The summer movie season has concluded and schools are back in session. If I were to briefly summarize the whole summer, I’d say it was mostly successful. I think we have to accept the fact that we are solidly in a “new normal” and will likely never fully get back to the levels we were at pre-COVID. But in context of this new normal, the summer has to be considered a success as it had several massive hits with the likes of “Lilo & Stitch,” “Superman,” and “Jurassic World: Rebirth” proving that audiences still will go out to the theaters if it’s the right title. Overall, the summer earned $3.596 billion at the domestic box office, which was a shade below 2024, which earned $3.632 billion, both of which were below the “Barbenheimer” summer of 2023 that reached $4.039 billion. For historical context, the highest grossing summer was 2013 with $4.754 billion. So again, we’re a far cry from those levels, but overall not terrible.
In terms of August specifically, this was, as expected, the quietest month. There wasn’t a whole lot left on the calendar capable of breaking out. When Hollywood doesn’t schedule a ton of major releases, there’s only so much that the box office can do. The biggest story of the month was the horror movie “Weapons,” which broke out in a big way, earning $132.7 million in August, winning the box office title three out of five weekends during August. It could’ve done four weekends, but Netflix snuck “KPop Demon Hunters” in theaters for two days and took one of those titles. Outside that, “Freakier Friday,” “The Bad Guys 2,” and “The Naked Gun” performed serviceably compared to their budget, while not a lot of somebodies saw “Nobody 2” and even less were caught seeing Darren Aronofsky’s latest, “Caught Stealing.”
Like I mentioned last month, August through October is typically one of the quietest times of the year for the box office, but we already have a major story to talk about for September and a few other potential breakout hits in waiting, so let’s get right into it!
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. Interestingly enough, I took a slight jab at the latter last month for not being particularly helpful anymore. Not that they read that post, but they did catch up on their long-range forecast, getting it to a month in advance again. So they’re back to being helpful, at least for this month. Anyways… the movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
September 5 – 7
 |
| Warner Bros.' "The Conjuring: Last Rites" |
Labor Day weekend was included in my August movie preview, so we only have one quick weekend to recap here, but it was led by Warner Bros. having a rather stunning opening weekend with The Conjuring: Last Rites, which set a new franchise record with $84 million this past weekend. For context, the previous high for the franchise was held by “The Nun” in 2018 with $53.8 million. In regards to the main series of Conjuring movies, the original opened to $41.8 million in 2013, while “The Conjuring 2” opened to $40.4 million. The third movie, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” opened to just $24.1 million. Granted, that was one of the first major releases in the COVID recovery era of 2021, and was also a hybrid release on HBO Max, which Warner Bros. did with all their movies that year, but still. $20-30 million has been the typical range for this franchise. We’re nine movies in, 10 if you count “The Curse of La Llorona,” and “The Nun,” “The Conjuring” and “The Conjuring 2” are the only three movies that even opened above $40 million. Even going into the weekend, Box Office Pro’s headline was “THE CONJURING Angling For $40M Debut.” Their range was $40-50 million. I’m not sure even the most generous of prognosticators predicted that it was double the opening of the first two movies. Had I gotten around to this post myself last week, I might’ve predicted closer to $30 million because it didn’t seem like there was a ton of awareness or demand for a fourth Conjuring film. I would’ve definitely been very wrong.
So what led to this massive opening that was far above what anyone expected? Well, in hindsight it’s a simple answer. It was advertised as the final movie in the Conjuring franchise, at least in the main series. James Wan, who directed the first two movies and was on board as writer and producer of this movie, called this the end of an era, while Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga said that this would be their final time playing Ed and Lorraine Warren, who the main series of films have focused on. The trailer also invites audiences to come and figure out why this is the case that ended it all, as the movie is loosely based on the Smurl haunting, where Jack and Janet Smurl alleged that a demon inhabited their home between 1974 and 1989. The Warrens were called to investigate in 1986 and thus in this Conjuring movie universe, that’s the year where our story takes place. Will this actually be the final movie in the Conjuring series? Well, never believe Hollywood when they say something is the final chapter. Especially when it’s a horror franchise and that “final chapter” opens to $84 million domestically and $187 million worldwide off of a $55 million budget. At the very least, there will be prequels or spin-offs. There’s no way Warner Bros. is going to shut the door on this franchise after that opening. But whether or not that ends up being true, that marketing tactic definitely worked in getting fans of the franchise out for “one final ride.” Reviews weren’t particularly strong, so this is likely to be very frontloaded, but this does continue Warner Bros.’ hot streak in 2025 as they’ve now opened seven movies in a row to at least $40 million. Will their streak continue with eight? Well, likely not. That next movie is “One Battle After Another” from Paul Thomas Anderson later this month, but we’ll get to that soon.
