DrogeMiester's Top 10 BEST Movies of 2022

It’s that time of year again! Time for me to release the list of my personal favorite movies from the previous year! And, man, what a great year we had in 2022. In looking specifically at the three years we’ve had so far this decade, in my opinion 2022 easily blows the other two years out of the water. And I look at my list from those two years and still like how they turned out. Sure, maybe the COVID of it all puts those two years at a slight bit of a handicap, but I also looked at my lists from the previous decade and I think my top three movies of 2022 would take the top three spots of most of those years as well. So that should put a bit of a perspective on things as you read through this.

As per the usual, I didn’t see every movie this year. In fact, my overall count might be a tad bit on the lower side of things compared to previous years, which gives me plenty to catch up on. But that’s an ongoing process for every year. There’s some movie podcasts I listen to where the people have watched over 300 movies. And still have things to catch up on. Meanwhile, I don’t think I even hit 100. But at some point you have to call it and post your list and that list stands as a snapshot in time of what you felt in that moment about the previous year. Then you come back and add to it later and even redo it 5-10 years down the road if you want. That said, I still feel confident about what I’ve put together here as I’m good at keeping my finger on the pulse of what I should be seeing. And I’m excited to finally share it with all of you, especially since I did a lot less reviewing this year, even though I mostly kept up on my watching, which means some of these might be the first time you’re hearing about them from me. Anyways, enough with the chatter. Let’s get into the top 10!

10- Bullet Train

We start this list off with one of the most absurdly entertaining movies of the year. Brad Pitt plays a hitman who is hired to simply board a train and steal a briefcase. Easy enough, right? Well, he’s either the luckiest man alive or the unluckiest man alive, depending on your vantage point, because this briefcase is attached to something much deeper, with many people boarding this train to search for it. Before you know it, this whole movie is littered with various characters, cameos, and story arcs. And while, conceptually, that idea flirts with being too busy and too messy, in this particular case the more layers that were added, the more absurdly funny and wild this action comedy was. Almost the entire movie takes place either on this bullet train or on the various train stations next to it, yet the world of this movie was more deep and expansive than most action movies I’ve seen. And you learn all of that from the various interactions from these characters on the train. The movie definitely does not take itself seriously at all and if you fall in line and just want to have a fun evening, this is a perfect choice. Honestly, out of all the movies on this list, this one might be the most rewatchable.

9- Vengeance

Most of the movies on my list are fairly high profile films in terms of people being aware of their existence. This one, on the other hand, has a very strong chance of you having never even heard of it. It came out in late summer with very little fanfare and made just $4.3 million at the domestic box office. If you happen to be among the few to have actually seen it, there’s a solid chance you probably enjoyed it. But among the best of the year in a very strong year? Yeah, I might be one of the few in that camp. And I will admit that’s because this is very uniquely personal to me. First, it’s about a journalist trying to find his place in the world. Second, it takes place mostly in West Texas, which is where I served a two-year mission for my church. Combine those two elements with the fact that it’s a whodunit mystery/thriller, which is one of my favorite genres, and yeah this hit for me. It got the journalist angle perfectly. It nailed the culture of West Texas. And it was a very intriguing mystery. You could also call it a dark comedy because the movie was hilarious, despite it being about the murder of a woman, who our main protagonist is called in to investigate. Her family is convinced that he was her lover, even though he only had a one-night stand with her. But he stays for very selfish reasons and stumbles on a very intriguing case that helps him grow a lot along the way. If you need other motivations to see it, it’s the feature-length directorial debut of B.J. Novak, star of “The Office.”

8- RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt

Speaking of absurdly entertaining movies, “RRR” is an absolutely bonkers movie that probably breaks every rule of cinema and certainly follows no laws of physics, but is absolutely better because of it. It’s the type of thing where if you know what rules you are supposed to follow, you also know the proper time to break them. I mean, in your movie about a revolution against the British government, why not have a giant action scene that involves unleashing an entire swarm of wild animals onto your enemies or have one British soldier fight off an entire mob of people in the opening scene? Or come rushing into the heat of the action with one protagonist riding on the shoulders of another protagonist while yielding two rifles. But in the midst of all of this, we do manage to have quite the epic saga between two friends, both undercover, who develop an unbreakable bond while not realizing they are on completely opposite sides. Beautiful character growth and a surprising amount of emotion, with fantastic acting, and a conclusion to their arcs that is fully satisfying. And, oh yeah, there’s a giant music and dance number in the middle of the film that just got nominated for best original song at the Oscars. Because… why not? It’s the best three hours that you’ll ever spend. And I’ve watched it twice… this month.

7- Pearl

Here’s my pick for best horror movie of 2022. Despite not being represented much on this particular top 10 list, it was a solid all-around year for horror, especially when it comes to the indie horror scene. In the said indie horror scene, “Pearl” was quite the unique film in that it was the prequel to the movie “X,” which also came out in 2022. And the third movie in the trilogy, titled “MaXXXine” will be coming out very soon. Sure, horror sequels and prequels are as common as they get, but to have a prequel come out in the same calendar year, when the first wasn’t even a box office hit? Director Ti West clearly got the green light from A24 to make a trilogy of indie horror films, which he appears to have made back-to-back-to-back. Your mileage may vary on whether you like “X” or “Pearl” more. Film Twitter is certainly split. But I’m clearly on the train of “Pearl,” which is the origin story for this murderous female psychopath named Pearl. Set in 1918, stylistically this is shot and presented like a retro 1950s horror film and looks like something the master himself, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock, could’ve made. In fact, in terms of following a character’s descent into madness, I saw so many parallels to the movie “Psycho,” a movie I often claim as my all-time favorite. I don’t use that comparison lightly. But this movie absolutely blew me away. Now that the year has officially passed, I can say with confidence that Mia Goth gave my favorite performance of the year. The final sequence alone should’ve earned her an Oscar. It’s too bad that the Academy is allergic to horror, though, because she wasn’t even in the conversation.

6- The Fabelmans

A movie about the movies. From another master of film, Steven Spielberg. But this is not just a movie that celebrates movies, this is a movie directed towards lovers of film that shows how the magic of filmmaking can be a driving force in one’s life, for better or sometimes for worse. Obviously I’m easy prey for that, but I think this is Spielberg’s best work since the 90s, where he put out movies like “Saving Private Ryan,” “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List.” And I say that with the opinion that his recent slate films in the 2000s and 2010s are fairly underrated. But this one is a deeply personal film for Spielberg as he basically tells the story of his childhood, under the guise of a fictional family called the Fabelmans. Hearing Spielberg speak about how difficult this movie was to make and how much it meant to him as the movie he’s wanted to make for decades now really touched me. And I can feel the passion behind this as I watch the story of his life, split into three different sections from his childhood – his time as a kid in New Jersey, his adolescence in Phoenix, and finally his high school days in Los Angeles. And you see how film shaped him in every part of his life in different ways. Not only did that really speak to me, but I also found myself deeply invested in the story of this whole family. Not just the character who represented young Steven, but also his father, mother, and sisters. This is a beautiful coming of age story centered around the relationship between a boy and his mother and the many trials they go through. Even though the writing on the wall is there about what’s going to happen, seeing it all play out was quite the emotional experience that left me rather moved.

