Movie Preview: October 2023

It was an expectedly slow month at the box office in September. Based on expectations and budget, both “Expendables 3” and “The Nun II” performed admirably. “Expendables 3” opened with almost the exact same total as the previous two, which made the franchise even more impressively consistent. It finished September with $85.2 million, so not holding quite as well as the first two, despite the consistent opening. But that was good enough for the top movie of the month, which tells the story of September. The Nun II finished the month with $75.5 million domestically, in second place. With a responsible budget of $38 million and a worldwide total of just under $235 million, that’s another win for The Conjuring franchise. But continuing to tell the story of the month, “Barbie” was third place, adding $33.8 million. Nothing else was able to top that, as movies like “A Haunting in Venice,” “Expend4bles” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3” mostly failed to register. “PAW Patrol” and “Sax X” had solid openings in the final weekend, but only counted for two calendar days in the month. 

Which then means we look forward to October, our current month. Historically speaking, October is also not known to be a very big month at the box office, even though it’s often a slight step up from September. But this October, even though there’s not much on the calendar in terms of quantity, is actually looking at a few big releases as we celebrate the Halloween season while also beginning the rollout for awards season. The biggest theatrical event of the month, though, won’t even be a movie. It’s a concert. A concert released in theaters that looks to scare away all the competition. Of course we’ll get to the details of Ms. Swift’s concert and all the rest in detail below, so let’s dive in and explore!

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

October 6 – 8

Universal's "The Exorcist: Believer"

Spooky season officially was kicked off at the end of September with the release of “Saw X,” which had a respectable opening of $18.3 million. While that wasn’t as high as the franchise’s peak, it was nevertheless a big step up from both “Jigsaw” and “Spiral,” the previous two entries. And with a budget of just $13 million, there’s at least a financial justification for an eleventh film if they want it. Now just one week later, another horror franchise entry is currently haunting theaters with The Exorcist: Believer. If I’m not mistaken, this is approximately the 1,786th Exorcist movie to hit theaters since the original completely changed the horror game back in 1973.

OK, yes, I confess that that number is an exaggeration. In terms of the actual Exorcist canon, there is the original trilogy, “The Exorcist” in 1973, “Exorcist II: The Heretic” in 1977, and “The Exorcist III” in 1990. Then there were two prequel films, “Exorcist: The Beginning” and “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,” released in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Then there was a TV series titled simply “The Exorcist” that ran for two seasons from 2016-17 before getting canceled. And finally there was a novel written in 1971 that predated the movie, with a follow-up novel titled “Legion,” published in 1983. So I suppose that’s actually not a ton of official entries, but the reason I mention that it feels like there’s been a lot is that there’s been a very long list of horror films that have used the Exorcism concept, even though most of them aren’t directly connected with the official franchise. And probably the reason why there’s been so many is that “The Exorcist,” released in December 1973, finished its initial theatrical run with $193 million domestically. Subsequent releases has boosted it to $230.3 million domestically and $428.2 million worldwide. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, that domestic total STILL is the 4th highest grossing horror film ever. And that’s only if you count “Jaws” and “I am Legend.” If you specifically look at R-rated horror films, “The Exorcist” held that record of the highest-grossing R-rated horror film ever for 44 years until 2017’s “IT” topped it.

Putting that into more context, given that “The Exorcist” was released in 1973 and still has made more money than almost every other horror film, despite ticket prices today being much higher than they were back then, if you adjust for ticket price inflation, “The Exorcist” would clock in as the 9th highest grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, that based on data compiled by Box Office Mojo that was continued by Wikipedia. For some reason Box Office Mojo stopped updating that list in 2019, so Wikipedia has kept it up to date with their own calculations added. They estimate, based on 2022 ticket prices, that “The Exorcist” would have made the equivalent of $1.171 billion domestically in today’s money. That’s two slots higher than 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which updates to $1.145 billion in today’s ticket prices. So if you remember the phenomenon that “The Force Awakens” was, that’s what “The Exorcist” compares to.