This weekend actually provided a few different options. And we’ll briefly get to all of them, but in regards to the other new wide release, the competition for The Conjuring was on the exact opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to genre and tone and that is the animated film Light of the World. So you can go hunt demons with the Warrens or you can learn about Jesus. Now fans of the Conjuring series might point out that the whole point of the movies is to prove that God exists and will overcome the devil if you turn to him for help, so the movies have a baseline in Christianity, albeit in a more unconventional way. But that doesn’t mean you can show them in Sunday School. “Light of the World” you might be able to, though. Premise is simple. It’s an animated movie about the life of Jesus, this one told from the perspective of the apostle John. The movie was produced and distributed by Salvation Poem Project. It was released in 2,075 theaters and came in ninth place with $2.4 million. Coincidentally, this was not the first animated movie about Jesus to come out this year as “The King of Kings” was released back in April by Angel Studios and opened to $19.4 million, earning $60.3 million total domestically. In live action or animation, there was even a third movie about the life of Jesus, as “The Last Supper” opened in March. And if you count TV coming to theaters, the fifth season of “The Chosen” also premiered this year as a fourth theatrical event about Jesus. So lots of opportunities to learn about Jesus in theaters this year.
While “The Conjuring: Last Rites” and “Light of the World” were the only two wide releases to hit theaters this weekend, there were a couple of other options. Disney released Hamilton in 1,825 theaters and that actually came in second place with $10.1 million. This is, of course, the recording of the Broadway play that Disney was going to put in theaters a few years ago, but it wound up on Disney+ instead due to COVID. Five years later, audiences finally have the option of seeing it in theaters. As another option, Universal re-released The Breakfast Club in 1,130 theaters in honor of its 40th anniversary. Over Labor Day weekend, Universal did the same for “Jaws” for its 50th anniversary. That anniversary re-release earned nearly $10 million, earning second place that weekend. However, there was a lot less interest in “The Breakfast Club” as it made just $334,235.
September 12 – 14
 |
| Ufotable's "Demon Slayer: Infinity Train" |
After its massive opening weekend, what is the likely expectation for “The Conjuring: Last Rites” in its second weekend? Taking a quick look at the second weekend drops of the franchise, most of the movies dropped between 53-57 percent. Only the original dropped less than that with 46 percent. That would put “Last Rites” in the $36-39 million range if it fell in line there. However, when you look at the daily charts of all the movies and specifically pay attention to the percent drops from day to day, the movie that “Last Rites” has aligned closest with is “The Nun,” which after earning the highest opening weekend in the franchise, also earned the biggest drop at 66 percent in its second weekend. Given the 57 percent score from critics for “Last Rites” and its B on CinemaScore (lower than the A- that the first two Conjuring movies got, as well as the B+ of the third), this does seem to be trending towards that heftier second weekend fall. If it does match up with “The Nun,” percentage-wise, that would mean a $28.5 million second weekend.