5- The Northman

Robert Eggers made a movie about Vikings. That’s all you really need to know here about why this was an incredible experience. For context, Robert Eggers is the director of both “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.” Those two together with “The Northman” shows that Eggers has a fascinating niche in stories he likes to tell as he apparently loves to tell stories from eras past, being extremely brutal and honest about what happened, while using dialogue straight from that era rather than trying to modernize it all or water it down for casual audiences. In doing so, he’s created some movies that are very thematically rich and deep with emotion. And if you think about how brutal and horrifying the Vikings were in history, you can imagine how intense Eggers goes with his interpretation of them. The fun part of this is that the specific story here is based on the legend of Amleth, the direct inspiration for Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” So yeah, if you know “Hamlet” or any of its thousands of adaptations or interpretations, this will be a familiar ride. A casual person might directly connect this to “The Lion King,” realizing that they’re pretty much the same movie, but with Vikings instead of Lions. And no, that connection didn’t lighten the experience for me. In fact, it enhanced it for me knowing that Eggers took such a classic story and made perhaps the most brutal and magnificent version of it. According to IMDb, Eggers’ next film will either be a remake of “Nosferatu” or a movie called “The Knight.” Based on what we’ve seen so far, both of those ideas sound rather intriguing.  

4- Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

In 2022 we had, not one… not two… but THREE versions of “Pinocchio.” And according to Wikipedia, the list of “Pinocchio” adaptations is a very long one. And apparently Disney in 1940 wasn’t even the first one to attempt an adaptation of this 1880s children’s novel. Why this is such a popular story to do over and over is beyond me. In fact, going into the year I saw two major adaptions on the calendar and very grumpily put both in the “bad” section of my 2022 preview. Turns out I was right on one account, but very wrong on Guillermo’s account. The third was basically a straight-to-video quality of film, or whatever the 2022 version of that is. But anyways, back to Guillermo, I don’t know how he did, but he somehow took one of the most familiar stories ever told and created what I think is the absolute best version of that. When he starts by telling a backstory of how Geppetto lost his own son and how that led him to create this wooden puppet called Pinocchio, I knew I was immediately in trouble. And yeah, if you’ve lost someone you loved, whether it be a child, a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend, or whoever, this movie will emotionally wreck you. It’s all about life, love, and loss, using the story of Pinocchio to tell that. And it doesn’t even do anything drastically different with the story, it just creates a much more refined version of the story around every turn that winds up having much more to say than any version of this story that I’ve seen. And, oh yeah, it’s also done in stop motion animation, which means the actual craft of the film took forever to do as well.

3-Top Gun: Maverick

This one needs no introduction. It’s the highest grossing movie of 2022 at the domestic box office with over $700 million domestically. It was topped by “Avatar: The Way of Water” worldwide, but the latter had a Chinese release and “Maverick” did not, so that’s not the perfect apples-to-apples comparison. Anyways, if you only saw one movie last year, there’s a good chance it was this one. And for great reason. I’ve met very few people, if any, who have had anything negative to say about “Maverick.” And the impressive thing for me is that I watched the original “Top Gun” also for the first time this past year and didn’t care for it. It’s a movie that’s very “of its time” and doesn’t hold up too well. Given that belated sequels for movies from decades past rarely works out, it’s very impressive to me that not only did they make a good sequel, but they made a sequel that’s much better than the original. Yes, that is possible. And I think Tom Cruise is a big reason why. The man has only gotten better as his career has progressed and if you follow the “Mission: Impossible” movies, you’ll know that he puts everything into making his next project better and more intense than the previous one. In which case, “Top Gun: Maverick” feels like a “Mission: Impossible” meets “Top Gun” meets… Star Wars? But yeah, they have the technology today to make a movie like this work much better. They have a star who is much more refined and won’t accept anything subpar. And they had a writer and director who also managed to write a very powerful, emotional story to go along with the best IMAX experience I’ve ever had. There’s a reason why “Top Gun: Maverick” is the movie of 2022 and I fully agree.

2- The Batman

“Top Gun: Maverick” would be a great pick for my favorite movie of 2022 if it weren’t for the existence of these next two movies. Matt Reeves took the reins with the Batman franchise and gave me exactly what I was hoping for and expecting. After directing the last two movies in the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy and choosing to cast Robert Pattinson as Batman, I knew we were in for a treat. What he created was a dark and gritty portrayal of Gotham that felt very real and lived in. Sure, that’s what every Batman has been since Tim Burton’s 1989 film, but Reeves took that feel and created what felt like an homage to a David Fincher crime/thriller, with a Year Two Batman played brilliantly by Pattinson that leaned a lot more on the Detective Batman side of things, while also showcasing how unsure of himself he was. It felt very much like Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman hunting down the seven deadly sins serial killer in “Se7en,” but with a combination of Bruce Wayne, Alfred, and Lt. Gordon instead hunting down the Riddler, played hauntingly by Paul Dano, who had himself quite the year. I think his Riddler was on par with Heath Ledger’s Joker and I think the movie itself was on par with “The Dark Knight.” I’m glad it got three Oscar nominations, but it deserved 10+. The fact that a long-time DC fan in myself puts this in conversation of being the best DC movie ever made should’ve made this a slam-dunk pick for my best of the year. Coming out initially, I thought that’s what was going to happen. However, a few weeks later…

1- Everything Everywhere All At Once

Y’alls. This one is an all-timer for me. I’m absolutely stunned and floored that this movie exists and works as well as it does. I also think it’s kinda amusing that, right in between the releases of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” came a small indie film from A24 that completely showed Marvel up. And I really enjoyed both of those Marvel movies. But this is how you do a multiverse movie. It’s as insane and wacky as you want a multiverse movie to be. But somehow, instead of going so insane that it drove itself right off of a cliff, every single frame of this movie comes together in a way that feels calculated and planned out. There are so many off-the-wall pieces to this wild puzzle that somehow come together perfectly to create a beautiful masterpiece of a film. After being sent through an absurdly zany ride that puts a huge smile on your face, you also end up bawling your face off with how emotional of a story this ends up being with this small family. Major round of applause to the Oscar-nominated Michelle Yeoh, Oscar-nominated Stephanie Hsu, Oscar-nominated Jamie Lee Curtis, and the Oscar nominated Ke Huy Quan for putting on an absolute acting clinic in this movie. And a major standing ovation to the Oscar-nominated directing duo of The Daniels, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for being the masterminds behind all this. Clearly I won’t be too upset if “The Fabelmans” or “Top Gun: Maverick” end up winning best picture. But I’m impressed that the conversation behind this film lasted the entire year and resulted in this being an 11-time Oscar nominated film. Crossing my fingers that it finishes the marathon with a best picture trophy.

Honorable Mentions 

With the top 10 behind us, here's the next set of movies that just barely missed the cut. Again, with how great of a year it was, it saddened me that I couldn't fit some of these in, but that's what happens when I commit myself to only doing a top 10.

11- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish 

12- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery 

13- The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

14- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 

15- A Man Called Otto 

16- She Said 

17- Violent Night 

18- Turning Red 

19- Babylon

20- Bodies Bodies Bodies 

21- Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

22- All Quiet On the Western Front 

23- The Menu 

24- Barbarian

25- The Black Phone

And a special honorable mention to the movie "Cyrano." Based on my last year parameters in crowning "The Father" as my favorite movie of 2021, even though many considered it a 2020 film,  "Cyrano" would qualify for 2022. And it would slide in at No. 6 on this list. All it got in 2021 was an Oscar-qualifying run, but it didn't hit regular theaters, limited or nationwide, until February of 2022. I don't count Festival releases or Oscar-qualifying runs when putting together these lists. Just its theatrical release. But for some reason it just felt weird to put "Cyrano" on, so I took it off. But regardless of release date shenanigans, you should find it and check it out because it's incredible. Peter Dinklage should've gotten nominated for best actor and the release strategy in general should've been handled much better because it was another one of those movies that deserved 10+ nominations, but it got ignored by everyone and made nothing at the box office. 

Movie Preview: January 2023

Is it 2023 already?

The ending of a year, for me, means that it’s time to start working on my series of year-in-review posts. For this blog that means my top 10 favorite movies of the previous year as well as my preview of what’s coming up this current year. And that’s a lot of fun to dive into, even if only for my own personal reflection. But before we do all that, I like to first get my January movie preview complete. Then after that we’ll dive into the 2023 preview as a whole before finishing by looking back on my favorite movies of 2022.

So… January.

Historically speaking, this has always been an interesting month for new releases. Typically if a studio has a big blockbuster they want to get audiences to, a holiday release the month before is the way to go. And if a studio wants to push a movie for potential awards, releasing the movie towards the end of the year keeps it fresh on the minds of voters. Releasing it during the first month of the year makes it nearly impossible to get any consideration, so the implications of that is such that January becomes a bit of a wasteland for new releases while holiday holdovers dominate the box office and previous year’s awards contenders expand to wide release around the time of Oscar nominations for a final push.

In the latter category, this season was a bit of a weak one for the late year awards movies, at least in terms of reception from general audiences. Movies like “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “The Fabelmans,” “TAR” and “Women Talking,” while getting high praise from critics and attention from the awards voters, have been mostly ignored by general audiences with poor box office totals, comparatively. And in regards to holiday holdovers, there’s one. And pretty much only one. That’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The follow-up of my deep dive last month on this film is that it very much succeeded. In less than a month of release as of this post, it’s already become the highest grossing film worldwide of 2022 with $1.5 billion. And its domestic total of just under $500 million trails only “Top Gun: Maverick” on the year. And that’s interesting considering it opened on the lower end of pre-release expectations and fell fairly sharply in its second weekend, causing some to prematurely label it as a disappointment. But the holiday box office is a marathon, not a sprint.

Will it end up matching the totals of the first “Avatar,” that of $2.7 billion worldwide and $760 million domestically (in its initial run)? Maybe not quite, but the fact that those numbers aren’t completely out of the realm of possibilities or that it will come awfully close if it falls a bit short tells enough of a story. Any reports of it being a disappointment in any way, at least financially, are outrageously laughable. But this month will tell the story of exactly how high it can finish as it’s likely to keep the top spot at the box office the whole month, due mostly to the lack of major options.

But yes, there still are new releases on the schedule and since this post is what that’s all about, let’s actually step in and explore what will be hitting theaters this month. 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 wide release in the United States and Canada are always subject to change.

January 6 – 8

Universal's "M3GAN"

Due to factors mentioned in this post’s introduction, there is the stigma that “nothing good comes out in January.” Turns out that might be proven false this time around right in the first weekend as M3GAN rings in the new year as a new creepy doll horror film for audiences to check out. This concept is certainly far from original, with “Anabelle” and “Child’s Play” being obvious examples. M3GAN is an artificially intelligent robotic doll that is programmed to be a young girl’s best friend, and to protect her at all costs. And well, like with all movies regarding creepy dolls or anything artificially intelligent, things are going to go wrong as M3GAN is going to become a little overly protective to an extreme fault.

January has actually been a solid month for horror films. This initial weekend of the year has provided plenty of breakout horror films, which thus makes sense for Universal to stake claim on the weekend with “M3GAN.” What might separate “M3GAN” from a lot of these other outings are reviews that are surprisingly very high as the movie is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with a current score of 93 percent. Now if one looks closely, not many are calling this a horror masterpiece, but the fact that critics are nearly unanimous in calling this a fun, self-aware horror comedy should speak volumes to what this movie’s potential could be. It’s had a very aggressive marketing push in the weeks leading up to its release and even has a user-friendly PG-13 rating that should attract even more of a younger audience. Cap that off with great reviews and it looks to have hit the perfect formula for success.

Current tracking for its opening weekend has the movie pegged right in the range of last year’s “Smile” ($22.6 million) and “The Black Phone” ($23.6 million). Positive word of mouth and lack of competition could cause the movie to at least flirt with a $100 million domestically when all is said and done. “The Black Phone” hit $90 million and “Smile” hit $105 million. And considering the $12 million budget of “M3GAN,” that means we should be seeing plenty more of this doll in years to come.

UPDATE: I typed this before the weekend, yet was delayed in getting it out. “M3GAN” opened to $30 million, higher than expectations and with better day-to-day holds compared to the other movies mentioned. Rather than retype this paragraph, maybe it’ll be interesting to some to see what was expected vs. what actually happened. It opened in second place behind “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which had a $45 million fourth weekend – the second best fourth weekend ever behind only the original “Avatar” with $50.3 million.

January 13 – 16

Sony Pictures' "A Man Called Otto"

The second weekend of January has four new wide releases. Whether any of them garner any attention over the four-day holiday weekend, with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday the 16th, is a different story. But they will at least be options. Leading the way will be Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto. This is a movie I actually brought up last month. I had it pegged as a Christmas Day release. Turns out it opened on December 30 instead, earning $56,257 from four theaters on that weekend, for a solid per-theater average of $14,064. And it is actually expanding to about 650 theaters in the first weekend of January before officially getting a wide release in this second weekend. And while my tone last month was a bit cynical at this remake of the 2015 Swedish film, “A Man Called Ove,” the surprise so far is that the movie has been decently well received. It’s hanging in there with a critics score around 70 percent and a much higher audience score of 96 percent. While it’s not likely to score too many Oscar nominations, outside Tom Hanks possibly sneaking into best actor, this has the potential to be a decent mid-range hit, especially with the popularity of Hanks and a role that he looks perfect for.