Anyways, with that box office history lesson behind us, “The Exorcist: Believer” hails from director David Gordon Green, who most recently did an updated trilogy of “Halloween” films. And now he’s giving “The Exorcist” the same treatment, with “Believer” being approached as a direct sequel to 1973’s “The Exorcist.” Like “Halloween,” this will also be a planned trilogy, with “The Exorcist: Deceiver” currently set for April 2025 and as of now an untitled third movie with a TBD release date, although the pattern would suggest maybe 2027. “Believer” was received poorly, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 23 percent as of me typing this post. Despite that, it’s still on pace for an opening close to $30 million.

While “The Exorcist: Believer” is the only official new wide release of the weekend, Disney is re-releasing Hocus Pocus in 1,430 theaters for Halloween season. In moderate release, IFC Films will be releasing the new horror film When Evil Lurks in 659 theaters before it becomes available on Shudder on October 27. So perhaps if you’re in the mood for a new theatrical horror experience and the new Exorcist movie doesn’t interest you, it’s possible that this one might be near you. “When Evil Lurks” follows two brothers who come across a demon-infected man that they try to get rid of, but end up making things much worse. It was initially released at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and has so far been almost unanimously enjoyed. It has a limited 40 reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes, but nevertheless has a 98 percent score through those 40 reviews.

October 13 – 15

Taylor Swift from The Eras Tour

As mentioned in the intro to this post, the biggest theatrical event of the month will not be a movie. It will be a Taylor Swift concert, officially titled Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Taylor Swift of course needs no introduction. Everyone knows who Taylor Swift is, whether they want to or not. The Eras Tour is the ongoing sixth concert tour for Swift, which began at Glendale, Arizona in March of this year and will continue through November of next year, finishing in Toronto. Taylor described this as a journey through or an homage to all of her albums up to this point. There’s a set list of 44 song divided into 10 sections. The filmed version of the concert that’s being released in theaters is listed as 169 minutes long. And actually, this isn’t the first time Taylor has filmed one of her concerts and released it to the masses. She filmed and released a recording of her Reputation Tour for Netflix in 2018, that’s still available to be watched for those who haven’t seen that. But “The Eras Tour” filming is unique because she’s putting it in theaters, both here domestically at least at AMC and Cinemark theaters, but also worldwide.

The announcement of this came it late August and the response has been very positive. I mean, who of Taylor’s fans wouldn’t want to go see a filmed version of her concert in theaters? It’s more expensive than your typical movie, with ticket prices reportedly being either $19.89 or $13.13, but that’s of course incredibly cheaper than paying for a concert. How much will this end up making at the box office? Well… a lot. While the idea of a concert movie isn’t a new one, one at this scale being released in theaters does seem like a more unique event and thus official prognostication might be hard to pinpoint exactly. However, it was reported that presales at one point were comparable to the presales of “Avengers: Endgame.” I’m not sure that means this will open to $300+ million like “Endgame” did, but most do seem to think that a $100 million opening for this concert film is pretty much guaranteed. And that might be the very low end, safe expectations. I mean, Taylor went to a football game to watch her maybe boyfriend Travis Kelce play and that led to jersey sales and Instagram followers for Kelce to soar through the roof. The next week, when Taylor also attended the Sunday Night Jets vs Chiefs game, that became the most watched NFL game since the Super Bowl. And if Swift fans can make that happen just because she went to a football game, I imagine a theatrically-released concert film will be very well attended.   

And no, there is no competition for Taylor. Some might find that unfortunate given that Friday the 13th in October is actually happening this year. “The Exorcist: Believer” was the horror film that was planning on taking advantage of that date. But the second Taylor announced her concert film on this weekend, Universal noped “Believer” right out of that date and onto the first weekend of the month, which was recently vacated by “Kraven the Hunter,” the latest solo movie from a Spider-Man villain following “Venom” and “Morbius.” “Kraven the Hunter” moved to August 30, 2024 due to the ongoing actor’s strike, which will hopefully be resolved soon, given that the writer’s came up with a deal and ended their strike last month.