With that as the expected bar to dethrone “Last Rites,” is there any new releases this weekend that have the potential to hit that? Based on current buzz, the most likely title is Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. “Demon Slayer” is a Japanese anime TV series based on the manga of the same name. The original run for the manga was from 2016 – 2020, while the TV series began its first season in 2019. As of now it’s had four seasons, with 63 episodes total. If I were doing my own independent research, I would note that “Infinity Castle” is the fourth theatrical event that the franchise has had. In looking at the opening weekends domestically for the previous three, “Mugen Train” opened to $21.1 million in 2021, while “To the Swordsmith Village” opened to $10.1 million and “To the Hashira Training” opened to $11.5 million in 2024. That would suggest somewhere in the range of $10-20 million for “Infinity Castle.” However, in diving a bit deeper, “To the Swordsmith Village” and “To the Hashira Training” were both compilation films. Episodes of the show released in theaters. “Mugen Train” was a standalone film that took place after the first season and worldwide earned $506.5 million. “Infinity Castle” is also a standalone film, the first in a planned trilogy of films that adapts the Infinity Castle arc in the manga, taking place after the fourth season. New content vs. compilation film is the reason why this is also expected to earn more. Worldwide, it’s already earned nearly $300 million after debuting in Japan back in July. Many projections, including Box Office Pro, have this projected to earn as much as $50 million this weekend. That would be quite the insane total. But the popularity of Demon Slayer is building. Could this be the second franchise film this month that soars above expectations?
The competition for “Infinity Castle” is another fellow TV series follow-up and that is Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The original run for the TV series went from 2010 – 2015. It had six seasons, with a total of 52 episodes. This current movie is the third follow-up movie to the series, with the first simply being called “Downton Abbey,” released in September 2019. That opened to $31 million domestically and made $96 million total. Three years later, and with a pandemic in between, “Downton Abbey: A New Era” opened in May 2022 and cut the original totals in half, opening to $16 million and finishing with $44.1 million. As the subtitle to this film suggests, this promises to be the grand finale of the whole series. Whether or not that winds up being true, we saw with the Conjuring what happens when you promise in both the title and the marketing that this is it. Fans often come out and see it one more time. With Downton Abbey here, I am a bit more convinced that this might actually be the grand finale and I could thus at least see this coming close to the first movie’s $31 million. Had I not had the advantage of hearing buzz about “Demon Slayer,” I might suggest that “Downton Abbey” and “Demon Slayer” would be in a tight race, both fighting to get to that $30 million to top “The Conjuring.” But it seems more likely at this point that it’s “Downton Abbey” and “The Conjuring” fighting for second place, rather than a three-way duel.
While the two TV show follow-ups and “The Conjuring” battle it out in the top three, there is actually two additional wide releases this weekend, for a total of four new options for anyone wanting to head out to the theaters. Building buzz in the indie horror realm is the movie The Long Walk. This movie is based off of a Stephen King novel and the task is simple. Walk. The setting is a dystopian future and each year a group of young men enter this annual contest where they must maintain a walking speed of at least three miles per hour or get shot. The contest keeps going until there is only one walker alive. And if this seems like a horror spin on “The Hunger Games,” a dystopian future with a group of younger people forced to compete in an annual contest until only one remains alive, the amusing connection there is that this is directed by Francis Lawrence, who directed all but the first Hunger Games movie. This is far from a unique concept, though, with the 2000 movie “Battle Royale” and the recent Netflix series “Squid Game” also doing variations of this concept. The original Stephen King novel was released in 1979, so perhaps the other things are inspired by this story rather than the other way around. Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Josh Hamilton, and Roman Griffin Davis are among the walkers, while Mark Hamill is The Major who is running the competition. The projected opening is in the $10-15 million range.
Likely coming out on the bottom of the new releases, but certainly not to be forgotten about, is Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. This is the sequel to the 1984 film, “This is Spinal Tap,” which was a mockumentary about a fictional band called Spinal Tap, which first appeared on the 1979 sketch comedy pilot “The T.V. Show.” Ever since the movie, the actors have portrayed the band members at concerts and released music under the Spinal Tap name. “This is Spinal Tap” was the feature-length directorial debut for Rob Reiner, who directed the likes of “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride,” and “When Harry Met Sally…” right after, so he had quite the run. Rob Reiner is back directing this sequel mockumentary, which has the band reuniting after 15 years for one final concert. The original movie earned $5.8 million total domestically, which would adjust to about $15.9 million in today’s ticket prices, so I guess that would put it into cult classic range as it’s often seen as one of the best movies that was released in 1984. This sequel, however, doesn’t seem like it’s high on the radar as $4-6 million is the projected opening. It might have to rely on similar word of mouth as the original to make a name for itself.