After two positively received options with “M3GAN” and “A Man Called Otto,” traditional January affair is not lost this month with Gerard Butler’s Plane crash-landing this weekend. Say what you will about Gerard Butler, but the man is at least extremely consistent with the types of movies he puts out. And I’m sure that means he has a lot of fun playing these types of action/disaster movies. “Plane” sees him as a pilot who is forced to land his commercial aircraft after he hits a terrible storm and that finds him in the middle of a war zone. So yeah, if one has seen any Gerard Butler films, this seems to be on par with most everything else. And that can be a positive if people know what they’re getting into and are perfectly satisfied with a Gerard Butler action film that requires little brainpower. The movie is expected to open in the single digit million range, although Butler has surprised before in January, with “Den of Thieves” opening to $15.2 million in January 2018. His “…Has Fallen” series has consistently opened around $20-30 million, while “Geostorm” hit $13.7 million, meaning there’s potential for “Plane” to not necessarily be completely dead on arrival.

A movie with perhaps a bit more potential than “Plane” is the comedy House Party. This is a movie about two friends who are out of money and down on their luck that decide to host a big party at the house they were last hired to clean, that of basketball player LeBron James. While the main two leads are lesser known actors and the movie is directed by Calmatic, who is mostly known for directing music videos, the draw of the film comes with the cameos in this party, with LeBron being the big one, as he also produces the film. And the fact that this is a remake of a 1990 film of the same name, which has become a cult classic. Whether or not that’s a positive note in regards to people’s reaction to the movie could be up for debate, but that nevertheless gives attention to the movie. And if it has some attention, that could give it the potential to deliver decent numbers in a quiet month.

While horror movies can do well in January, even with varying degrees of quality, they also have the potential to show up and simply end up on no one’s radar, which seems to be the initial prognosis for The Devil Conspiracy. Based on the trailer, the plot of this movie seems to be more ambitious than your traditional horror film. A Satanic cult steals the shroud of Christ, giving them access to Christ’s DNA, helping them give the ultimate offering to the devil. This appears to lead to an eventual battle of Lucifer and the archangel Michael, each taking hosts from Earth to allow them to return, which seems akin to the TV show “Supernatural.” But if you’re going to release a movie and have it make money, you have to advertise it. I had to search to find even a bit of information on this after seeing it on the schedule. It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page and has almost nothing on IMDb. It’s also from a brand new production company called Third Day Productions. So whether or not this is actually getting a wide release and how much it will make is something I’m currently questioning.

January 20 – 22

Sony Pictures' "Missing"

Barring a surprise breakout from one of the films from the previous weekend, a quiet second weekend should be followed by an even quieter third weekend. Leading the light load of new releases will be the new thriller Missing, which is advertised as being from the team behind the 2018 movie “Searching,” which was a mystery/thriller that was essentially a found footage movie, but with social media, computer cameras, news stories, and the like. So a fairly unique concept. Reports are that it took 13 days to film, but a year and a half to edit. Said editing team of Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick are back to… direct “Missing,” also getting credit for writing the screenplay, with a story by the original writer and director team. So I suppose they’re playing musical chairs with their roles, but it’s a similar concept as “Searching.” Wikipedia has it labeled as a “computer screen mystery thriller,” with the story following a teen girl using various technologies to try to find her mother, who’s gone missing. For the sake of box office comparison, “Searching” opened to $6.1 million in its first weekend of wide release and rode good reviews to a $26 million domestic total.

The next entry on this list is a bit of a question. Box Office Pro says in their long range forecast that there’s an Untitled Crunchyroll Film scheduled for this weekend, as well as another on February 3. The-Numbers.com doesn’t list either of those, but has an Untitled Crunchyroll on February 14. Crunchyroll doesn’t necessarily bring a lot of fanfare leading up to their releases, but often are able to get the niche audience in with strong numbers. Last year they released “One Piece Film: Red” and “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero,” which opened with $9.3 million and $21.1 million, respectively. So whatever they have up their sleeve, if anything, it has potential to do numbers on a quiet weekend.

In other animation news, GKIDS has the domestic release of New Gods: Yang Jian scheduled. This is the sequel to the 2021 movie “New Gods: Nezha Reborn,” which made $70.1 million worldwide, most of that in China. In just about every other country, the movie was released on Netflix. “Yang Jian” has already had a theatrical release in China in August of last year, where it made $82.4 million. Whether or not this domestic release of “Yang Jian” is a true wide release in over 1,000 theaters or is in just a couple hundred is something we’ll find out later, but GKIDS films are targeted at more of a niche crowd, so this isn’t going to do huge numbers. GKIDS had one movie last year open over $1 million, that being “Belle” with $1.6 million. The other three were less than $1 million: “The Deer King” ($251,169), “Inu-Oh” ($191,004), and “Goodbye Don Glees!” ($32,096). So that’s the range we’re looking at here.

On the expansion front, Women Talking is scheduled for a wide release this weekend after having underwhelming performances in limited release so far. I talked more about that movie in last month’s preview. Alice, Darling is a psychological thriller starring Anna Kendrick as a woman stuck in an abusive relationship who gains a bit confidence from her two friends and might be out for vengeance. It had its release back at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and got its Oscar qualifying run in December. So it played the game right, but has had no awards fanfare, which doesn’t help it much. But it’ll have a chance to expand wide and see if general audiences will pay attention. Speaking of Oscars, the nominations will be announced on January 24, so those movies that do get nominations will take advantage of that by expanding into more theaters around this time.

January 27 – 29

NEON's "Infinity Pool"

As just mentioned in the most recent paragraph, Oscar nominations are on Tuesday, January 24 and that’ll likely impact this weekend to a degree. Outside that, whatever ends up being the top movie of the last two weekends will likely get another week at top to finish January. At this point, unless “A Man Called Otto” breaks out, that could very well still be “Avatar: The Way of Water” simply due to a lack of competition. The two movies scheduled for a wide release on this weekend certainly won’t do that.

Of the two, the one that’s most notable is Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, a movie about a couple who are enjoying a perfectly good stay at an island resort, until they wander outside the resort grounds and find a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror. The movie stars Alexander Skarsgard and Mia Goth in the lead roles. Brandon Cronenberg has made some small films, like “Possessor” in 2020 and “Antiviral” in 2012, but is probably most notable as being the son of filmmaker David Cronenberg, most notable for movies such as the 1986 remake of “The Fly,” “Dead Ringers,” and more recently “Eastern Promises,” “A Dangerous Method,” and last year’s “Crimes of the Future.” Putting it lightly, it doesn’t appear that either Cronenberg is interested in making movies that appeal to the masses. David Cronenberg is most known for being of the principal originators of the body horror genre and it appears that Brandon is attempting to follow in his footsteps. Point in case, “Infinity Pool” was initially given an NC-17 rating, appealed and lost, then was only given an R after re-editing the movie. It will premiere at Sundance a week early before hitting general audiences this weekend.

The final movie of the weekend and the month is not one I’m really sure exists, or will have much of an impact at all. It’s a horror movie called Fear. Maybe I say that because of that extremely original title, the fact that it’s being released by what appears to be a new distribution company called Hidden Empire Releasing, has a no-name cast, and/or a generic premise where group of friends go for a getaway at a remote hotel and one-by-one are forced to face their worst fear. At least I know that in its favor is that it has a director in Deon Taylor who has made real movies that have made money, but with a filmography that includes “Meet the Blacks,” “Traffik,” “The Intruder,” “Black and Blue” and “Fatale,” that still doesn’t inspire of ton of confidence given that none of those have high remarks from pretty much anyone. The highest box office of the bunch is “The Intruder,” which opened to $10.9 million. But most of the rest were movies that opened below $5 million, which seems to be where this latest is headed. But hey, it will at least be an option at some theaters.

