Movie Preview: August 2024

 

After a rocky start to the summer in May where some people made it seem like the world was ending and cinema was dead, a strong June was followed by a very strong July that proved yet again, with a series of hits, that people will in fact still go to the movies if it’s a movie they are excited for. And they were very excited for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which shattered records for an R-rated opening, making $211.4 million, beating the previous record by nearly $80 million. It wound up being the sixth highest opening ever at the domestic box office for any movie and the fourth highest opening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But “Deadpool & Wolverine” wasn’t the only success story. Both “Despicable Me 4” and “Twisters” also lived up to and exceeded expectations, leading the overall July box office to cross $1.1 billion, the first month of the year to hit the $1 billion mark.

Now even in the best of years, the August box office is always the cool down month of the summer. Every once in a while there’s a “Guardians of the Galaxy” or a “Suicide Squad” that gets released and dominates, but for the most part studios save their biggest blockbusters for the other three summer months, as August sees the summer wind down and school starting up again, leading to the slower fall movie season before the holiday season kicks things back into gear. So expectations aren’t exactly super high, so no worries if there’s not a massive hit. Looking at a glance, there are a few titles that could hit, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything like what we just saw in the last two months. Thus that leaves “Deadpool & Wolverine” to dominate the month as it only had six days in theaters during July. And thus we will be playing the game here of what movie can manage to dethrone “Deadpool & Wolverine” as we dive deeper into the August releases, so let’s get started.

This is where I usually say that release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. And while that’s still true, I had to cross reference things with a few other sites to attempt to have the most accurate information. Box Office Pro has been very inconsistent and sparse with their long range forecasts, while the-numbers.com has had a rough time loading the last few days and weeks. So I had to double check some things with my old friend Box Office Mojo. Metacritic also provided some useful help. Generally speaking, I have a good idea of the major wide releases, but it’s some of the small to medium sized films that provided a bit more ambiguity as to how big their releases are going to be. So the general idea is to list the movies that are currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada, which is always subject to change, but I’ll note the ones that I’m uncertain about as to whether it’s a wide release or a more limited on.

August 2 – 4

Warner Bros.' "Trap"

Before we jump into the new wide releases for this weekend, I did a bit of number crunching with “Deadpool & Wolverine” to try to have an idea of how well it will do each week this month, to see what the bar is for a movie to dethrone it. Due to it being the first R-rated movie to open above $200 million, it’s pioneering its own path, making specifics hard to predict, but I did compare it to a handful of movies that opened in a similar range to see what the possible paths could be. For this weekend, the worst case scenario would be a second weekend around $70 million, with the best case scenario being around $115 million. The correct answer is probably somewhere in between. In Box Office Pro’s weekend forecast, they pegged it at a range of $80-100 million. The first Deadpool movie fell 57 percent in weekend 2. If “Deadpool & Wolverine” has a similar fall, that would lead to a $90.9 million second weekend.

With that as the bar, there is most certainly not going to be an upset this weekend as the biggest competition is Shyamalan’s new mystery/thriller Trap. Shyamalan’s biggest ever opening is “Signs” in 2002 with $60.1 million. More recently, “Knock at the Cabin” opened to $14.1 million last year, while “Old” opened to $16.9 million in 2021. If “Trap” opens in that realm, that means it will be in a fight for second place with the third weekend of “Twisters,” which put up $34.9 million last weekend after its $81.3 million opening. That should see it on track for $15-20 million. That means “Trap” needs to hit on the higher end of expectations to earn second place. And it very well could do that as this is a more unique setting for a Shyamalan thriller, specifically a concert setting. A serial killer dubbed “The Butcher,” played by Josh Hartnett, is taking his daughter to a concert of her favorite pop star Lady Raven, played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka. Turns out the concert is a big trap with a massive police presence, who are there to try to stop him. So the attempt here is a serial killer crime thriller from Shyamalan, a thing he has done a time or two. Given the hit or miss nature of a lot of Shyamalan movies, reaction to this might be key to the movie’s success. 

