.”

Getting a jump on the weekend, releasing on Thursday, October 10, Fathom Events will be releasing the Christian movie Average Joe. Based on the very brief trailer, this appears to be a movie about a Marine who takes a job as a high school football coach and gets taken to court over his decision to say a prayer at the 50-yard-line of a high school football game and decides to spend years fighting for this right of religious freedom. The movie comes from the director of the first two “God’s Not Dead” movies and “Unbroken: Path to Redemption,” the Christian-made sequel to “Unbroken” that tells the second half of the story from the book that the first movie skipped. I’m not sure exactly how wide this is being released, but if you live in a Christian market, like Utah, this should be playing in most of the theaters around you.

And if you sift through all of that and you decide that none of that sounds like your thing, Disney will be re-releasing The Nightmare Before Christmas into theaters. Granted, you can also watch it for free on Disney+, but if you’ve never had the theatrical experience with this movie and want to go with friends or family, or enjoy a night to yourself, it’s an option for you. “Coraline” was also re-released in theaters this year, back in August, and did pretty well for a re-release, opening to $9.8 million in its first weekend and made $33.6 million in about a month in release. I’m sure Disney would love to see numbers like that for “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” but we’ll see what it does.

October 18 – 20

Paramount's "Smile 2"

A lot less to report on this weekend in regards to quantity. Only two new wide releases this weekend instead of the six from the first weekend and the seven from the second weekend. But if there’s a Halloween movie with potential for breakout success, that would be Smile 2. This looks to feed off of the success of the first “Smile,” which opened to $22.6 million in late September 2022 and held very well to make $105.9 million domestically and $217 million worldwide. And for a horror movie that only had a budget of $17 million, that’s the perfect recipe for a new horror franchise to be born, whether or not the audience wants them. In this case, though, the movie had an 80 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 77 percent score from audiences. So it was well liked across the board. The basic premise is that once you see someone with that very creepy smile, you have a week to live, unless you pass it onto someone else by brutally killing someone in front of a witness, traumatizing them and giving them the curse. And with that basic premise, it’s easy to see how a long string of sequels can be done. “Smile 2” has the curse given to a global pop star, who starts seeing the creepy smile when she goes on tour. Given the positive reaction and strong box office of the first one, this should at least match that movie’s $22.6 million opening. Although if it broke out to the likes of $30-40 million, I wouldn’t be surprised. But regardless of where it ends up, I’m seeing reports of the budget being similar to the first, which means the bar for success and a green light for “Smile 3” is very low. If it hits the low end of expectations, that’s still probably good enough.

The only other scheduled wide release this weekend is the comedy Goodrich, which stars Michael Keaton as a man named Andy Goodrich who left alone to raise his younger kids when his wife enters a rehab program. In order to help him, he leans on his adult daughter from his previous marriage, played by Mila Kunis, who experiences a variety of emotions as she sees him develop into the father that she never had. This does give the vibes of a much smaller opening with not a ton of awareness at the moment, although having a movie starring Michael Keaton is certainly not a bad thing while “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is still in theaters and doing well. But this is distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, whose only other wide release thus far was the 2023 movie “Hypnotic,” which opened to $2.4 million. It’s directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, whose only other directing credit was the 2017 movie “Home Again,” which opened to $8.6 million. So a $5-8 million opening for “Goodrich” feels like a safe range, if they start actually promoting it.

Not a wide release, but a notable limited release this weekend is the movie A Real Pain, which stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as two mismatched cousins who reunite to tour through Poland to honor their grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when emotions arise via old tensions against the backdrop of their family history. This was initially released at Sundance this year and is being released by Searchlight Pictures for an awards push. It’s also played at a variety of festivals to help build momentum. It doesn’t seem like traction is super high at the moment in regards to its awards chances, but Kieran Culkin is the one getting the most buzz as he looks to feed off his Emmy success with the hit show “Succession” and use that to break into the Oscars. A lot of things are up in the air with this awards season, but Culkin does seem like one of the favorites in the supporting actor race. The movie itself is directed by Jesse Eisenberg, in addition to him being one of the lead stars. If the movie hits anywhere else, it seems like it could be a play in original screenplay and maybe has an outside chance of sneaking in as one of the final best picture nominees. How it manages to do in its theatrical run could play a big role into how it does on that front.