Movie Preview: December 2022

Merry Christmas, one and all! We have entered the month of December, which means it’s time to look at what will be available for you to watch in theaters during the Christmas and holiday season.

Of note, I did not get around to making this post for last month. My deepest apologies for that. I did post an abbreviated version on my personal Facebook in the middle of the month, but not anything that gets saved in the archives of this blog. Nevertheless, November was a month wherein “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” dominated, as expected. It may not have gone quite as high as I personally would’ve thought, but a $180 million domestic opening is nothing to sneeze at. It’s on track to cross the $500 million mark domestically before its run is over, which is always an impressive feat.

Outside “Wakanda Forever,” nothing really broke out. Disney experienced one of their worst flops with “Strange World.” Netflix left a lot of money on the table with “Glass Onion.” Sony’s “Devotion” failed to take flight. Meanwhile, “One Piece Film: Red” and “The Menu” wound up as decent mid-range options, while “She Said,” “The Fabelmans,” “Bones and All” and “The Inspection” all officially entered the theatrical market with hopes for awards love. Audiences haven’t yet flocked to any of those, but they’re all looking to play the long game with the awards season, so all is not lost as of yet. One big sleeper on the month was not even a movie at all, but the first two episodes of season 3 of “The Chosen” were released in theaters and wound up with an impressive $13 million so far.

So that’s your brief recap of what ended up happening in November. Looking ahead to December, after audiences visited Wakanda in November they’ll now finally get a return to Pandora, which should dominate most headlines this month. But there will be plenty of other options that will hopefully look to make at least more of an impact than some of the November releases, with plenty of final Oscar hopefuls at least getting their Oscar qualifying run in added into the mix, so with at least plenty to talk about, let’s dive in!

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 theatrical release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change. 

December 2 – 4

Universal's "Violent Night"

Santa Claus is coming to town this Christmas season and, in this instance, he has a bit of a bone to pick with certain people as the movie Violent Night kicks off the holiday season. Yes, this is a movie with Santa as the lead character, but unlike your traditional Christmas affair, in order to save Christmas this Santa has to fight off a group of mercenaries who come attack the estate of a wealthy family. Thus we have a violent Christmas action film reminiscent of “Die Hard” or “John Wick,” but with Santa as the main action star. “Stranger Things” star David Harbour plays Santa in this movie, while David Leitch – co-director of “John Wick” and solo director of “Atomic Blonde,” “Deadpool 2,” “Hobbs & Shaw,” and “Bullet Train” – is on board as producer, bringing his action expertise to the table. The movie’s actual director is Tommy Wirkola, who directed the 2013 film “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” so you can say he’s used to outlandish premises based off of traditional fairy tales.

While “Wakanda Forever” is likely to take its fourth weekend at No. 1, “Violent Night” hopes to play like “Krampus,” another unconventional Christmas movie that opened on the first weekend of December in 2015. “Krampus” opened to $16.3 million and legged it out to $42.7 million domestically in its final run. Box Office Pro is officially projecting a $9.8 million opening weekend.

While “Violent Night” is the only new wide release of the weekend, two notable awards hopefuls will be hitting limited release. The first is the controversial return of Will Smith in Emancipation. This movie sees Will Smith play a runaway slave and is directed by Antoine Fuqua. Normally coming off of an Oscar win, this would be the perfect way to follow up for a potential back-to-back Oscar push. But as most of the world knows, Will’s win was overshadowed by what is now known as “the slap.” Some thought that “Emancipation” would be pushed into 2023 because of this, but Apple decided to go ahead with it this year, anyways. After its limited run this weekend, which may eventually see it expand to more theaters, the movie is scheduled to debut on Apple TV+ the following weekend on December 9.

The other limited release of this weekend is romantic comedy/drama Spoiler Alert. This tells the true story of Michael Ausellio, a TV journalist who was the founder and editor-in-chief of tvline.com, and his husband Kit Cowan, who suffered from a rare form of neuroendocrine cancer. The movie is based off of Ausellio’s 2017 memoir, “Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-Letter Words,” which chronicled their love and relationship. Ausellio and Cowan in the movie are played by Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge, respectively, and the movie is directed by Michael Showalter, director of “The Big Sick.” After its limited release this weekend, it’s scheduled for a nationwide expansion the next week. 

December 9 – 11

A24's "The Whale"

The second weekend of December is poised to be a very light one. The calm before the storm, one might say, which should lead “Wakanda Forever” to get a fifth weekend at No. 1, barring a major over-performance of “Violent Night.” There’s only one new wide release this weekend and it’s not really a “new” release, but it’s Father Stu: Reborn. This is a PG-13 re-release of “Father Stu,” which initially opened in April of this year. After opening to just $5.4 million, it wound up having a fairly leggy run, finishing with $20.7 million domestically. It had an even leggier run in its post-theatrical run, both in PVOD and when it was added to Netflix in September. I suppose the goal of this re-release is to attract a younger, family audience over the Christmas season that did not see the movie due to its harsher R rating. It’s not expected to make a huge impact. It would be a surprise if it made more than its initial debut.

While it’ll be a quiet week on the national stage, two additional awards releases could make this a very noisy weekend on the limited front and that’s mostly due to the release of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which features the highly anticipated performance of Brendan Fraser in the lead role. The movie is based on a play that has been adapted to film by Aronofsky and has Brenda Fraser playing a 600-pound middle-aged man named Charlie, who is trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter, played by Sadie Sink, also of “Strange Things” fame. The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September and also played at the Toronto Film Festival a week later. While the movie has had some mixed reaction, which Aronofsky is no stranger to – his previous movie “mother!” received a rare “F” score from CinemaScore – Fraser’s performance has been unanimously praised and he’s a strong contender to take home the best actor trophy this awards season. That potential alone has the possibility of driving audiences to the movie, whenever it actually hits wide release, given the popularity of Fraser as an actor.

While not nearly as buzzy as “The Whale,” the other major limited release is Empire of Light, from director Sam Mendes, who came awfully close to winning best picture with his previous film “1917” before “Parasite” ended up stealing the show that night. “Empire of Light” was never really expected to be as big of a hit as “1917.” It’s more or a less a smaller follow-up, but nevertheless it stars Oscar darling Olivia Colman as a cinema manager who is struggling with her mental health when she meets a new employee named Stephen, played by Michael Ward, and together they find a sense of belonging through the power of music, cinema, and community. Colman could very easily get her fourth acting nomination for this movie, although the mixed reaction from critics might limit its potential to get much more than that. 