October 20 – 22

Apple TV+ and Paramount's "Killers of the Flower Moon"

Taking a break from both Halloween and Taylor Swift for a moment, the third weekend of the year will be the kick-off of what should be a major awards contender this season. That movie is Martin Scorsese’s latest release, Killers of the Flower Moon. This is a movie based on the nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” published in 2017 by journalist David Grann. The story here from the book and the movie, as referenced in the subtitle of the book, chronicles the story of the Osage Nation, a Native American tribe who lived in Osage County, Oklahoma, in the early 1900s. The Osage Nation became very wealthy when it was found that there were large oil deposits on their land. And given that Native Americans were found to be lesser by many white people back in the day (and perhaps still now to at least some degree – unfortunately racism still exists), the big scheme involved many of the Osage Tribe getting murdered for their money. The newly formed FBI eventually got involved and that led to the conviction and trial of many involved. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro portray two of the main suspects involved, with Jesse Plemons playing the lead FBI agent and Lily Gladstone getting a lot of praise for her portrayal of one of the Native American women.

The box office prospects of this movie are interesting. Scorsese has been a reliable draw for a very long time, with his first feature-length directorial effort coming in 1967 via “Who’s That Knocking at My Door.” The first movie of his to get Oscar wins and nominations was “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” in 1974, while Scorsese got his first individual nomination in 1980 with “Raging Bull.” His most recent movie was “The Irishman,” and while that was very successful with 10 nominations, it was also a Netflix film. The one before that, “Silence” in 2016, had a very muted campaign and, although it was liked by many, didn’t do much in terms of awards or box office, which wasn’t necessarily the movie’s fault. So then we have to go back to 2013 for the last Scorsese film to have a proper theatrical run combined with strong awards play. That was “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which opened to $18.4 million domestically over the Christmas holiday and finished with $116.9 million, a final total that seems within the range of possibilities for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” especially since it’s had its release in several film festivals and has been met with very high praise. The kicker for general audiences is that Scorsese in his later years doesn’t exactly seem to be a fan of short films. This one is a big ask at 3 hours 26 minutes. But in a year where the 3-hour, R-rated historical biopic of “Oppenheimer” has made close to $1 billion worldwide, maybe the runtime here also might not be a huge deal? It’s projected by Box Office Pro to earn somewhere between $29-38 million in its opening weekend.

Like with “The Exorcist: Believer” and Taylor Swift, “Killers of the Flower Moon” doesn’t exactly have much competition this week. In addition to re-releasing “Hocus Pocus” earlier in the month, Disney will also be giving The Nightmare Before Christmas a re-release this weekend leading up to Halloween. Similarly, Fathom Events will be putting on a re-release of Back to the Future on Saturday, October 21, honoring what is now the Anniversary of when Marty McFly arrived to the future in 2015. 

And finally, certainly a potential attention-grabbing title that could make you do a double take is the nationwide expansion of Dicks: The Musical. Yep, it’s exactly what you think. From the director of “Borat” and at least one of the producers of “The Greatest Showman,” this is advertised as A24’s first musical. And you’d expect nothing less than a heavily raunchy musical from the director of “Borat.” The actual plot, if one cares about that, is somewhat of a “Parent Trap” premise. Two business rivals discover that they’re twins and decide to swap places to get their divorced parents back together. Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, Megan Mullally, Nathan Lane, and Megan Thee Stallion headline the cast.   

October 27 – 29 

Universal's "Five Nights at Freddy’s"

Whenever there is a new Saw film released, it’s the tradition to release it right on Halloween weekend. And that’s exactly what “Saw X” initially had in mind. But like “The Exorcist: Believer” being scared away from Friday the 13th by Taylor Swift, “Saw X” was scared away from this weekend by the impending release of Five Nights at Freddy’s, a PG-13 horror film that could potentially do huge numbers, regardless of what the critical reaction will end up being. Movie night for teens around the world right before Halloween, based on the popular video game franchise that many of them have probably played. There’s actually been nine of these games released in the main series, with a handful of spin-offs as well, the first being released back in 2014. The idea here in the games is that you’re a night time employee at a family pizza place, similar to something like “Chuck E. Cheese,” and you have to survive the animatronics that come alive and try to kill you. So like in the games, so it is in the movie. Josh Hutcherson plays a character named Mike Schmidt who gets a night job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, that was once successful, but is now abandoned. And it’s because anyone there after midnight have to not get killed by the animatronics. The movie is distributed by Universal and produced by Jason Blum, who is a master at taking low budget horror films and getting them to make a ton of money.  The production budget is $25 million and it’s currently projected to easily pass that in its opening weekend.

