Movie Preview: December 2024

We have arrived at the final month of the year. And that comes on the heels of a massively successful Thanksgiving season that was, in terms of box office totals, the biggest ever. During the month I did a couple of deep dives on my personal Facebook page in regards to an analysis of this box office phenomenon, so I’ll forgo getting into it too much here, but nevertheless, while going into the month many were trying to make “Glicked” happen (“Gladiator II” + “Wicked”), in a parallel way to “Barbenheimer” from last year, it was instead “Wicked” and “Moana 2” that put on quite the show, giving the end of November two $100+ million openings in back-to-back weekends, opening just five days apart, with “Gladiator II” being a decently successful third wheel to the party.

Now as we move onto December and into the Christmas season, I project that there will be a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers to go around. This duo of “Wicked” and “Moana 2” might be the driving force throughout December, too, especially since there’s not really a December release on the scale of a Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man that we’ve seen in Decembers past. But as this post is focused on the releases that do exist on the calendar, I’ll say that there is quite the wide variety of releases that exist, it’s just that most of them will come with a bit of an interesting conversation with no guaranteed success as opposed to the broadly appealing Hollywood blockbusters that we often see at this time of year, and did see during Thanksgiving. But hey, even if excitement levels might vary, the polarizing nature of many of these definitely gives us plenty to talk about in this post, so lets dive in and explore what’s out there!

As always, release date information for this post 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 an are always subject to change.

December 6 – 8

A24's "Y2K"

This first weekend of December is already in the books. The weekend was dominated by the aforementioned Thanksgiving holdovers as “Moana 2,” “Wicked,” “Gladiator II” and “Red One” took the top four spots. I actually had this part of the post typed up before the weekend started, but got busy with various things. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t too concerned about getting this post out before this weekend because most of the fun happens closer to Christmas. The first weekend of December is often dominated by the Thanksgiving slate. Hollywood usually avoids this weekend in regards to bigger release in order to give a bit more breathing room before the Christmas blockbusters. As such, there were no new releases that opened above $5 million. Most of them opened below $3 million and in a slightly different order than I expected, so with the benefit of hindsight, I went back and re-wrote this. But there are a lot of them, so buckle up. I go through these quick.

The highest-grossing new release was the Tegulu-language film Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2. This opened in fifth place with an estimated $4.8 million from 1,245 theaters. I say estimated because actual results weren’t posted for this one. There are a lot of these Indian films that come out and I don’t often cover them. And that’s not out of a lack of desire, but many of them come out of nowhere with little to no mainstream advertising or scheduled release dates. The American distributors for these do a great job of opening these movies in specific locations where their target audience shows up, leading to high per-theater totals despite the low theater counts. But reporting numbers is not something they do good at. They sometimes even only post the first weekend results, and usually only the estimates. So it’s hard to project and forecast. But nevertheless, this movie is a sequel to the 2021 film “Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1.” It’s about a character named Pushpa Raj, who is a smuggler that works in the realm of smuggling red sandalwood, rising up in the smuggling industry while avoiding the authorities. Both are three-hour Indian action films. And if you’ve seen movies like “RRR,” you’ll know that these long and silly Indian action films are quite common in Indian cinema.

Despite opening in just 846 theaters, the next highest new release was Solo Leveling: The ReAwakening. This opened in seventh place with $2.5 million. In between this and “Pushpa: The Rule – Part 2” was actually the IMAX re-release of “Interstellar,” which pulled in $4.6 million from 165 IMAX theaters. But back to “Solo Leveling,” this started as a South Korean portal fantasy web novel in 2016 and was then adaptated into a webtoon in 2018. Season 1 of the anime series adaptation was released earlier this year beginning in January and has 12 episodes. “Solo Leveling: ReAwakening” is actually a recap of Season 1 that tacks on the first two episodes of Season 2, which starts in January of 2025. So anyone who was a fan of Season 1 can head out to theaters to get a head start on Season 2

Sliding in right after “Solo Leveling” is actually not a movie, but rather the concert film For King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas. Taylor Swift certainly popularized this current trend of recording one of your concerts and putting it into theaters. She wasn’t the first to do something like that, but with how much she made that has certainly inspired more to give it a try. This concert film from For King + Country was recorded at one of their performances in the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, and pulled in $2.3 million from 1,540 theaters. The popular Christian band also made a movie about their story called “Unsung Hero,” which was released back in April. It was more about their parents discovering their sister’s talents, but it was written and directed by Joel Smallbone, one of the brothers in the duo. In 2025, they will apparently be going on a brief touring hiatus to work on their next musical project and next movie.