December 16 – 18

20th Century Studios' "Avatar: The Way of Water"

And the major movie of the month finally arrives in the third weekend of December. That, of course, is the highly anticipated release of Avatar: The Way of Water. It’s kinda crazy to think that, since the release of “Titanic” in 1997 – 25 years ago, James Cameron has only directed one major, feature-length film. 2009’s “Avatar.” His second release is the sequel to that film. Sure, he’s done some smaller things between then as well as some writing and producing for other films, but for the most part he’s spent the last 25 years of his life just doing Avatar movies. And, sure, that most definitely paid off with the first movie as it revolutionized 3D technology on its way to becoming the highest grossing movie ever at both the domestic and worldwide box office – the latter of which it still holds (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” took its domestic title). But can lightning strike twice for Cameron?

I think it’s safe to say at this point that “The Way of Water” is going to be a massive financial success. At this point, 13 years later, it has the nostalgia factor. And it does have plenty of fans, even though its legacy is a bit mixed at this point. But trying to determine exactly HOW successful it will be is a complete shot at the dark at this point. The first movie only opened to $77 million, which wound up being just 10 percent of its initial domestic run, which ended up being around $760 million. That type of run is definitely not happening again. Can it catch that $760 million mark? Possibly. I wouldn’t personally bet on that. But if it does, it means that it was a lot more frontloaded, with a much higher opening weekend. That part does seem guaranteed. I would easily mark down a $100 million opening weekend as the absolute floor. Anything lower would be a slight cause for concern. But can it double that and notch a $200 million opening weekend? Or will it fall somewhere in between with, say, $140-160 million?

How well it holds after that will be determined by what the reaction to the movie ends up being. If it’s widely praised, with word of mouth being that it’s a must-see cinematic event, that’s when the box office will soar through roof, even if it’s highly unlikely to make 10 times more than whatever its opening weekend is. Now even though all of this is a shot in the dark with little to compare to, perhaps other massive global phenomenons can provide some insight. “The Force Awakens” made $936 million. “The Last Jedi” made $620 million. “The Avengers” made $623 million. “Age of Ultron” made $459 million. “Black Panther” made $700 million. Last month’s opening of “Wakanda Forever” is still in theaters, but is tracking for around $500 million, give or take a bit. So somewhere in the $500-600 million range might be a realistic expectation for “The Way of Water.”

While it does have plenty going in its favor, it is worth noting that “Avatar” in 2009 was successful largely due to it being groundbreaking in 3D cinema. 13 years later, very few people care about 3D. Even if seeing it in 3D or in IMAX is what’s pushed, that is just not going to pull as much weight this time around in terms of it being the sole draw. A second thing worth noting that is the movie’s legacy hasn’t held up as much over time. Again, it has its fans. But it has a lot of people who also don’t care. I think if “The Way of Water” had opened in 2012, just three years after “Avatar,” maybe those two concerns would’ve been nonexistent, but 13 years later is simply a different story. Finally, the movie has a runtime of 3 hours 10 minutes. Sure, movies can be that long and still do quite well. But you mathematically just can’t have quite as many showtimes per day. Even if theaters make room by cancelling other screenings, it limits the likelihood of repeat viewings with that level of a time commitment 

So yes, this movie is going to do very well. How well is hard to pin down. In terms of the franchise’s legacy as a whole, that might be given more of a test with the third movie, which is on the schedule for December 2024. Whether or not the world is tired of Avatar at that point will determine if Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 even happen. But yes, those two movies are on the schedule as well, for December 2026 and December 2028, respectfully. I do think a movie of this magnitude warranted a deeper dive than normal, but yes, there are other movies to talk about. Just not this weekend. So let’s move onto the week of Christmas itself.

December 21 – 25

DreamWorks' "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish"

Christmas Day is on Sunday this year. Leading up to that, the releases are staggered throughout the week from Wednesday through Sunday. The movie getting the head start on the bunch by opening on Wednesday the 21st is Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It’s been a hot minute since DreamWorks has returned to the Shrek universe in one form or another. 11 years, to be exact, when the original “Puss in Boots” was released. And I’m not 100 percent sure a return to the franchise has been high on people’s Christmas wish lists, but perhaps sometimes the best gifts are the ones you weren’t expecting? Early screenings for “The Last Wish” have happened already and the reaction has been surprisingly high. As of this typing, it has a 93 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a 98 percent audience score. If reaction remains that high, this is a contender for the surprise hit of the season if word of mouth continues to build. In this adventure, Puss has lost eight of his nine lives and is on a quest to get those restored to him. Antonio Banderas returns to voice the character and he’ll have Salma Hayek, Florence Pugh, and John Mulaney among those joining him. And in a market where the Disney’s “Strange World” completely flopped, this might be the main choice for family audiences over the holiday season and that’s a factor that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Two days after “Puss in Boots” opens, Friday the 23rd will see two additional wide releases and it’s Whitney Houston on center stage for the most notable of the two with the musical biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody. This musical biopic genre is getting a lot of attention as of late. It seems like all the big musical stars of the past are getting their time back in the spotlight, so it makes sense to give Whitney Houston a go. Objectively speaking, a lot of these biopics have been doing quite well with many fans of the respective artists responding quite positively. “Bohemian Rhapsody” back in 2018 was a very notable example that helped this genre catch fire as it wound up with over $200 million at the domestic box office and many Oscar nominations. Just this year, “Elvis” wound up with over $150 million as a sleeper summer hit. So the way is paved for “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” to have a successful holiday run, with Naomi Ackie playing Whitney Houston to be a breakout star. It’s worth noting, though, that this genre hasn’t had a 100 percent hit rate. Last year’s “Respect,” a biopic about Jennifer Hudson, was a complete blip on the radar, making just $32 million worldwide. Or there’s been plenty in between, like “Rocketman” in 2019 opening to $25 million and making $96 million domestically. So there’s no guarantee here, but there’s still hit potential.

The final wide release of the Christmas week, also opening on Friday the 23rd, is Oscar-winner Damien Chazelle’s next film, Babylon. After finding massive success with “Whiplash” and “La La Land,” at least in terms of awards and reaction, and moderate success with “First Man,” Chazelle’s fourth feature is honestly going to be a bit of a tough sell. It’s a movie about movies, so that’s an instant plus for awards season as it is yet another film that tackles the transition from silent film to talkies, but this movie tackles the wild side of that era, reportedly riding the line between R and NC-17 in terms of content, perhaps with “The Wolf of Wall Street” being a comparison. Add to that, it’s another movie that’s over three hours long, clocking in at 3 hours 8 minutes. Early reaction has been quite divisive, naturally. Take what you saw in the trailers and have that happening for three hours and not everyone is going to be on board for it. Some might praise Chazelle for being extremely ambitious while others will say he went way overboard. How will that translate to general audiences? It probably won’t, but I can see it playing strongly for a niche group of people who are up for the challenge.

That’s it for the wide releases, but the end of the year always has a few limited releases throwing their name in the hate for awards contention, while actually expanding wide in January. Some of these I might touch on more come January with their wide expansions. But they’re worth giving brief mentions here. The biggest name is the theatrical release of Women Talking, which has been a buzzy title all of awards season following its release in the festivals. It’s from director Sarah Polley and tackles a heavy subject matter about an isolated Mennonite colony where it’s revealed that men from their community have been drugging and raping the community’s women at night for years, many of whom have done nothing. Some critics have confessed that the movie lives up to its title, a very dialogue-heavy with… women talking. Eight women debating on what they should do, with Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, and Jessie Buckley leading the way. That might mean this is more of a niche film that might not hit with audiences when it does hit wide release, but it’s nevertheless still expected to be a major awards contender.