October 25 – 27

Sony's "Venom: The Last Dance"

The final weekend of the month is where we finish with the other big comic book movie and that is Venom: The Last Dance. Perhaps it’s good to be cautious with early forecasting and tracking. As noted to start this post, “Joker: Folie à Deux” was initially tracking to $115-145 million before actually opening with just $37.7 million. And Sony on their own in their Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe has a very spotty track record. But there have been two Venom movies so far. The first opened to $80.3 million and the second opened to $90.0 million, both in the month of October. Neither had very good reviews, but audiences didn’t care. So it seems like this is a critic-proof franchise that should lead to a safe opening for “The Last Dance,” which is advertising itself as the final movie in the trilogy. That’s something that’s hard to believe considering Sony failed miserably with both “Morbius” and “Madame Web,” and things aren’t looking so hot with “Kraven the Hunter” later this year. Is Sony actually going to let go of their only popular franchise in this specific realm? Or are the going to find a way to bring Tom Hardy back in some way? It would seem like a missed opportunity to not have Tom Hardy unite in some way with the other Tom, Tom Holland, in a Spider-Man and Venom adventure. Or maybe it’s just the symbiote that will live on in the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. Either way, the success of the first two and the promise of this being the final one should lead this to be the biggest movie of the month. It’s currently tracking to open in the $70-100 million range, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this opened higher or lower than that range.

The final movie of the month is the scheduled wide release of Focus Features’ Conclave. This comes from director Edward Berger, who most recently found a lot of success with his 2022 remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which wound up getting nominated for nine Oscars, winning four of them. So his next movie has had a lot of buzz just based off of that. And with this movie, “Conclave,” he is taking on the subject matter of the Catholic Church choosing a new Pope after the death of the current one. The movie is based off of the 2016 novel by Robert Harris about the death of a pope and the subsequent papal conclave. I’m having a hard time figuring out if this is based on a specific historical event in the Catholic Church or is just a fictional telling of one of these events. But either way, this seems to be in the genre of a psychological thriller, or even a politcal thriller of sorts as a lot of secrets and mysteries are promised are promised with 118 Cardinals gathered from around the world, locked behind the doors of the Sistene Chapel to try to figure this out over the course of 72 hours. The movie premiered at the Telluride Film Festival at the end of August and also showed up at the Toronto International Film Festival a week later and is considered to be one of the bigger awards players this season by awards pundits. It currently has a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and specifically has a lot of buzz for Ralphi Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow in the acting realms, but is one that could be a big player in most of the major categories.

Movie Preview: September 2024

We’re getting this month’s preview out a tad bit late. Sorry about that. Life happens sometimes. However, Labor Day weekend was covered in last month’s preview, so we only missed one weekend. That means we’ll preview the massive opening of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and then preview what’s coming up in the next few weeks!

To wrap up summer, though, we actually finished off on yet another strong note. For August standards, this was actually the best August since 2016 with $892 million. August 2016 saw the release of “Suicide Squad” while August 2014 saw the release of “Guardians of the Galaxy” and those are the only two August months that have crossed a billion at the domestic box office. Without a massive release like that (“Deadpool & Wolverine” was released at the end of July and only about half of its earnings came in August after that massive opening weekend), August can only go so high, but the fact that this August even out-grossed the pre-COVID August months from 2017–2019 is a positive sign for the current state of the box office. In addition to the second half of the earnings of “Deadpool & Wolverine” helping a lot, as that movie won the No. 1 spot in all but one week during August, “It Ends with Us” getting a surprise $50 million debut was huge, followed by a $40 million debut for “Alien: Romulus.” We finished with the typical late-August dumping ground affair, but those three titles alone boosted this month to positive heights. And after a weak first month of the summer, we’ve been on a roll!