Like is the case with every other weekend this month, we have one main event and perhaps a collection of smaller releases to supplement them. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is definitely the main event here. But there are four smaller movies on the schedule officially listed as having a wide release scheduled. My guess is that one or more could end up in just a couple hundred theaters rather than being a huge wide release, but it’s hard to tell exactly at this point.

Of the group, one would assume that Freelance would be the one to actually get the most attention, based on the cast of John Cena, Allison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba, and Christian Slater. This is an action comedy where ex-special forces operative takes a job to provide security for a journalist interviewing a dictator, when the three of them suddenly end up on a survival mission together. It’s from the director of “Taken” and “Peppermint,” so why the trailer on YouTube only has 18K views right now is a bit of a mystery. Relativity Media helped distribute “Hypnotic” this year, a Ben Affleck-led sci-fi movie directed by Robert Rodriguez. That opened to $2.4 million from 2,118 theaters, so maybe that’s the comparison here. Unless some marketing kicks in soon.

The other potential somewhat big release is After Death, a documentary from Angel Studios, who distributed the surprise hit “Sound of Freedom” this summer, which earned $183.9 million at the domestic box office. Documentaries don’t usually register too high at the box office, so it’s hard to believe this will be another massive surprise, but “After Death” follows the stories of a handful of notable people who had near death experiences or some touch with the afterlife. This at the least could do well in certain markets.

The other two listed on the schedule are two that definitely don’t seem like they’ll be released too wide, although I could be wrong. The movie Sight is a biopic following the story of Doctor Ming Wang, one of the world’s top laser eye surgeons. It stars Terry Chen and Greg Kinnear. I’m having a hard time even hunting down a trailer for this, but it’s from the director of 2018’s “Paul, Apostle of Christ” and 2015’s “Full of Grace,” so I’m guessing there’s some Christian angle to this. The director also had a movie called “The Blind” that released last month to a bit of a surprise $4.4 million from 1,715 theaters, so maybe I’m underestimated this.

The other movie is Inspector Sun, a Spanish animated movie that in some countries is called “Inspector Sun and the Curse of the Black Widow” and was released in Spain back in December of 2022 and several other countries in between then and now. It appears that the United States is among the last to get it. Despite that, it also doesn’t appear that there’s a lot of information on this one. It seems like a fun whodunit detective movie for younger kids where the main detective is a spider and the various other characters are different bugs and small animals. Maybe it won’t attract a huge American audience, but it could be a fun thing that a handful of people end up stumbling upon.

Movie Preview: September 2023

The summer of 2023 has come to an end. As is often par for the course, with summer winding down and kids getting ready to go back to school, August was the quietest month of the summer. The top two movies of this August were our two July phenoms, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” accounting for nearly half of the month’s $800 million domestic total. That said, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and “Meg 2: The Trench” performed fairly decently compared to expectations. But there was nothing on the scale of a “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “Suicide Squad” to help the month stand out. “Blue Beetle,” even though it did slightly better than expectations, still managed to be the second worst opening in the DCEU, while “Gran Turismo” got off to a decent start but has only been in theaters for a few days now. “Strays” certainly didn’t help things out as it was a surprising misfire.

A quick recap of the game we played in last month’s preview, that of what can beat “Barbie” at the weekend box office, both “Blue Beetle” and “Gran Turismo” did manage to get weekend wins. “Barbie” made those races very close, though, and wound up back ahead in the weekday box office. So even though it ceded the top spot twice, by the time the month officially ends, “Barbie” will still manage to have topped the box office 27 of 31 days in August, including finishing on top on the final day (I don’t have final totals of August 31 as of me typing and releasing this post).