A second notable limited release is the Bill Nighy led movie Living. This is a movie that was released way back in Sundance of this year, so January. It doesn’t necessarily have as much momentum as some of the other awards contenders that I’ve brought up, but nevertheless the movie is a British drama adapted from the 1952 Japanese film “Ikiru,” which in turn was inspired by the 1886 novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” by Leo Tolstoy. The story follows a man in 1950s London who takes time off work to have some introspective looks on life following a grim diagnosis. Even if the movie itself doesn’t have a ton of awards momentum and might not be a huge hit with audiences, one element of the film that does seem to have universal praise is the Bill Nighy performance, which does seem like is in position to give Bill Nighy an Oscar nomination. And if that happens, certain people are bound to actually check out the movie itself so they can judge said performance themselves.

And finally, opening on Christmas Day in select theaters is A Man Called Otto. This isn’t getting a ton of awards talk at the moment and could simply be a mainstream audience hit when it expands in January. Perhaps we’ll revisit it in January to dive in more. But anytime Tom Hanks is involved in a project, it’s at least worth a look. It’s also a movie that’s 100 percent guilty of the idea that us dumb Americans are sometimes allergic to subtitles and will never watch foreign films. In other words, oftentimes very popular foreign films get American, English-language adaptations and the hit rate with those is quite low in terms of audience reaction. “A Man Called Otto” is an adaptation of the 2015 Swedish film “A Man Called Ove,” which was nominated that year for the best foreign language film Oscar after receiving strong praise. That movie itself is based off of a 2012 novel of the same name, so this counts as the second adaptation of that. The general premise follows a grumpy old man who is kinda done with life who has to deal with some boisterous new neighbors that might end up changing his outlook. In which case, if an American adaptation of this has to happen, Tom Hanks is a solid choice for a popular movie about a grumpy old man. January 13 is the date that is currently set for its wide expansion, so we’ll bring this up again next month. And at that point we’ll have the reaction to the movie to help us with a better prognosis on how it might hit.

Movie Preview: October 2022

And we’re back. Here with the October movie preview not too long after the late September preview. And this one on time, given that I covered the weekend of September 30 – October 2, in which “Smile” dominated with a $22.6 million opening weekend, in the September preview. That opened made for a similarly identical weekend as the previous two weekends where “The Woman King” and “Don’t Worry Darling” opened to $19.1 million and $19.4 million respectively.

What that all added up to, though, was a historically low September. But that’s what happens when Hollywood forgets to schedule much. While those three movies did fine, there was no “IT” or “Shang-Chi” type of movie opening to boost the month’s numbers and thus we were left with the lowest accumulative September box office since 1996, not counting September 2020 when movies were just barely starting to come back. But if you’re a movie fan and you feel you are suffering from a lack of options, no need to worry. The holiday season is around the corner and that should leave the year off with a bang. October specifically is a bit light on quantity, but there are some major hits on schedule that should help prime the box office for said holiday season.

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide theatrical release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

October 7 – 9

Sony Pictures' "Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile"

The first weekend of October, the beginning of the final quarter of the year, begins with what might be a bit of a slow start. In fact, Box Office Pro suggests in their weekend preview that it’s a possibility that “Smile” repeats at No. 1.

As far as the two new wide releases, the one likely to open ahead is Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. This is based off of the 1965 children’s book of the same name, written by Bernard Waber, which was actually a sequel to the 1962 book, “The House on East 88th Street.” The general idea of the book series is that a family moves into a home where a performing crocodile is living in the bathtub and they eventually learn to love him and accept him as family. In 1987, it was adapted into an animated musical TV special for HBO and now we’re coming full circle, combining all of that in a live-action feature-length musical film starring Shawn Mendes as Lyle, with original music by Pasek and Paul, who did the music for “La La Land,” “The Greatest Showman” and “Dear Evan Hansen.” Whether or not anyone asked for this is a different conversation, but the family audience it is intended for is the audience that is less critical, so any sort of reviews and reaction will probably be irrelevant. Last year the live-action “Clifford the Big Red Dog” opened to $16.6 million. Somewhere along those lines in the mid-teen millions is where “Lyle” will probably open. Depending on how good “Smile” holds, that could be good enough for No. 1.

The second movie opening this weekend is David O. Russell’s Amsterdam. David O. Russell is a filmmaker who has been a very strong awards darling over the years, achieving plenty of success with “The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle.” So his first film since “Joy” in 2015 has come with lots of anticipation. And as often is the case with David O. Russell films, it’s an acting party, with Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro, and even Taylor Swift, amongst others, all joining said party. Unfortunately for this movie, though, is that critical reaction is in the dumpster, with a 30 percent Rotten Tomatoes score through nearly 100 reviews. In this case, that’s the audience that needs to be pleased if it’s going to achieve its ultimate goal of being a major awards contender. That reaction says that awards are out of the question, which puts this in a bit of an awkward spot. What is the movie? Yeah, that’s the question here. Advertising has it framed as a 1930s murder mystery, but much of the reaction so far has it pegged as a big, convoluted mess in terms of plot, tone, and pretty much overall movie identity. Unless general audience reaction is stronger than critical reaction, this could be forgotten in record time.

That’s it for the wide releases, but since we’re beginning awards season, with the major film festivals having happened this past month, a couple of notable releases on the limited release front. First is TÁR, which is directed by Todd Field and sees Cate Blanchett play a fictional character named Lydia Tár, who in the context of this movie’s universe is a world famous music composer and conductor of a German orchestra. Word is that Blanchett, who is in pretty much every scene of this film, is well on her way to a Oscar nomination for best actress and may be one of the early strong contenders to win.

The other limited release is Triangle of Sadness. While this might be a bit too heavy and/or unique for major Oscar contention – it’s about cruise ship full of super rich people that sinks and leaves the survivors trapped on an island – this is the winner of the Palme d’Or, the big prize coming out of the Cannes Film Festival. While not a great Oscar predictor by any means, the 2019 winner was “Parasite” and that did end up winning best picture. So this one is at least worth mentioning.

And finally, Fathom Events is having their Fright Fest event throughout October. As a part of that pertaining to this weekend, they will be playing Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film Poltergeist from October 6 – 12. On October 9th and 10th, they will be releasing Scream 2.  Later in the month with this event, they will be releasing Bram Stoker’s Dracula on October 23rd and 27th. And on October 29th they will have a one-day double feature of Creature from the Black Lagoon from 1954 and Phantom of the Opera from 1943.