And if all that is not appealing, the final option is the anniversary re-release of Toy Story, which will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, believe it or not. That’s 30 years of Pixar that’s now in the history books as the studio that changed animation is still very much going strong. And for better or for worse, so is the individual Toy Story franchise as “Toy Story 5” is currently set to be released next June. How well these re-releases are going to do is hard to predict. As mentioned early, “Jaws” earned nearly $10 million in its opening weekend, while “The Breakfast Club” followed a week later by not even cracking $500,000. One would think “Toy Story” would be a decent draw, especially with there not really being many big family films in the market at the moment, but people might choose to honor the anniversary by watching it at home on Disney+ instead.
September 19 – 21
 |
| Universal's "HIM" |
September arriving means football season has also arrived. And while that brings much joy to sports fans around the country, it appears to also be football season in the horror realm this weekend with the new horror film HIM. I’m not sure how many sports related horror films have existed in cinema history, but this movie looks like a unique combination of sports drama and “The Substance” as a young football star goes to great lengths to be the best, which includes training at the isolated compound of a dynasty team’s aging quarterback, who puts him through quite the blood-chilling journey. Marlon Wayons plays the aging quarterback while the up-and-coming star is played by Tyriq Withers. The movie is directed by Justin Tipping and got purchased by Jordan Peele’s production company, Monkeypaw Productions, meaning the advertising campaign gets to slap Jordan Peele’s name all over the marketing on this one. The prognosis of what will end up at No. 1 this weekend is a bit murky. “Demon Slayer” getting a second weekend on top seems like the most likely scenario, but anime tends to be pretty frontloaded, so that’s not necessarily a guarantee. “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” dropped 70 percent in weekend two for comparison. So if “HIM” manages to breakout and crack $20 million in its opening, it could be an interesting race this weekend. The current projection is $15-20 million, so that’s certainly within the range of possibilities.
Competing with the movie “HIM” this weekend will be A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, a movie that’s described as a romantic fantasy that stars Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell as two strangers that go on a magical adventure together. The trailer shows a door in the middle of the woods that they find and when they enter, it sends them back to a memory from their past. It appears that there’s many doors that they go through to learn various lessons and establish a connection. The movie reportedly was featured on the annual Black List in 2020 of popular screenplays that had not yet been produced. In 2024, it was announced that Korean filmmaker Kogonada, director of the 2022 indie hit “After Yang,” would direct the movie, with Sony Pictures distributing. So we have a football horror film competing with a romantic fantasy, which is a fun, unique face-off. Box Office Pro has this projected in the $10-15 million range, so a potential overlapping range for the two medium-budgeted films.
The final wide release of the weekend is the latest from Angel Studios, Rod Lurie’s The Senior. This is another football movie, which means we have two football movies to choose from this weekend. Although “The Senior” is probably more along the lines of your “traditional” sports drama rather than a sports horror film. That said, the story here is fairly unique. It tells the true story of Mike Flynt, who got kicked off his college football team, then returns 35 years later for his senior season of eligibility at the age of 59. Filming wrapped on the film back in 2022, so it’s had a bit of a journey in getting to theaters. It premiered at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival in November 2023 and was initially scheduled to be released in March of this year by Freestyle Releasing, then got removed from the calendar and picked up by Angel Studios and finally gets is release this weekend. Angel Studios has been pretty consistent with their releases. They’ve had two big hits with “Sound of Freedom” and “The King of Kings. But putting those aside as outliers, their other 12 releases from 2023 to now have averaged an opening weekend of $4.7 million and a domestic final total of $11.5 million. Their movie “Sketch” from last month, despite coming in with great reviews, had an opening weekend of just $2.4 million.