The movie that I initially had first in this post was the horror comedy Y2K. And I listed it first because it was the movie that was released in the most theaters – 2,108. In fact, it was the only new release to open in over 2,000 theaters. So if you managed to go to your local theater this past weekend, there’s a good chance you saw posters for it or noticed it on the box office kiosk when you purchased your tickets. But the box office numbers indicate that you may have also chose to skip it and see something else because this one did not connect with audiences, nor did it gain their interest. The movie is a horror comedy about the Y2K crisis. If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about there, back in 1999 a lot of people were worried about what would happen when the calendar turned over to the year 2000. Nothing actually happened. But there did exist conspiracy theorists who thought something would. This movie is comedy in the vein of “Superbad,” but portrays a high school New Years Eve party where the appliances and technology all come to life and start killing all the teenagers at this party. And maybe it’s a premise that would’ve worked had it come out closer to the actual year 2000. But in 2024, it just didn’t connect. It probably didn’t help that on Rotten Tomatoes the critics score was 44 percent and the audience score was 49 percent. So poor word of mouth from those who did go that resulted in a ninth place finish with just $2.1 million.

Rounding out the top 10 was the holdover “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” pulling in another $1.5 million. Just outside the top 10 in eleventh place with $1.1 million was the final wide release of the weekend, Werewolves, which opened in 1,351 theaters. I guess people just weren’t in the mood for horror-related projects this weekend. The Halloween spirit has evaporated. Or maybe this one just wasn’t advertised very well. It’s almost exactly what it seems like. It’s a monster movie about werewolves. Specifically it’s about two scientists who are trying to stop a mutation that turns people into werewolves after being touched by a super-moon the year before. There weren’t a lot of critics who reviewed this one. Just like there wasn’t a lot of humans overall that went into see it. But of the 35 critics on Rotten Tomatoes that submitted a review, they were split down the middle as it has a 51 percent score. This might be the type of movie that ends up on a streaming service somewhere, but theaters was not the place that it performed well.

And just for fun, just to show how many other movies showed up in moderate release this weekend, Vertical Entertainment released The Order into 603 theaters, earning $877,855. We had another concert movie released, with Laufey’s A Night at the Symphony: Hollywood Bowl, which captured one of her recent performances with the LA Philharmonic, which played in 133 theaters and made $845,370. The documentary RM: Right People, Wrong Place opened in 595 theaters and made $626,534. Its subject is BTS leader RM. The Return, an adaptation of the second half of “The Odyssey,” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche as Odysseus and Penelope, opened in 629 theaters and made $361,507. Trailer Park Boys Presents: Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties was released in 285 theaters and made $210,000. And finally, the horror comedy Get Away, which stars Nick Frost and is about a family that goes on vacation to an island that winds up being inhabited by a serial killer, opened in 474 theaters and made $104,976. If I counted right, that’s a total of 11 new movies that opened in at least 100 theaters. You might find an interesting combination at them at your local theater as you go see the other big releases. Now onto the next weekend!

December 13 – 15

Sony's "Kraven the Hunter"

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that there’s not really a movie on the scale of a Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man coming out this month. Well, the word “scale” was the most important there because with Spider-Man, I was referring to the December 2021 release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which opened to $260 million domestically. No, there is not a movie of that scale getting release this month. But there is a Spider-Man movie coming out. Or Spider-Man adjacent, that is. And that’s Sony’s release of Kraven the Hunter, the latest in their series of Spider-Man villains and other characters getting their own movie without the presence of Spider-Man. Kraven the Hunter has been around in the comics since 1964 as one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes. He’s typically a big-game hunter whose goal in life is to beat Spider-Man and prove himself as the world’s greatest hunter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson will be playing him in this film and he’ll be hunting… something. Not Spider-Man in this movie. But they’ll give his origin story here and we’ll see where and how they use him in the future. I’d say I’m not sure what Sony’s overall plan is, but honestly I don’t know if Sony knows what their plan is. It seems they’re throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and most of it isn’t sticking. In this realm of movies, “Morbius” opened to $39 million, which itself was seen as a disappointment. But that looks great in comparison to “Madame Web,” which opened to just $15.3 million earlier this year. The Venom movies have done well, but even the third one opened to just $51 million, which is a far cry lower than the first two, which opened to $80 million and $90 million, respectively. So there’s not been a whole lot of optimism or excitement for “Kraven the Hunter.” And it having been delayed several times doesn’t help it’s case. It’s tracking to open higher than “Madame Web,” but that’s not a particularly high bar. They have leaned into the R-rating this time. We’ll see if that hurts or helps. Many fans wanted “Morbius” and “Venom” to get that rating, so those fans will get their wish in that regard with “Kraven.”