On a completely different level than “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Trap,” or “Twisters” is the latest PG-rated family film, Harold and the Purple Crayon. This theoretically could lead to some solid counter-programming if parents are ready for another trip to the theaters with the kids. Or maybe they already spent their summer movie budget on “Inside Out 2” and/or “Despicable Me 4.” Either way, this is based on the 1955 children’s book about a 4-year-old boy and his magic purple crayon, which gives him the power to create a world of his own simply by drawing it. This became a series of books that is currently 10 books large and has been adapted a few different times via an animated short in 1959, a few other smaller animated movies, a 2001 TV series that ran for 13 episodes, and an upcoming Broadway musical that was announced in 2022. Production on this current film adaptation has been in the works for quite some time, initially slated as an animated film before ending up in its current form as a live-action/animated hybrid, with Zachary Levi playing an adult version of Harold. I don’t know exactly how high the interest in this one is, but it will at least be an option for families.

It appears that “Trap” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon” are the only two major wide releases this weekend, but there also might be a movie called The Firing Squad in some theaters near you. The different sites I looked at couldn’t quite agree on whether this was a wide release or a limited release. So looking at my local showtimes suggested that this is probably a more moderate release in a few hundred theaters rather than a super wide release. But regardless of exactly how many theaters, this is indeed a real movie getting released in some places. And it’s a Christian film starring Kevin Sorbo and Cuba Gooding Jr. and is about three prisoners facing execution who find Christ while in prison and undergo a change of heart. It is inspired by the story of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, two drug traffickers who were convicted and imprisoned in Indonesia, but were converted to Christianity before being executed by a firing squad in 2015.

August 9 – 11

Lionsgate’s "Borderlands"

Reporting in on the third weekend of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” based on the different models I created, it seems likely that it will land somewhere in the $40-60 million range. Is that enough for it to three-peat at No. 1 at the box office? Based on the three movies being released this weekend, that seems quite likely.

The first of these three is the live action adaptation of the video game Borderlands. Video game adaptations have generally had a very streaky success rate at the box office, but whether it be a bad or good streak, Hollywood keeps on trying. Recently the luck has actually been a lot more positive with shows like “The Last of Us,” “Fallout,” and “Arcane,” and movies like “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Sonic the Hedgehog.” I wouldn’t quite say we’re at the level of a video game movie revolution, but things have been quite positive. And on the positive note, Eli Roth is on board to direct “Borderlands,” which is described as an action role-playing, first person shooter video game series that has been out since 2009 and has had mostly very positive reactions. The movie adaptation looks quite colorful and vibrant, some making comparisons to a James Gunn style of film, like “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “The Suicide Squad.” And in addition to Eli Roth directing, the movie has a solid cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. However, despite the positives here, it also must be mentioned that the general online buzz doesn’t seem to be particularly great at the moment, especially as we get closer to release. Perhaps more casual viewers will not be as phased, but fans of the video games don’t seem to be particularly excited, which leaves the movie in a precarious situation, especially sitting here in the middle of August where things are easily forgotten about. A debut around $20-30 million isn’t outside the realm of possibilities, but it seems likely to fall below that.