Moving forward to September, historically this joins August and October as one of the awkward parts of the year in regards to the box office, being the months between peak movie season. Hollywood has proven time and again now that movies CAN open huge in these quieter months. So release date doesn’t actually matter that much. But yet studios still mostly maintain tradition in releasing their biggest tentpole films in the optimal spots, hence this being a bit awkward. Also, the ongoing actors and writers strikes is going to contribute to the awkwardness the longer they carry on. Actors being unable to promote their films has motivated some studios to postpone said films. Movies that weren’t yet finished when the strikes began aren’t able to be finished if there’s no actors or writers to help finish them. So as long as studios continue to not give the people making their films proper compensation, options for viewers will continue to diminish.

All that said, there is a franchise film attempting to attract audiences on each weekend this month, so we’ll see how this pans out. As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are probably even more subject to change than usual with the strikes.  

September 1 – 4

Sony's "The Equalizer 3"

Labor Day weekend has historically been one of the worst weekends for movies. There are many reasons for that, although two years ago Marvel proved that it was probably more of a self-fulling prophesy than anything, meaning that movies didn’t do well because studios avoided the weekend, thinking it was cursed when maybe it actually wasn’t? Prior to 2021, the biggest 3-day Labor Day weekend total was Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” in 2007 with $26.4 million. But in 2021, while the box office was still in recovery mode to a degree from COVID, Marvel released “Shang-Chi” to a $75.4 million 3-day opening. Perhaps that will make studios more confident going forward.

With that in mind, while in some years this would mean “Barbie” would have a chance to take the weekend box office again had there been no significant new releases, “Barbie” will definitely be blocked by Denzel Washington’s action movie The Equalizer 3. While it may be a surprise to some that this franchise ended up being a trilogy, it nevertheless makes sense in a John Wick era with other franchises trying to cash in on that success. Both Equalizer movies have also been incredibly consistent. In 2014, the first movie opened to $34.1 million, finished with $101.5 million domestically, and $192.9 million worldwide, all on a $55 million budget. Off that success, “The Equalizer 2” in 2018 increased that budget to $77 million, but opened to $36.0 million, finished with $102.1 domestically, and $190.4 million worldwide. It would be fun of “The Equalizer 3” also came within $2 million of those numbers, but at the very least one would expect it to open with $25-30 million and finish around the $100 million mark.

For the weekend, Box Office Pro is projecting $31 million for the 3-day and $37.6 million for the 4-day. In addition to Denzel Washington obviously returning in the lead role, so does Antoine Fuqua as director. So fans of the first two naturally should show up for the third, even though it’s been five years and a COVID pandemic since the last movie came out. There’s also a hurricane that hit the southeast United States this week that could cause theater closures or lower attendance in that area. That Mother Nature variable could impact things at least a bit.

While “The Equalizer 3” is the only new wide release coming out this weekend, MGM will be expanding the indie film Bottoms into wide release after a successful weekend in limited release last weekend that saw it earn $461,052 from just 10 theaters, which was the fifth highest per theater average of the year so far. The movie is an LGBTQ teen sex comedy involving two teen girls who set up a fight club that they tell the other girls is for the sake of self-defense, but their secret plan is to hook up with the cheerleaders. The movie currently has a 95 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from 112 critics, paired with a 97 percent audience score. Whether or not this translates to success with general audiences is yet to be seen. R-rated comedies have struggled quite a bit this summer, even the ones with great reviews, but this still could end up as a decent sleeper hit, especially with the market a bit bare.  

September 8 – 10

Warner Bros.' "The Nun II"

While studios have spent many years completely avoiding Labor Day weekend, Warner Bros. learned back in 2017 with “IT” the weekend after is a very good one for horror. Perhaps “IT” would’ve done well in any weekend, but nevertheless it shattered the September opening weekend record with a staggering $123.4 million. Warner Bros. has understandably put a horror movie on that weekend almost every year since, including the very next year with “The Nun,” which opened to $53.8 million.