I do find my intro a tad bit amusing in context of this weekend. I say no movie on the scale of Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man. But there was kind of a Spider-Man movie opening this weekend and it’s paired with a Lord of the Rings movie as the franchise returns to the animated realm with The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Again, scale is the key word here, though. All of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies opened in December. The average opening of the six movies is $65.8 million, yet this one is tracking to open in the $5-10 million range. I feel the reasoning behind that is a combination of awareness not being super high and people being not quite sure what to do with this. Movie adaptations of Lord of the Rings started as animation before the live-action movies came out, so it’s not like that’s completely unique. What is unique is that this movie is anime-style specifically. And thus it seems like it will perform more like an anime film rather than a Lord of the Rings film. Anime is increasing in popularity here in the states, but it’s still not the most popular medium, comparatively. A lot of them open in the $5-10 million range, give or take a bit, with the highest hitting around $20-30 million. If this movie hit the latter range, that would probably be considered a huge success, but it isn’t seeming likely. In regards to story, this is set 183 years before the original trilogy and tells the story of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan. Not helping this movie’s case is that recent trips to Middle Earth haven’t exactly been received as warmly. The original trilogy is a classic to many. The Hobbit movies… not so much. And “The Rings of Power” has had two seasons of mostly mixed reviews. So the Middle Earth novelty has maybe worn off a bit. People might be waiting for something more universally praised, which hasn’t quite been “The War of the Rohirrim” so far as early reviews have it sitting around 65 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Not terrible, but not great, either.

December 20 – 22

Disney's "Mufasa: The Lion King"

While the prior weekend gives us an appetizer into familiar franchises leading up to Christmas, the weekend right before Christmas, which is on a Wednesday this year, is where the real party begins. Again, holdovers are certain to still be strong throughout the season. But in terms of the two big new releases, it’s poised to be a battle of two major family films, both of which are tracking to open in a similar range. But I’ll start here by talking about Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to the 2019 remake focusing on the origins of Mufasa. “The Lion King” has been one of Disney’s biggest films ever since its release ever since its release 30 years ago, so it makes sense that they keep returning to it in various ways. And despite the very mixed reaction to the 2019 movie (and “mixed” might be putting it nicely), the branding was still very strong as it opened to $191.8 million domestically and finished with $543.6 million domestically and $1.661 billion worldwide, one of the biggest box office performances ever, currently standing at No. 10 on the all-time worldwide box office chart. And if you know Disney well enough, you know from the moment that happened that they weren’t going to let that go without a follow-up of some sort. And they had options of what to do here and they ultimately decided on the prequel route, telling the story of how Mufasa and Scar came to the point of going from brothers to bitter enemies. Based on the trailers, it seems they are going the route that Mufasa was an orphan who was befriended by the young prince Taka and adopted into their family. Taka eventually becomes known as Scar. We of course know how things end. But the goal of a prequel is to show the journey of how they got there.