Perhaps a sleeper pick for the weekend is the romance drama It Ends with Us, which is based on the popular novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, published in 2016. Hoover said her novel was based on the relationship between her mother and father and is the hardest book she’s ever written. The movie stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, who meets a guy named Ryle Kincaid and falls in love. Ryle is played by Justin Baldoni, who also directs the movie. He’s also directed other movies such as “Five Feet Apart” (2019) and “Clouds” (2020). Anyways, things are going great with Lily and Ryle until she notices random outbursts of rage, which reminds her of her father’s poor treatment of her mother. Lily then has to wrestle with whether or not Ryle is different than her father, while also keeping in mind her childhood lover Atlas, who left for the military, but promised to return. It’s while he was gone that she met Ryle. So here we have a classic love triangle in a romantic drama that seems like it has the possibility to connect with audiences. The hesitation might be looking at July’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” which was one of the month’s not so successful stories as that romance film only opened to $9.4 million, despite starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. But if “It Ends with Us” manages to successfully draw out the female crowd while the men are off at “Borderlands,” it could open in the high teens or even flirt with $20 million. And if “Borderlands” is a major disappointment, it could potentially take second place behind “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Riding the caboose in regards to the three new wide releases is the horror film Cuckoo. This stars Hunter Schafer as a 17-year-old girl who leaves her American home to live with her father, who has moved into a resort in the German Alps. And well, this is a horror movie, so things go crazy and bonkers. The trailer pulls some pull quotes that call the movie “wild, blood-soaked, big-screen fun” and “very bonkers and deliriously entertaining,” which does seem to fall in line with the general consensus from critics. The movie had a festival run earlier this year that included the South by South Film Festival in March and came out of that with decent buzz and an 83 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes through 46 reviews. Whether or not that translates into mainstream success with audiences in the middle of August is a different story. Horror fans can be quite picky and critical with their horror movies. But this does come from NEON, who has developed a decent reputation as of late as a distributor of good low-budget horror films. They just celebrated their biggest opening yet with “Longlegs” at $22.4 million, which has since legged it out to beat “Parasite” for NEON’s highest grossing movie overall. “Cuckoo” won’t get that high, but if it can hit $10 million, that would be a win. That said, there have been a lot of 2024 horror films opening in the $5-8 million range, which wouldn’t be terrible for a low-budget film like this.

August 16 – 18

20th Century Studios' "Alien: Romulus"

In all likelihood, the reign of “Deadpool & Wolverine” will end this weekend with the release of Alien: Romulus. Even if “Deadpool & Wolverine” experiences excellent holds similar to “Black Panther,” that would leave it at a $42 million gross this weekend. More likely is a gross in the $20-30 million range, which “Alien: Romulus” should soar past. This is a franchise that has been around since the original “Alien” in 1979, which was followed up by its equally as beloved predecessor “Aliens” in 1986. And even though it’s been a bumpy road since, the franchise has remained popular and even the “lesser” more critically divided entries in “Prometheus” (2012) and “Alien: Covenant” (2017) still opened to $51.1 million and $36.2 million. Given that this is the first movie in the franchise to open since Disney got the rights after buying Fox, they should be happy to know that the buzz on this one has been quite positive as it feels like a return to form after the franchise has wandered for several decades. “Romulus” specifically takes place in between “Alien” and “Aliens” chronologically and seems to be taking notes from those two movies. While Ridley Scott, director of the original movie and the most recent two, is still on board as producer, Fede Alvarez has taken the torch as director this time and he’s found plenty of success in this horror realm, directing things like “Don’t Breathe” and the 2013 remake of “Evil Dead.” Pegged as the last blockbuster of the summer, this is expected to open in the $45-50 million range.

While “Alien: Romulus” is the big event film this weekend, it’s a bit murky as to what exactly is joining it in wide release, but it feels somewhat safe to start out by talking about penguins with My Penguin Friend, a PG-rated, family-friendly drama about a Brazilian fisherman who discovers an injured penguin and rescues it and brings it home to help it rehabilitate. This is a Brazilian film that is in the English language and is based on the true story of fisherman João Perei de Souza and the penguin Dindim, which went viral in 2016. The movie stars Jean Reno, who played Léon in “Léon: The Professional,” and Adriana Barraza, who got an Oscar nomination for the movie “Babel” in 2006. This is a mid-budgeted movie, so expectations probably aren’t too high, but it should at least be around in theaters near you. And it is a movie that I’ve seen advertised, so that’s at least something.