That of course is relevant because on this weekend finally sees a sequel to that movie arrive, The Nun II. The discourse here is an almost identical conversation as to one we had last month with “The Meg” and “Meg 2.” In August 2018, “The Meg” was a huge success, but yet it took five years for a sequel to come out. Yes, maybe the COVID of it all could’ve postponed the production of both sequels, but it’s still a bit baffling that “The Nun” opened to $53.8 million, made $117.5 million domestically, and $363.4 million worldwide, all on a $22 million budget, yet took five years to get a sequel out. “The Conjuring” wound up with a higher domestic total than “The Nun,” but the rest of those numbers - the opening weekend and the worldwide totals - are the highest in the Conjuring Universe.

Perhaps a reason for the delay came with the reaction to the movie? Despite the high totals that showed how effective the scene with the haunted Nun in “The Conjuring 2” was, “The Nun” itself wound up with a 24 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 35 percent from audiences. An insane amount of hype for this spin-off led to super high attendance, but resulted in lots of disappointment across the board. A poor reaction to a horror movie usually doesn’t stop a studios from producing a long string of sequels if people keep showing up anyways, but perhaps in the years since, they’ve maybe come up with an idea that will please audiences a bit more? The trailers seem to show them going in a slightly different direction with this sequel that lines up better with the sequence from “The Conjuring 2.” The director is different from the first, but it’s Michael Chaves, the director of “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” and “The Curse of La Llorona,” two other Conjuring movies that got low reception. This all probably means it doesn’t hit the heights of the first, but it might not be too much lower and also doesn’t need as much to be considered a success.

On a discussion of third films in a franchise that you maybe didn’t think would wind up as a trilogy, as I mentioned earlier with “The Equalizer 3,” the other wide release of this weekend is My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. It’s also a possibility that you didn’t realize they even made a second one of these. The first one was quite the box office phenomenon, though. Opening on April 19, 2002, it was in theaters for nearly an entire year, its final weekend being the weekend April 4, 2003. It never hit No. 1 and its best individual weekend was only $11.1 million in August 2002, but still legged out to $241.4 million domestically, the type of run that doesn’t happen anymore. They came back with the sequel in 2016 and that opened to $17.9 million, higher than any individual weekend of the first, but it finished with $59.7 million. Now it’s been an addition seven years since that and over 20 since the first one was in theaters, but nevertheless we’re going on another adventure with this wacky Greek family. I’m not sure audiences will be too enthused over this one, but you never really know.

September 15 – 17

20th Century Studios' "A Haunting in Venice"

On first glance you may think that this next film is another random horror film. However, it’s also a third film in a franchise, the third film in the Hercule Poirot franchise, this one titled A Haunting in Venice. If the name Hercule Poirot doesn’t ring a bell right off the bat, he is a fictional detective from Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, appearing in 33 novels, two plays, and 51 short stories from the span of 1920 to 1975. In the film adaptation world of these stories, he was first played by Albert Finney in the 1974 movie “Murder on the Orient Express.” He was then played by Peter Ustinov in six different movies, “Death on the Nile” (1978), “Evil Under the Sun” (1982), “Appointment with Death” (1988), “Thirteen at Dinner” (1985), “Dead Man’s Folly” (1986), and “Murder in Three Acts” (1986), the latter three mentioned being TV movies. He was also played by David Suchet in the British ITV series “Agatha Christie’s Poirot,” which had 70 episodes over 13 seasons that ran from 1989 to 2013. There were also various other films and projects where the character showed up in.

In context of this modern series, Hercule Poirot is played by Kenneth Branagh in both “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2017 and “Death on the Nile” in 2022. And now he returns for a third time in “A Haunting in Venice.” Kenneth Branagh has also directed all three films in addition to starring as Poirot. “A Haunting in Venice” is based on the Christie novel “Halowe’en Party” in 1969, which initially garnered largely negative reviews, but has recently had a bit of a reassessment in modern years. The trailers of the movie have also given off the vibes of it being a slight departure from the traditional murder mystery genre of the other two and having a bit more of a supernatural/horror spin, which may have led it to not quite having as high awareness as the first two. “Murder on the Orient Express” did wind up with $102.8 million domestically and $351.8 million worldwide, which is why they’ve been able to continue, but after a long series of COVID delays and other issues, “Death on the Nile” wound up with just $45.6 million domestically and $130.3 million worldwide, opening to $12.9 million, less than half of the $28.7 million opening of the first.