That streak has already continued with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in September, which we’ll get to in a second. But there’s also a few other promising titles on the schedule that should continue to help this be a better than normal September as we then lead to the holiday portion of the year. So let’s get started!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. Both sites are back up while I’ve been doing this post after a bit of a kerfuffle last month. But I still had a little bit of help from some other sites. But yes, the movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

September 6 – 8

Warner Bros.' "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"

As mentioned a couple times in that intro, this month started off with an absolutely massive opening as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice took in $111 million in its opening weekend. Now if you had asked me early in the year, I would’ve had a bit of hesitation towards this movie. Legacy sequels to movies from the distant past have a very poor track record as a whole and I didn’t see this as a movie that would work out. But then the advertising kicked in and buzz started to build. There seemed to be genuine excitement for the movie, so it seemed like I could end up being wrong. And I definitely was. When early tracking started coming out, it was much higher than I would’ve guessed and that just kept going up and up as the release date got closer. If you would’ve told me that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” would’ve cracked a $100 million opening, I would’ve called you crazy, but here we are. And it wound up as the second highest opening weekend in September history, behind only the 2017 release of Warner Bros’ “IT,” which opened to $123.4 million. In fact, as “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is also Warner Bros., it’s also worth of pointing out that Warner Bros has found a gold mine in this second weekend of September, starting with “IT” in 2017 and has taken advantage of this weekend almost every year since. Normally September isn’t seen as a big box office month, but Warner Bros learned that this isn’t true. And Disney even debunked the Labor Day curse in 2021 with “Shang-Chi.” So the September curse is more of a self-fulling prophesy on the end of Hollywood than anything. Make a good movie that people are excited about and people will show up, regardless of where it is on the calendar

The interesting thing is that the first “Beetlejuice” wasn’t even a massive hit back in 1988. It opened with $8 million in March of 1988 and held well to make $74.5 million domestically. Times were different back then, of course, but it did alright for its time. Press the inflation-adjusted button on the-numbers.com’s movie comparison section and it reveals that said numbers would be equivalent of a $21.1 million opening and a $195.4 million domestic total, which adjusted for today’s ticket prices. But in the 36 years since it’s release, it’s become a favorite of many people. It certainly helped put both Tim Burton and Michael Keaton on the map. The actor/director duo would go on to release “Batman” the following year. And as you can see, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” wound up going the way of “Top Gun: Maverick” when it comes to legacy sequels. “Maverick” opened to $127.7 million domestically after also coming out 36 years after its predecessor, an exact year total between both “Beetlejuice” movies. So every once in a while this works really well, which is why Hollywood keeps trying. It makes you wonder if Disney is really regretting throwing the likes of “Hocus Pocus 2” and “Disenchanted” straight to Disney+ instead of putting them in theaters. Now I doubt that “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” holds quite as well as “Top Gun: Maverick,” but I imagine it will hold quite well throughout the entire Halloween season.

The main story was “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” of course, but there was a second wide release this weekend to briefly mention. Opening way down in 10th place with just $1.7 million in its opening weekend was the A24 horror movie The Front Room. This movie stars Brandy Norwood as a very pregnant teacher who quits her job right before having her baby, which aligns with her very busy husband being forced to invite his stepmother to live with them following his dad’s death. When the baby comes, this leaves lots of solo time with Mom, baby, and mother-in-law. And this mother-in-law is very crazy and unhinged. The movie is directed by the Eggers Brothers, Max and Sam Eggers, the younger brothers of director Robert Eggers, director of “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman.” However, the two younger brothers didn’t quite achieve the success as older brother in their directorial debut, which was this movie, “The Front Room,” as the movie earned a 52 percent from critics and a 38 percent from audiences from Rotten Tomatoes. And despite opening in 2,095 theaters, as mentioned it opened in 10th place with $1.7 million, a per theater average of $794. That means this will be gone from theaters rather quickly, especially since the quantity of releases in the following weeks is rather high.

September 13 – 15

Universal's "Speak No Evil"

Currently scheduled for wide release in this upcoming second are two major wide releases and a small handful of moderate releases. Of the two major wide releases, the American remake of Speak No Evil appears poised to earn the title of top new debut. It’s not going to come anywhere near the second weekend total of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” but second place should be pretty easy to snag. It just has to earn $8-10 million to get that spot. Anyways, “Speak No Evil” was a 2022 Danish psychological horror film that scored a solid 84 percent score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2022 and was released in Denmark two months later in March. It then had a scattered worldwide release that even stretched to earlier this year for some markets, but it hit a very limited U.S. release in September 2022. But because we’re allergic to foreign films here in the United States, of course there is an American remake just over two years after its initial debut. The original movie was about a Danish family visiting a Dutch family on what was supposed to be a nice weekend before things start unraveling. This remake, which stars James McAvoy in the lead, is just about two families, one family visiting the other family in the countryside, before learning that the host family might have a bit of a dark side to them. Box Office Pro in their weekend projections has this pegged in the $15-20 million, which would be solid for a horror movie this year, many of which have struggled to hit $10 million. But the advertising has certainly been very heavy. I personally feel I’ve seen this trailer 100,000 times over the last 4-6 months, so the awareness might be decently high here, compared to others.