Before moving onto the next movie, how well is this actually going to do at the box office? Well, the first comparison that came to my mind in the Disney remake realm is “Alice in Wonderland” from 2010. That’s another movie that, for various reasons, both made a ton of money and wasn’t really highly regarded by audiences. It initially opened to $116.1 million in 2010. When the sequel finally came out six years later, it opened to just $26.9 million. I highly doubt “Mufasa” is going to dip quite that low. The Lion King brand will help it do at least somewhat decently. But in terms of a percentage drop-off from a first movie to its second movie, that might not be too far off. Box Office Pro projects that the movie will open in the $55-75 million range, which puts it in the realm of 2015’s “Cinderella” or “Maleficent,” both of which opened just below $70 million. So that wouldn’t be terrible. But compared to a first movie that opened to $191 million, that would be a huge drop-off. Now this does come from Academy Award Winner Barry Jenkins. Not that many families or Disney fans will recognize that name, but the fact that he’s directed a movie that won best picture makes for an interesting discussion. Is he here just for his Disney paycheck to fund his next smaller film? Or does he have a good story on his hands that he wanted to tell? If the response to the movie is at least average or better than the first, that might not lead to a bigger opening, but if word of mouth is positive, Christmas releases have a tendency of holding really well throughout the month and into the new year. So that might be a better judgment of how its received rather than the opening weekend.

And now to its competition. Another family-friendly film targeting a very similar demographic. And another franchise film. This is the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3? Is it possible that Sonic pulls the upset and defeats the massive Disney film? Early tracking says its quite possible as Box Office Pro’s latest long range forecast pegs it in the $65-85 million range. Famously the first movie released their trailer, got a lot of complaints about the design, then postponed the movie to completely redo Sonic’s design. The final result ended up pleasing audiences quite a bit and it opened to $58.0 million. It’s final result is hard to look too far into because COVID hit a few weeks after its release, but the sequel in 2022 opened to $72.1 million and finished with $190.9 million. There’s been generally positive reactions to both movies, which bodes well for the third movie. The second movie introduced Tails and Knuckles into the gang along with Sonic. And now the third one introduces Shadow as an antagonist for them to deal with, with Keanu Reeves as the voice cast. Jim Carrey also returns as Dr. Robotnik, as he’s been in all three of these movies. So all things considered, there’s a solid chance that this matches or improves upon the second movie and thus actually takes the weekend. It’s also worth noting that December releases often open smaller and have longer legs. So even if “Sonic 3” doesn’t improve upon the second one on opening weekend, it’s conceivable that it might hold better throughout the holiday if its received well and could outgross the second movie’s $190.9 million domestic total. Regardless it should make for an interesting race at the box office. Christmas has proven that multiple movies can coexist at the same time throughout the holiday season, but two movies aimed at a similar target audience will definitely test that. And if I were to guess, “Mufasa” might be the one to underperform while “Sonic 3” overperforms,” but we will see how this plays out.

Tagging along for the ride, just for fun, will the latest from Angel Studios, the movie Homestead, a movie that in a press release earlier this year, Angel Studios co-founder Jeffrey Harmon described as a hope-filled, family apocalypse story. “Homestead goes on a wild ride through the crash of civilization, only to reveal that family, community, and love are the ultimate survival advantage,” he said. That makes for a bit of an interesting combination of genres. An apocalyptic action thriller with a touch of hope, faith, and religion. The movie is based on a book titled “Black Autumn” by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross, and stars Neal McDonough and Dawn Olivieri in the lead roles. The initial goal of this is to also transition it into a series as well that will pick up where the movie leaves off. Angel Studios has been desperately trying to chase the success of “Sound of Freedom” last year, which grossed $184 million domestically. But they have yet to have a follow-up movie gross over $20 million since then. Their last attempt was during the Thanksgiving season where “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin” opened to $5 million against “Wicked” and “Gladiator II.” It quickly disappeared from theaters after just three weeks. I’m guessing “Homestead” might follow a similar trajectory.

December 25 – 29

Searchlight's "A Complete Unknown"

Christmas hits on a Wednesday this year, and we have four movies opening right on Christmas Day. Which means the box office release strategy this month reflects that of last month around Thanksgiving. Yes, Thanksgiving is obviously on a Thursday, but the movies that opened that week opened on the day before – Wednesday. Leading the pack will probably be “Sonic 3” and “Mufasa” again, but of the four new ones, it’s like that A Complete Unknown will lead the way. This is the latest in the long string of musical biopics that Hollywood keeps churning out. This month’s feature is Bob Dylan and the movie reportedly manages to fit around 40 Bob Dylan songs in the movie, with the actors doing their own live singing and playing their own instruments, as it follows his life and career from January 1961, when he moved to New York City, up until his 1965 concert at the Newport Folk Festival. The movie will attempt to drawn in audiences both old and young, with the older audiences coming for Bob Dylan and his music, while the younger audiences might be showing up for Timothée Chalamet. These musical biopics have been very hit and miss as of late. And while it’s debatable as to whether Dylan was as big of an influence as the likes of Elvis or Queen, whose musical biopics did very well, the Chalamet factor and the holiday season could lead this to decent results. Reports are that this is one of Chalamet’s best performances that should lead him to another Oscar nomination. Early reviews are mostly positive as it currently sits at 75 percent with 68 reviews counted. That’s not unanimous, rave reviews, but high enough to indicate that this could be a good crowd-pleaser.