The last two are even more up in the air, but both the-numbers and Box Office Mojo claim Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure will be hitting wide release. The movie is being distributed by Falling Forward Films, which did distribute Nicolas Cage’s “The Retirement Plan” in 1,175 theaters last year. The movie is a live-action/animated hybrid film and is based on the Ryan’s World YouTube channel, which is a bit of a new concept. But said YouTube channel, which is directed towards kids, does have 37.4 million subscribers and also has a video from eight years ago titled “HUGE EGGS Surprise Toys Challenge with Inflatable water slide” that has over 2 billion views, so there is an audience here. The movie sees Ryan’s twin sisters get sucked into a mystical comic book, leaving Ryan no choice but to jump in after them, transforming him into an animated superhero in this comic universe, while Ryan’s live-action audience watches his adventures from their devices. How this will all translate into a mainstream audience is good question, but if there are kids who love this YouTube channel and want to convince their parents to take them to the movie, it again should be an option.

And finally we have the crime thriller Skincare, which is being distributed by IFC Films, which usually does smaller, platform releases instead of wide releases. But they did recently release the horror film “Oddity” in 790 theaters last month, as well as the 2022 film “God’s Country” in 785 theaters. So if this is a wide release, it’s likely more of a moderate release in this range, one that you might have to search for if you’re interested. The movie stars Elizabeth Banks as a famed aesthetician Hope Goldman who is about to launch her very own skincare line, but suddenly finds out that rival boutique has opened directly across from her, which sends her on a quest to find out. Both previously mentioned IFC Films that hit moderate release opened to less than $1 million, so that seems like it could be the case here as well. A movie you might find on streaming down the road if it doesn’t expand far enough for you to catch it in theaters.

August 23 – 25

Lionsgate’s "The Crow"

We’re now getting into the weeds of late August where a lot of things are just dumped onto the schedule. We’ll definitely see that more in the final week of the month, but this weekend looks like an “Alien: Romulus” repeat at the box office crown while others fight for spots in the top 10. However, there is at least one notable title, even if it’s not getting notable attention, and that’s the long-delayed remake of The Crow. The original movie, released in 1994, has become a bit of a cult classic as it has a decent-sized fan base, but did not do particularly well in theaters, opening to $11.8 million and grossing $50.6 million domestically. It might actually be most notable for it’s star Brandon Lee, son of legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, dying on set after being fatally wounded by a prop gun. The movie had to be completed through rewrites, a stunt double, and digital effects. The movie went on to spawn three sequels, only one of which was released theatrically. This remake has been in the works since 2008 to varying degrees. Upon finally finishing, Lionsgate has emphasized that it’s another adaptation of the original graphic novel rather than being a remake of the 1994 movie. The movie is directed by Rupert Sanders and stars Bill Skarsgard in the lead role. And despite the marketing having made an attempt to get the movie off the ground, this is another case of the interest level just not appearing to be there as the expectation is an opening in the $6-10 million range, which is certainly not what Lionsgate is hoping for.

Next up we have a psychological thriller from actress turned director Zoë Kravitz, titled Blink Twice. Zoë might best be known for her acting roles in the likes of “The Batman,” “Divergent,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Big Little Lies,” but she sees her first attempt at directing a film with this movie. She brings with her a decently large cast that’s led by Naomi Ackie playing a cocktail waitress named Frida who becomes infatuated with a tech billionaire named Christian Slater, played by Channing Tatum, at his fundraising gala. He then invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. All things are going well until the audience remembers that this is a psychological thriller and we suddenly have a group of people all alone on a private island, which means lots of things are going to go wrong and Frida is going to start questioning her reality and work on uncovering whatever truth is there if she’s going to make it out alive. Now looking at this, this does have the cast, crew, and premise to potentially be a surprise. But again, there’s been a lot of horrors and thrillers that have managed to open in the $5-8 million range this year and a late August release doesn’t exactly inspire a ton of confidence. This is distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, which means if you don’t catch it in theaters, there’s a high likelihood that it’ll end up on Amazon Prime at some point before the year is over.

