January is always a bit of an interesting month. There's always a slate of new releases, of course. There have been good movies released and ones that have performed well, but yet there is a common stigma that it's a dumping ground month where studios release movies that they don't care about. They save their big releases for the holidays or maybe in late February or March if they don't want to wait for the summer. Then they dump the leftovers in January to get them out of the way. But mixed in with that are the movies that actually got released over the holiday that enjoy an extended runway without much serious competition. Then finishing the trifecta are the awards movies that maybe didn't want to release wide in a competitive market, but were required to have some sort of release to qualify, so they open in a limited fashion in December and expand wide around Oscar nominations - which are on January 23 this year - to take advantage the boost from the awards buzz.
This January will have a fascinating combination of the three. There wasn't a Star Wars, Avatar, or Spider-Man movie released this past Christmas, so it was a bit of a quieter holiday frame, but there was a lot that came that will still be around this month and a good number of awards expansions as well. That said, the bigger emphasis with this post will be on the newer releases as I talked about most of the others last month, but there's still an interesting combination of new releases that should catch some people's attention.
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
January 5 - 7
While there was no massive movie over the holidays, there were a large quantity of movies that opened sporadically throughout season. With the dust seemingly settled, “Wonka” and “Migration” seem to be the two that have risen to the top. Among the rest, weekday box office totals have seen various combinations of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “Anyone But You,” “The Color Purple” and “The Boys in the Boat” jockeying for the spots right below. We'll see what order everything ends up in when the weekend concludes, but those will be the top movies. Despite not having huge openings, most of these are enjoying decent legs. 
Universal's "Night Swim"
Opening somewhere in the mix is the lone new release, the horror film Night Swim. January horror is very common. More often than not, a January horror film is associated with the previously mentioned “dumping ground” phenomenon of January. A common place for a studio to just leave a horror film that they don't care about. That said, dumping ground fodder or not, January has been a consistently profitable area for horror. Some studios have actually been confident enough to release their good horror movies there, as evidenced by last January with “M3GAN” and January 2022 with the reboot/sequel “Scream,” both of which opened above $30 million and were received very well. Could “Night Swim” continue that trend? Well… no. Like the movie “Lights Out,” it's based on a short film where said director gets to come make a feature-length version of their short. The premise follows a girl in her pool at night with something watching her. This new version is that, but 90 minutes. It's a Blumhouse production with a small $15 million budget, so it doesn't need much for success, but the 27 percent Rotten Tomatoes score doesn't give much confidence and the general audience buzz does not seem to be there. A $10-15 million opening is about what's expected as opposed to being the next January breakout horror hit.
January 12 - 14
Continuing the recent trend of surprise musicals will be the musical adaptation of Mean Girls in this second weekend of January. I'm not 100 percent sure why certain studios are scared to advertise to the world that they made a musical, but that's what this is. And like “Wonka,” if you went in solely based on the trailers and knew nothing else, you might be a tad bit surprised when they start breaking out into song and dance. This version of “Mean Girls” is actually parallel to “The Color Purple.” Both original films got adapted into Broadway musicals and both new movies are not remakes of the original film, but are rather adaptations of the Broadway musical. “Means Girls” was actually initially scheduled to go straight to Paramount+, but they instead opted for a theatrical release, which looks like a good decision as this is expected to open around $30 million. For comparison, the original 2004 movie opened to $24.4 million, which adjusted for ticket price inflation would be $41.4 million. 
Paramount's "Mean Girls"
The second new release of this weekend is the latest from director Jeymes Samuel, The Book of Clarence. Samuel's first directorial feature was the 2021 Netflix film “The Harder They Fall” and now he dives into a curious Biblical epic of sorts that Samuel said was modeled after Biblical epics such as “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965), “Samson and Delilah” (1949) and “Ben-Hur” (1959). Perhaps parallel in a way to “Ben-Hur,” at least in terms of having a fictional protagonist set in the backdrop of the story of Christ, Clarence is a “nobody” living in 33 A.D. Jerusalem and is captivated by the idea of bringing glory and relevance to himself by acting as a Messiah or becoming a “13th Apostle.” In the midst of his journey, he interacts with a lot of the New Testament figures such as Pontius Pilot, John the Baptist, as well as Jesus and the apostles themselves. LaKeith Stanfield plays Clarence and he's joined by quite the cast of actors. The movie debuted at the BFI London Film Festival to mostly positive reviews and from that it seems to be more comedic and entertaining rather than anything spiritual or religious. From the first 17 reviews it stands at a 94 percent score, those reviews coming from the festival release. It remains to be seen what general audiences decide to make of it and if it can manage to gain an audience.