The other major wide release this weekend sees Lionsgate taking a swing at another action film with The Killer’s Game. Ever since striking gold with “John Wick” in 2014, Lionsgate has been trying hard to find the next “John Wick” and they’ve not been shy on just about every trailer for a new action movie they’ve released since then to remind people that they are the studio that brought you “John Wick.” And this month’s version of that stars Dave Bautista in the lead role as an assassin who is given a terminal diagnosis and decides to put a hit on himself to avoid the inevitable pain, only to learn afterwards that the diagnosis was a mistake. This causes him to have to fight off an army of assassins that have now come to kill him. The other connection that this movie has to “John Wick,” outside sharing the same studio, is that the director here, J.J. Perry, was the stunt coordinator for the first two “John Wick” movies, as well as a long list of other movies. “John Wick” was famously directed by a duo of stunt dudes who hadn’t directed a movie at that point, so “The Killer’s Game” is looking to follow that path as well. J.J. Perry has directed before – he did the 2022 movie “Day Shift.” But that’s it. Yet he does have over 150 stunt work credits, so Lionsgate is really looking to catch lightning in a bottle twice. Although they’ve been having a really bad year thus far as they’re responsible for both “Borderlands” and “The Crow” within the last month alone. And although “The Killer’s Game” doesn’t have a budget as big as those two, it’s also looking at an opening around $4-8 million, which isn’t exactly what they’re hoping for.

Going into the handful of moderate releases, first we have the comedy documentary Am I Racist?, which stars conservative political commentator Matt Walsh go undercover as a D.E.I. expert, performing several pranks under the guise of educating others about racism. This isn’t the first time Matt Walsh has done a documentary like this. In 2022, he did a similar documentary titled “What Is a Woman?” The difference here is that “Am I Racist?” is actually being released in theaters, in 1,517 theaters to be exact. It’s actually the first time a documentary from The Daily Wire is being released theatrically, so it’s a bit of a new adventure for them. It’s also not too often that documentaries get a wide theatrical release, but every once in a while a political documentary shows up. Election season is a prime target for that. So this documentary will look to fight for a spot somewhere in the top 10.

And speaking of polarizing media, another moderate release this weekend is God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. This is actually the fifth movie in this particular franchise. The first movie was a breakout hit in 2014, making a final domestic total of $60.8 million after opening to $9.2 million. And it’s been downhill since that, financially speaking. The second one made a third of that total, with $20.8 million total domestically, while the third and fourth barely registered, the fourth playing in just over 500 theaters and making $1.2 million total. But the filmmakers here are doing their best to spread the good, anyways. Your mileage may vary in how effective they’re being. Many people who are active Christians take issue with how polarizing these movies are, portraying everyone who is a non-believer in a dark and sometimes evil light, which might not be the best way to earn converts, but to each their own, I suppose. The movie actually opened a day early on Thursday. As of me typing this, there’s not an official theater count released, or Thursday totals, but in my local market, at least, it’s playing in more theaters than the third one did, for what’s that worth. So it might do a tad bit better than that one, but no guarantees.

The final scheduled wide release is an anime from GKIDS called Dan Da Dan: First Encounter, which is the first three episodes of the anime TV series “Dandadan” packaged together and released in theaters. This is based on the manga that began in 2021 and currently has 15 volumes released, with volume 16 set to be released in October. The anime TV series adaptation has not yet been released, but is also scheduled to start in October, so if you manage to catch this packaged movie in theaters, that’s a preview or sneak peak of the show. Although I’m not exactly sure how wide this is being released. Like with “God’s Not Dead,” there’s not an official theater count yet, but it is in both Cinemark locations in my area, so it should be in a decent number of theaters. All three of these moderate releases will be fighting for spots in the top 10, so we’ll see by the end of the weekend how they play out.