The third release of the weekend sees the return of the Kendrick Brothers, with their latest film The Forge. The Kendrick Brothers, Alex and Stephen Kendrick, have been making these Christian films dating back to 2006 with “Facing the Giants” and have since made things like “Fireproof,” “Courageous,” and “War Room.” They all pretty much have the same basic premise, with a slightly different setting. Life is hard for a character as they face a certain challenge, but when they come to Jesus and accept Christ into their life, he’s able to help them solve their life’s problems. This movie’s character is a kid named Isaiah who recently graduated high school, but has no real plans for the future and needs to start making better life decisions. Now the Kendrick Brothers have actually had decent success in the past in his exact slot. “War Room” opened to $11.4 million in late August 2015, but then held really well and actually took the top spot the following weekend, eventually making $67.8 million domestically. In 2019, “Overcomer” also opened in late August and earned $8.1 million in its opening weekend. That said, in 2021, “Show Me the Father” only opened to $700,181 from 1,073 theaters, but that might be a COVID recovery issue. So no guarantee for success here, but if the movie has a decent grassroots campaign, there’s the potential to surprise, at least in regards to the competition with new releases.

Finally, we have Lionsgate possibly competing with themselves this weekend as, in addition to releasing “The Crow,” they also have plans on releasing the mystery comedy Greedy People. Although if I were to guess, I’d say “The Crow” will be in as many theaters as possible while “Greedy People” might be a more moderate release in a few hundred theaters. I wasn’t initially going to put this on here because different sites disagree on how wide or limited this will be, but I did notice it had quite the cast listing with Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Himesh Patel, Simon Rex, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Gaffigan, and others. On the poster specifically is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Himesh Patel as two cops and the trailers show them investigating a murder and discovering a large sum of money, with a whole lot of things going wrong. And yes, this does appear to be very heavy on the comedy in its approach to this buddy cop/murder mystery film.

August 30 – Sep 2

Sony's "AfrAId"

And now we arrive at the final weekend of the month. And since September 1 is on a Sunday this year, that means Labor Day comes early this year, on September 2, making this the four-day Labor Day weekend, which has historically been very spotty as Hollywood usually avoids the weekend. Recent history has shown that it is actually possible to do well here if you put a movie on the schedule that people are excited about rather than treating it like a dumping ground weekend, but that doesn’t appear to be what happened this time around, thus your guess is as good as mine in regards to what ends up at No. 1. Could it be “Alien: Romulus” for a third weekend? Could “Deadpool & Wolverine” actually rise back up to No. 1 if it stabilizes in future weeks while “Romulus” could be a bit front-loaded? My model says “Deadpool & Wolverine” could be looking at a $10-15 million 3-day weekend, meaning those two movies could be in a battle. Or is one of the SIX new wide releases going to make a splash and take the weekend?

I don’t know if there is going to be a new movie that takes the crown, but if there is, it seems likely that it is the horror movie AfrAId, which is stylized a bit funny there. If you couldn’t tell, it’s the word “Afraid,” with the AI capitalized. Or I’m also seeing the whole title capitalized with “AI” in italics, and in a different color (red vs. black). However you stylize it, the point here is to emphasize the Artificial Intelligence in the title, as the movie is about a family who is chosen to test a new smart home AI, called AIA. And, of course, as this is a sci-fi horror film about rogue AI, the machine they’re testing becomes a little too involved in their lives. The premise of technology taking over the world has been a thing in movies pretty much since new technology has become better. I guess there’s the idea in the back of people’s minds of the horror of technology becoming too much and that has translated over into film many times over. This movie comes via Blumhouse, who is really good at making a quick buck off of a low-budget horror movies and they’re pushing the connection to M3GAN here, a similarly themed horror film that opened to $30.4 million. That’s, of course, the dream here, but anything around the $10 million range is probably going to be considered a success.

