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.