October 14 – 16

Universal's "Halloween Ends"

The second weekend of October is where things start firing up at the box office. And that’s because this weekend sees the final entry in the Halloween franchise, Halloween Ends. Or that’s what they claim, anyways. Never believe Hollywood when they say something is the final chapter, especially with this franchise and its very complicated timeline that has probably seen the franchise “end” several times already. And Michael Myers gets “killed” in just about every movie. But nevertheless, that’s what they’re going with this particular premise, given the title and the marketing. The whole film is centered around the idea of a final battle between Michael and Laurie Strode. Even if they find a way to continue the franchise yet again, the idea of a final film in a popular franchise can often be a very strong selling point. It often puts the movie onto a more event-level status that boosts the box office.

In terms of that box office, the 2018 reboot of this planned trilogy performed very well, opening to $76.2 million and finishing with $159.4 million domestically. The middle chapter, “Halloween Kills,” fell off quite a bit in compared to that, but still opened to $49.4 million and finished with $92 million. So yeah, both films were extremely front-loaded, which is not surprising for a major horror franchise, but nevertheless those openings are still among the best ever for the horror genre. While middling reaction to “Kills” might lead to some fall-off with this third film, that idea of it being a final film should at least make this come close to that $49.4 million mark. “Halloween Ends” is also being released day-and-date on Peacock for subscribers, which doesn’t help its box office outlook, but “Kills” actually did the same thing, so the comparison still very much stands.

“Halloween Ends” is the only new wide release of the weekend, but again on the limited front with awards season heating up, this weekend will see the release of Till in select locations before its scheduled wide expansion on October 28. The subject matter here immediately puts it into the spotlight as this is a movie about Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black kid who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in the summer of 1955, and whose killers were acquitted in trial. This particular movie centers around Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, and her relentless pursuit justice for her son.

October 21 – 23

Warner Bros.' "Black Adam"

The biggest movie event of the month for October falls in this third weekend with DC’s release of Black Adam. Played by Dwayne Johnson in this film introduction of the character, Black Adam is an anti-hero in the DC universe and has often been one of the main archenemies of Shazam. In fact, there was a time in which it was planned on introducing him as a character in 2019’s “Shazam!,” before switching course and deciding to introduce him in his own solo film. While DC has certainly been in a constant, unstable whirlwind for much of the last decade or more, a “Shazam!” movie has been in talks since the 2000s and Dwayne Johnson has been a part of those talks for almost the whole time in one way or another. He was almost cast as Shazam before officially being cast as Black Adam in 2014. It was in 2017 when they decided to split the two projects and give Black Adam his own solo film. And while an official crossover hasn’t been announced between the characters of Black Adam and Shazam, that seems more of a matter of time than anything, especially since “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is next up for DC after “Black Adam,” currently scheduled for March 17, 2023.

Financially, Black Adam as a character isn’t as well-known as some of the others in the DC library. And as a whole, the reputation of DC as of late is still shaky at best. Audiences haven’t been nearly as willing to rush out to see the latest DC movie like they have been for most things Marvel. But still, there does seem to be plenty of positive anticipation for this, especially considering the star power of Dwayne Johnson. And although “Shazam!” in 2019 didn’t quite break the bank in compared to other comic book films, it did have a healthy $53.5 million opening at the time and has been mostly well-received, not only initially but also in the few years since as more people have discovered. That should lead “Black Adam” to an opening of at least $50 million, if not approaching a $70-80 million opening of various Marvel solo outings.

Opening alongside “Black Adam” as this weekend’s other wide release is Ticket to Paradise. This is a rom-com that stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts as a divorced couple that travel to Bali to attempt to sabotage their daughter’s wedding after learning she’s about to marry a man named Gede that she just met. Their motivation is to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they believe they made. As somewhat of a throwback to a cheesy 2000s rom-com, this very much could play as some good counterprogramming for those that either aren’t interested in superhero affair or horror films. And it certainly has the star power to work out and 32 million views on its YouTube trailer, which says that it has people’s attention. The counter against it is that the rom-com in 2022, or even in the last several years, hasn’t been as strong as it once was in regards to box office draw. “Marry Me” from earlier in this year had similarly everything going for it as well, but could only muster a $7.9 million opening. And that was around Valentine’s Day. So this is not a guaranteed hit, but rather stands as something with potential. And perhaps it might play better as a streaming option in the near future.

Again on the limited front, another major candidate for awards hitting this weekend will be The Banshees of Inisherin. This is a movie from Martin McDonagh, whose previous movie was “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” a double Oscar winner with seven total nominees. “Banshees” stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two lifelong friends on a remote Irish island who find themselves in an awkward situation when one of them decides they don’t want to be friends anymore. After a very successful festival run, “Banshees” currently has a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with 60 reviews counted to go along with a 90 score on Metacritic. What that translates to when it hits general audiences might present a different story, but its rewards prospects initially seem very high, especially since this is also one of Searchlight’s big awards contenders. For context, Searchlight has won best picture with one of their releases five times since 2009, so they have a good track record.

The other notable limited release is Aftersun, another popular festival hit that debuted in Cannes and has hit just about everything else along the way afterwards. This might have a slightly more difficult uphill battle than “Banshees,” which comes from a director with high Oscar prestige, whereas “Aftersun” is directed by Charlotte Wells in her feature-length directorial debut, but nevertheless it’s about a girl reflecting on the relationship she had with her father, which seems to come with plenty of positives and negatives. The release is handled by A24, which has had a very strong year. If not an awards contender, it might at least be in conversations of smaller movies worth seeing.

October 28 – 30

Lionsgate's "Prey for the Devil"

Halloween will be on a Monday this year, which means there’s a whole weekend of movie going possible leading up to the actual holiday. The could work to the advantage of some horror movies in the market, especially this final one of the month, Prey for the Devil. And yes, that is the correct spelling of the word “prey.” A bit of play on words there. But they’re hunting the devil. Preying. Not kneeling down and praying. By the looks of this trailer, it looks like it’s almost cut and paste from 1973’s “The Exorcist,” which is something that has been done a thousand times before, so that’s nothing shocking. In this exorcism movie spin, there’s a nun who is feeling the calling to become the first female exorcist, possibly to chase a demon that has been haunting her or has some connection to her past. Now despite the timely release date, there’s no guarantee that this movie hits. If reaction is poor, horror fans might just catch up on “Smile” or “Halloween Ends” instead. So a lot will be riding on what the reviews are like here.

Only one new wide release this week, which means it’s almost a sure thing that “Black Adam” will repeat as the box office champ, but another awards hopeful opening in limited release is Armageddon Time. This is the latest from director James Gray, who is a filmmaker that hasn’t quite yet broken out on the awards front, but has built up a strong enough reputation with movies like “Two Lovers,” “The Immigrant,” “The Lost City of Z,” and most recently “Ad Astra,” that a lot of awards pundits feel like his time is coming soon. Perhaps with this one? Word out of the festivals is a bit more lukewarm than maybe the team here would hope, but this still has a strong cast featuring Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, and Anthony Hopkins. The movie is a flashback to Gray’s childhood, set in New York in the 1980s and follows a young 11-year-old kid and his friend figuring out life, being essentially parallel to what “Belfast” was last year for director Kenneth Branagh. The title here is in reference to a Ronald Reagan speech wherein the former president said that this is the generation that might see Armageddon.