Given the timing of the upcoming election season, another movie to possibly look out for is the historical biopic Reagan, about the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. This is bound to be quite divisive, as Reagan is seen as the gold standard by most Republican politicians, who also seem to bring him up in their election speeches, while also being seen as one of the worst modern-day presidents by many on the Democratic side. Without making this a political post, I’ll just say that divisiveness often leads to good success at the box office. And given the liberal nature of a lot of critics, this is bound to be a movie that is trashed by critics and praised by a lot of audiences. Many might choose to see it just to be a part of the conversation. From an objective filmmaking standpoint, though, this is directed by Sean McNamara. And when you look at his filmography as a director, he has a long list of very low quality movies, with the occasional hit, so that doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence, but that might not matter much here. Dennis Quaid is playing Ronald Reagan in the movie, so there’s a positive in regards to the movie’s lead actor.

Another movie to potentially look out for, again based on the subject matter alone, is the movie 1992, which was originally titled “April 29, 1992,” which is a reference to the first night of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the unrest following the Rodney King verdict. The movie follows two different families caught in the crossfire of all of it, one being a father trying to restore his relationship with his son and the other being a father and son planning a heist at the other father’s workplace. The movie is directed by Ariel Vromen and stars Tyrese Gibson, Scott Eastwood, and Ray Liotta. This was the final film that Ray Liotta shot back before he died in May 2022. He had finished all of his scenes in this movie before he died, so this movie has been on the shelf for a little while. According to IMDb, it even had a brief premier at the Harmony Gold Theatre in Los Angeles back in October 2022. I’m not sure what happened to it in the meantime, but Lionsgate is finally unloading it off their schedule here at the end of August, which again is usually not the best sign.

Next we have a pair of sports films getting released. Although the first of which might just have the sportsing as a brief backdrop and that’s the movie City of Dreams. Inspired by a true story, this tells the story of a Mexican boy whose dreams of becoming a soccer star are shattered when he’s smuggled across the border and sold into a sweatshop in downtown Los Angeles, where he is forced to work a grueling 18-hour work day under a boss who theoretically promises freedom to those who fulfill their quotas, although our main kid quickly realizes that his only actual way out is by figuring out a way to escape. So yeah, this is more of a crime thriller here. And another movie that has sat on the shelf for a while before being dumped at the end of August as it premiered last March at the Mammoth Film Festival and is finally being dumped here by Roadside Attractions. Although the few reviews it does have seems like it’ll lean positive, so perhaps it has a chance of some sort of life either in theaters or on streaming afterwards.

The other actual sports movie here is You Gotta Believe, which seems to be a bit of a traditional, run-of-the-mill baseball story. It’s about a Little League baseball team of misfits that dedicate their season to one of their player’s dying father and eventually do the impossible by making it to the Little League World Series in a final game that, according to IMDb’s description, became an instant ESPN classic. The movie is rated PG, so a solid option for families. And it does have Luke Wilson and Greg Kinnear, so a solid cast with a feel-good story potential. But it doesn’t seem to have much of a marketing footprint yet. I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia page for the movie and the trailer currently only has 373,000 views from Well Go USA Entertainment, the movie’s distributor. So that’s what leads me to believe that this will be more of a smaller to moderate release rather than a movie that’s going to be released everywhere.

And finally, in what is most likely another small to moderate release, we have the space movie Slingshot. This is distributed by Bleecker Street, so the release strategy could go either way, but it stars Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Tomer Capone as astronauts who are on a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Along this multi-year journey, that could potentially be a fatally endangered mission, one of the astronauts seems to start losing grip on reality. And that is about as much plot detail as I can discover, even by watching the trailers, but I’m sure there’s a few other layers to this space adventure. Honestly it reminds me a bit of the Adam Sandler space movie “Spaceman” that debuted on Netflix earlier this year, as well as “I.S.S.,” a space movie that was released in theaters in January. So there’s been a few of these smaller space movies scattered through 2024. In regards to a comparison, “I.S.S.” opened to $3.1 million and was also distributed by Bleecker Street, so that seems like a fair mark for “Slingshot.” Although “I.S.S.” was released during an empty weekend in January with no other new wide releases and thus managed 2,520 theaters. With six new releases on this weekend total, as well as all the holdovers from the month, “Slingshot” might not have the luxury of that many theaters. But if Bleecker Street actually stars marketing the movie, maybe it can catch some attention.