September 20 – 22

Paramount's "Transforms One"

In the third weekend of September, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will of course still be a major player, but it seems likely that it will be surrendering the top spot to the latest movie in the Transformers saga, Transformers One. Dating back to the first live-action Michael Bay movie in 2007, the Transformers movies have been fairly consistent hits. Although franchise fatigue finally kicked in with the fifth movie, which only made half as much as the third and fourth, both of which were billion dollar movies worldwide. Since then, Paramount has been trying to creatively figure out how to spark some life into this saga. And although new directors not named Michael Bay led to better reviews, “Bumblebee” in 2018 and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” in 2023 weren’t exactly the smash hits that Paramount is used to, both making in the $400 million range worldwide, and $127.2 million and $157.3 million domestically, respectively. Their next attempt here is going back to the beginning with the origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron, who were once friends known as Orion Pax and D-16. The other huge difference here is that this is an animated movie, which takes us back to the style of the original series to begin with. Now animated Transformers stuff has existed in both movie and series form, but they’re usually streaming releases as opposed to theatrical releases. We also have a large voice cast. And a different voice cast than the other movies. This includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, Laurence Fishburne, and Steve Buscemi. Given that this is animated, the ceiling is probably much lower than the first handful of Michael Bay movies, but positive early reviews could lead to opening close to the $61.0 million opening of “Rise of the Beasts” last year.

Also opening in wide release, but on a much lower financial tier, is the horror film Never Let Go. Unlike “Speaking No Evil” from weekend 2, I’ve not actually seen this horror movie advertised a whole ton, which is a bit surprising considering that this is Lionsgate releasing and Halle Berry starring. But perhaps Lionsgate was too busy putting their focus on “Borderlands” and “The Crow” that they neglected to much effort into this one. They also have “Megalopolis” next weekend, which is looking to be another big-budget failure, but we’ll get to that in a second. I guess we’ll see what the Halle Berry star power has to say in 2024, if word gets out that she has a movie coming out. Anyways, the movie is about a mother and her twin sons living off in the woods somewhere, having suffered the torment of a malicious spirit for many years. The IMDb premise states that one of the boys starts doubting the existence of the evil and that triggers no so good things happens, while the trailer focuses on them all holding onto a rope that’s connected to their house that they’re never supposed to let go of. The movie is directed by Alexandre Aja, director of “The Hills Have Eyes” from 2006 and “Crawl” from 2019, as well as a handful of other low-budget, poorly reviewed horror films that maybe Lionsgate wouldn’t be so keen on putting on the trailer.

The final release of this weekend is a movie that is making quite the wave among the festival crowds at the moment and that is a little indie film called The Substance. This stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid and is about a fading celebrity who decides to use a black market drug that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. That’s just the surface-level premise here and what’s beneath the surface is something that I have no idea. But Joey Magidson from the Awards Radar podcast said that this is about as out there as it gets that goes places you’ll never expect and won’t believe if he told you. It can be categorized in the body horror genre with some stuff that apparently is going to incite quite the reaction from audiences. Demi Moore specifically is getting quite the buzz with this performance that could lead to Oscar nominations. From the critics and festival crowd, the movie currently sits at a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 78 reviews. However, how this translates from critics and festival goers to general audiences is a story yet to be seen. If the movie ends up being as insane and crazy as advertised, I imagine that this could be quite the polarizing movie. I’m also not sure exactly how wide this is being released. I could see this being a much more moderate release, but we’ll see.

September 27 – 29

DreamWorks Animations' "The Wild Robot"

In the final weekend of September, DreamWorks is coming to play with their latest animated movie, The Wild Robot. Trailers for this movie have sparked quite the positive reaction as it looks like DreamWorks has a real tearjerker on their hands. The movie is adapted from book series of the same name and is about a robot that gets shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and has to learn to adapt to the surroundings, while building relationships with the animals on the island. The movie just recently had its premier at the Toronto International Film Festival and so far the reviews have been unanimously positive. I’m not sure this Rotten Tomatoes score will hold, but as of me typing this, it’s currently at a 100 percent. Trailer buzz followed by unanimous praise could very well lead to a sleeper hit. Although with this being an original movie from DreamWorks as opposed to a franchise film, this might be a movie that relies on strong legs and positive word of mouth rather than a massive opening weekend. The last movie that DreamWorks released in this spot was “Abominable” in 2019 and that opened to $20.6 million. The highest opening weekend for an animated movie in September is “Hotel Transylvania 2” with $48.5 million. The highest non-sequel for DreamWorks is “Kung Fu Panda” with $60.2 million.” So that’s the ceiling here. But Office Pro has it projected at a $25-30 million opening weekend, yet that Long Range Forecast was posted prior to the reviews coming out, so perhaps that shifts a bit.