Is it Christmas? Or is it Halloween? Well, we might be doing a bit of a blink-182 and having Halloween on Christmas because this next movie is the horror film Nosferatu, a remake of the old classic by Robert Eggers, director of “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse,” and “The Northman.” The original 1922 “Nosferatu” was among the first on-screen adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1987 novel “Dracula.” It was a German adaptation that was technically an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of the book, but it was very much one of the most influential movies for the horror genre and is still quite prevalent in pop culture over 100 years later. Early indications are that this Robert Eggers remake is very much a Robert Eggers film. He’s a filmmaker who loves becoming completely enveloped into the time periods that he explores, getting as dark and realistic as he can. He’s not a director who is interested in holding back or pandering to mainstream audiences. This has led his movies to be somewhat divisive. Either you’re all in and love his takes or his movies rub you the wrong way. “The Witch,” for example, had a 91 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a 60 percent from audiences and a C- CinemaScore. If you’re looking for a fun, mainstream Dracula adaptation, this might not be your thing. But early critical reviews have it at a 95 percent. So it seems like it’ll be par for the course for Eggers. And if you’re wondering why Christmas for this movie, the likely answer is that it’s being positioned for awards consideration rather than the holidays. Eggers’ biggest opening weekend was “The Northman” with $12.3 million, while “The Witch” in 2016 opened to $8.8 million. So this isn’t necessarily expected to be a huge hit, but brand name awareness could lead it to being Eggers’ highest opening.

Speaking of movies positioned for awards consideration as opposed to the holidays, we might as well lead right into Babygirl while we’re at it. If watching erotic thrillers is what you love doing for Christmas, then you do you, I suppose. But that’s why I say this is an awards play rather than a holiday play. Oscar nominations will be around the corner after this movie’s release and we’re currently in the thick of the awards season, so A24 would like this movie fresh on people’s minds. Whether or not the movie as a while gets showered with nominations is up for debate, but Nicole Kidman is the lead in this movie and it’s her performance that’s getting the high praise that seems like it could be leading her to another Oscar nomination. She plays a high-ranked CEO who embarks on a forbidden romance with an intern who is much younger than she is, so the movie is one that explores the complexity of power dynamics and sexuality within a professional setting as Kidman is nearly 30 years older than her co-star Harris Dickinson. Although you might not realize the gap is quite that large just by watching the movie. The age gap is one of the main points of the plot, but it’s still nevertheless quite impressive that Kidman is nearing 60 because she doesn’t look even close to being that old. She’s one of these Hollywood actors who managed to find the Fountain of Youth. Probably the same Fountain that Tom Cruise found.

And finally, a movie that might be looking to please both holiday audiences and awards season voters, instead of just the latter, is the sports drama The Fire Inside. The movie itself might not be Christmas-specific with its themes, but seeing the latest sports drama over the holidays is a fun past-time for many. “The Fire Inside” tells the story of Claressa Shields, a professional boxer and mixed martial artist. She is one of only four boxers in history – male or female – to hold all four major world titles in boxing (WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO) in two weight classes. She also won gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, making her the first American boxer to win consecutive Olympic medals. She was also the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in boxing, given that 2012 was the first year that women’s boxing was a part of the Olympics. I’m not sure how much of this movie I just spoiled by talking about this recent sports history, but her being a gold-medal winner 12 years ago is also in the trailer and the IMDb description of the movie, so I educated myself on her history. This is the type of movie that’s more about the journey and her influence on others around her rather than the final result. The movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival this year and currently holds an early 96 percent from 26 reviews, so it was well received there, which bodes well for awards consideration and audience interest. It actually has a decent chance at opening higher than the previous two movies mentioned, or at the very least holding well over the holidays and into January. Feel-good sports dramas with positive reviews have a tendency to hang around.

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.