The third wide release of the weekend is perhaps a tad bit more straightforward. At least when you're going in, you'll be well aware of exactly what you're getting yourself into. It's the new Jason Statham action film The Beekeeper. In this movie, Statham plays a literal Beekeeper. Although that gig might be more of a cover up to help him blend in. Turns out there's a secret organization called “The Beekeepers” that, as described by a character in the trailer, is a special program outside the chain of command. Or then as Statham himself puts it, “I protect the Hive. When the system is out of balance, I correct it.” All that being more of a plot mechanism for Statham to be angry at people, causing him to punch and shoot a whole lot of people who get in his way. Statham has certainly shown up in a lot of major franchises as one of the more popular action stars. But he also seems very happy to also show up sporadically in smaller action films like this. Although this “small” action film is directed by David Ayer, director of “Fury” and the 2016 “Suicide Squad,” so it has plenty of big names behind. But it's still not exactly projected to make much of a dent at the weekend box office. Perhaps it's the type of movie that'll show up in a Jason Statham 4-pack set in your local $5 Walmart bin in a few years from now.
The final release of the weekend is not a new release, but is rather an actual theatrical release of Pixar's Soul. Yes, this is the 2020 Pixar film Disney sent straight to Disney+ when they were in their phase of sending everything straight to Disney+, thinking streaming is the new thing that'll take over the movie industry. In hindsight that's seen as a huge mistake wherein Disney just kept repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot. Now that they've realized that the theatrical industry is still the way to make money, they can't get their audience back to theater as they've conditioned them to skip theaters and wait for Disney+. It's hard to get people to start spending money again when they've learned to wait and get everything for free. Anyways, in their latest attempt to make amends, they'll be releasing “Soul,” “Luca,” and “Turning Red” into theaters this year as those were the three Pixar movies that skipped theaters. Whether or not this strategy will work is yet to be seen. It doesn't seem like many will pay to see a movie in theaters that they can see for free at home. But any fans that wanted the theatrical experience for these three movies will at least have the option presented to them.
January 19 - 21
The third weekend of this month is probably going to be dominated mostly by holdovers. The last part of January is mostly empty in regards to new releases, but there is at least one scheduled wide release and that is a new sci-fi movie called I.S.S., which is short for International Space Station. The movie is set in the “near future” and follows a group of astronauts that is a mix of Americans and Russians. They notice a war beginning down below and are given the instruction by their individual governments to take over the station by any means necessary. As consequence, battle on the station breaks as the astronauts turn on each other, leads to a sci-fi thriller. This is currently projected by Box Office Pro to earn between $2-7 million. It's had a bit of buzz, but Bleeker Street might have to give this a bit more of a push for it to really get noticed. 
Bleeker Street's "I.S.S."
I'm reading conflicting information as to whether or not this next movie is getting a wide release or simply a limited release this weekend, but nevertheless it seems important enough to bring up Ava DuVernay's new movie Origin. The movie is based on the nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” which describes racism in the United States as being an aspect of the caste system. The movie itself follows author Isabel Wilkerson, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, as she comes to the discovery of these ideas. By calender release, this is a 2024 movie. However, it did hit the festival circuit this past year and had an Oscar qualifying run in December, making it eligible for awards this year and might also be classified as a 2023 movie by some because of it. However, it feels like this is a movie that should be getting a lot more buzz than it currently is. Yet for some reason NEON, the distributor here, hasn't given it much of a push to either put it in the minds of Oscar voters or in the general public conscience to make people aware of its existence. And that seems like a bit of a mistake.
January 26 - 28
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, Oscar nominations happen on the 23rd of this month. What this means is that you should probably look for movies such as “Poor Things,” “American Fiction,” “The Zone of Interest,” “All of Us Strangers” or “Anatomy of a Fall” to finally get more of a wide release, taking advantage of Oscar nominations - depending on how those go. You might even see other movies such as “The Holdovers” come back to more theaters or even “Oppenheimer” showing back up in theaters after leaving. Those movies will be more of the story of this final weekend. 
Lionsgate’s "Miller's Girl"
As far as new releases? Well, let's just say studios took this week off. There's plenty on deck for February and even more in March. But currently the only new release listed as wide is a movie called Miller's Girl. By the looks of the trailer, it seems like the movie is about a female teenage student trying to seduce her older male teacher, with him doing his best to resist. The trailer even ends with the warning of “There are complex themes that appear in this film.” It then provides a link for resources on some of the issues. If there's a major selling point, it's that the student is played by Jenna Ortega, who has become a bit of a superstar as of late. She is, in fact, an adult at the age of 21, but has a young enough face to continue playing teenagers. The teacher, Mr. Miller, is played by Martin Freeman. The movie will premier at the Palm Springs Film Festival on January 11, so some will get an opportunity to see it early before its theatrical release.
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