September 26 – 28
 |
| Warner Bros.' "One Battle After Another" |
The final weekend of September will be headlined by the latest film from prestigious director Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another. This is the 10th feature-length film from Anderson. He’s done plenty of music videos and a handful of shorts in between, which is why I specific “feature-length films” in giving that official count, but whenever he has a new movie, a certain crowd of people definitely pay attention. Yet despite having a filmography as a director that includes “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master,” Anderson has yet to win an Oscar, despite being nominated 11 times. Will this be the year he finally breaks through? Or at least has the Academy feel bad that they haven’t given him a win that they feel obligated to reward? We’ll see how that plays out as Awards season gets underway, but on paper this certainly seems like it has what it takes. It’s led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Penn, and has a whole lot of others joining the party as well in supporting roles. The trailer makes it seem like it’s quite the crazy adventure, but the basic premise follows a group of ex-revolutionaries reuniting to rescue one of their own’s daughter after an enemy of theirs resurfaces. As far as what this has the potential to do at the box office, I went to Anderson’s prior films to see if I can find a comparison and learned that this is his first movie to begin in wide release, so we’re in new territory here. Box Office Pro has this pegged at $15-20 million and Warner Bros. has been pushing this hard, but a potential cautionary tale is Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Steeling” in August also had similar projections, but wound up with just $7.8 million. Speaking of Warner Bros., they have a current streak on the line of seven straight movies to debut with at least $40 million. This seems highly unlikely to continue that, but they did give this a production budget of $140 million, which is by far the biggest budget Anderson has had to work with. So given that, I’m sure Warner Bros. would really like this to be a huge surprise, otherwise it’s poised to be a money-loser for them.
From prestigious Oscar affair to a family adventure for young girls, the competition for Paul Thomas Anderson comes in the form of Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie, which is a live-action/animation hybrid film from DreamWorks animation based on the Netflix series “Gabby’s Dollhouse” that began in 2021 and was created by “Blue’s Clues” veterans Traci Paige Johnson and Jennifer Twomey. In this movie adventure, Gabby goes on a road trip with her grandma to the “urban wonderland” of Cat Francisco, but unfortunately has her dollhouse taken be the evil, eccentric cat lady named Vera. Can the manage to save the dollhouse before it’s too late? I’m not sure exactly what to compare this one to, outside maybe something like “My Little Pony: The Movie,” which opened to $8.9 million in October 2017, but we have had a lack of family affair recently at the box office for parents to take the kids to. This audience was spoiled in May and June with “Lilo & Stitch,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Elio,” but there wasn’t much in July or August, and outside this title, the next big family film isn’t really until “Zootopia 2” on Thanksgiving, so theoretically speaking the market is ready. Although there was *something* in July and that was “Smurfs,” which was mostly ignored to the tune of an $11.1 million opening. Considering the 2011 movie earned $563 million worldwide, I’m sure Paramount was hoping for a tad bit more with that one. Moral of the story, an open market doesn’t guarantee success. And with the very specific niche audience for “Gabby’s Dollhouse,” perhaps the $8-11 million range is correct.
The movie we end this preview on is the sequel to a movie that perhaps you forgot existed. That movie is The Strangers: Chapter 2. This is the middle chapter in a planned trilogy. Chapter 1 opened in May 2024 to $11.8 million, finishing with $35.2 million domestically and $47.4 million worldwide. That’s actually not terrible considering the production budget was only $8.5 million. This is how we have long-running horror franchises, despite terrible reviews and poor box office totals. The bar for financial success is really low. The general premise with “The Strangers” is that it’s a psychological home invasion horror series. A trio of masked psychopaths break into a young couple’s home and terrorize them. That’s basically it. The series began in 2008 with “The Strangers,” which had mixed critical reception initially, but has since developed into somewhat of a cult classic. The sequel in 2018, “The Strangers: Prey at Night,” not so much. And now we’re journeying down this road of a new trilogy, which promises to eventually go in “new and unexpected ways,” as well as exploring the background of where the killers came from. Whether or not this is successful at that is to be determined, but that’s at least the goal. Chapter 1 didn’t get off to a great start, earning a Rotten Tomatoes score of 21 percent and barely feeling like it was part of any sort of conversation last year, despite the box office performance that was good enough for its budget. That doesn’t provide a ton of good will for Chapter 2, making it seem like the first movie’s $11.8 million is the ceiling rather than the floor, but we’ll see if there are enough fans that show up anyways.