I referenced this briefly in the previous weekend, but the other notable release from this weekend is another high-budgeted disaster in the works from Lionsgate and that is Megalopolis. The asterisk here from a Lionsgate perspective is that they’re not footing the bill here. This is the decades in the work passion project from prestigious filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, director of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II.” He’s had an idea for this movie dating as early as the 1977 and attempted to start developing it in 1983. There is a decades long story to be told as to what has happened along the way and if you want that full story, you’re going to have to look that up. Nevertheless, the short version is that it got delayed and postponed for a long list of reasons before Coppola finally got around to reviving it in 2019. Then COVID hit, so more delays. But filming finally took place in 2022 and the reports are the Coppola spent $120 million of his own money to get this done. And it didn’t have a distributor until earlier this year, after it finally premiered at Cannes in May. The story behind this movie finally getting made is probably going to wind up being a whole lot more interesting than the movie itself. Early reactions are that it’s certainly a movie worth seeing, for better or for worse. Mostly for worse. Film fanatics might feel obligated to see the latest movie from the director of “The Godfather,” but it might be a hard sell for casual audience. And despite being the director of “The Godfather,” Coppola has spent the last few decades making a long list of movies that have been critically panned, so this movie not being received well is not exactly surprising. And is probably not the comeback Coppola was hoping for.

And finally, we’ll finish off this month with another handful of smaller films. I’m guessing these movies might range from a couple of hundred to maybe a surprise release in 1,000-1,500 theaters, depending on if marketing actually kicks in. First off, Lionsgate isn’t done just yet. They have another horror film called Bagman. The movie stars Sam Claflin as a guy who has to now deal with a mythological villain from his childhood stories called Bagman that is coming back to haunt him. Kinda like the Boogeyman from your childhood turning out to be real. I’m guessing there’s no relation to the 1982 video game of the same name. But that’s what I found when I tried to search this out on Wikipedia. The movie doesn’t have it’s own Wikipedia page. Just a trailer with just under 500,000 views at this point that I haven’t seen played in theaters. I doubt Lionsgate put much of anything into marketing machine for this one.

Next up is another horror film, this one from IFC Films and Shudder called Azrael. This movie’s trailer has about as many views as “Bagman,” but it does have a Wikipedia page, so that gives it an edge. And, in fact, humans have seen this movie as it was released earlier this year at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March to decently positive reaction, currently carrying a 71 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Azrael is a mythological character that is the canonical angel of death in Islam as well as appearing in the apocryphal text of Apocalypse of Peter. Generally speaking, it’s God’s angel of death. How much of that lore this movie takes from is yet to be seen, I suppose. Or has been seen by some, but I don’t know the answers myself. The premise follows a world in which no one speaks and a woman named Azrael has escaped and is hunted down to be sacrificed to an ancient evil. So even if it’s not the actual lore of Azrael, they have some sort of lore set up here. If this doesn’t play in a ton of theaters, I’m guessing it’ll be on Shudder before too long. Shudder has done that with a few movies this year. Team up with a smaller studio to give some movies a brief theatrical release before putting them on their own streaming service.

The final moderate release I’ll mention is a movie called Lee, which is a bit of a funny thing to hunt down on the internet. Search “Lee” online and see how many possible things come up before you find what you’re looking for here. Anyways, this comes from Roadside Attractions and is about an American photographer named Lee Miller, who was a fashion model that became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II. This movie portrays a pivotal decade in her life that resulted in some pretty famous pictures of World War II. The movie stars Kate Winslet, Alexander Skarsgard, Andy Samberg, Andrea Riseborough, Marion Cotillard, and Josh O’Conner, so it definitely has the prestigious cast to be something. But it was released at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and hasn’t seemed to gain much of any traction since then, so I’m not sure this will be much of a thing.