This makes “A Haunting in Venice” a bit more of a risk for Disney/20th Century Studios after the troubles of “Death on the Nile,” but Disney is obviously hoping for a bit of a rebound. It has the advantage of being the only wide release of the weekend, which is why I’ve spent a bit more time on it. There’s also only one additional wide release the following weekend, which is a completely different target audience at that. But if awareness isn’t too terribly high, that might not mean much. Box Office Pro’s most recent long range forecast gave it a predicted opening weekend range of $11-16 million, which might not even be good enough for No. 1 depending on how big “The Nun” opens and how much it falls in its second weekend.

September 22 – 24

Lionsgate's "Expend4bles"

As referenced in the previous weekend, only one new wide release this weekend after just the one new wide release the weekend before. And it’s another franchise film, Expend4bles. Because apparently replacing a letter in the title with the sequel’s number is something studios still think is a cool thing to do. Anyways, this is the fourth film in The Expendables franchise, which initially sold itself as an action franchise that had a long list of former action stars, with each ensuing chapter adding a few more. The curious part of this is that each of the first three films were just two years apart, 2010, 2012, and 2014. Even with that close proximity, though, they all saw diminishing returns. “The Expendables 3” got more negative backlash after reducing down to a PG-13 rating, after the first two were rated R, and thus only made $39.3 million total at the domestic box office after the first two made $103.1 million and $85.0 million respectively. All of them were pretty big worldwide hits, which helped them keep going ($268.3 million, $311.9 million, $209.5 million), but nine years after a poorly received third chapter, are people ready and excited for the first?

“Expend4bles” does return to the R rating, which might make some happy. It also returns Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgreen, and Randy Coutre from the first three, which is a positive, but I’m not sure 50 Cent, Megan Fox, and Andy Garcia are the exact brand of “action stars” that is representative of the franchise? That said, it does add Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais, who are very popular international action stars, so if they goal is to appeal mainly to an international audience where the first three made the bulk of their money, that’s not a bad approach. Box Office Pro’s long range forecast pegged it at $13-18 million for its opening, which isn’t good. But if it can manage to get a couple hundred million from overseas markets, the domestic total may not matter.

September 29 – October 1

Lionsgate's "Saw X"

After the massive success of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” which garnered the nickname “Barbenheimer,” some jokingly suggested the next double feature phenomenon would be “Saw Patrol.” That’s obviously not going to happen, especially with massively different audiences, but nevertheless that’s what will conclude September and move us into October. This actually could be a close race for the top spot, but let’s start with the horror film Saw X. A new Saw film used to be a Halloween tradition. Beginning in 2004, there was a Saw film every Halloween for seven straight Halloweens, finishing in 2010 with the seventh film, “Saw 3D.” It began with James Wan directing and Leigh Whannell writing and has since rotated through a lot of different writers and directors. Attempted revivals in the franchise happened with “Jigsaw” in October 2017 and “Spiral” in May 2021, which had the only non-Halloween release date. The general premise surround a serial killer named Jigsaw, who trapped his victims and forced them to participate in violent “games” in order to survive, forcing them to harm themselves. To the chagrin of some Saw fans, this also helped inspire the term “torture porn” or “splatter film” as its own subgenre of horror.

Now how excited for a new Saw film are people really? Granted, its core fan base who has loyally gone to all of these films will probably show up. And the attempted revival of the franchise proper might be a more intriguing prospect than the spin-offs of “Jigsaw” and “Spiral,” neither of which did particularly well. Even better, “Saw X” chronologically fits in between “Saw” and “Saw II,” as a direct sequel to the original, following the recent trend started by the latest “Halloween” trilogy. But it’s still worth pointing out that it’s been 13 years since the series proper. “Halloween” and “Scream” both proved that franchise revivals of popular horror films can be done successful, but there’s still no guarantee that this does well. It was also initially set for Halloween weekend, but moved to this spot to seemingly avoid competition with “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” That does give it the entire month of October as its runway, which could end up being a positive, but “The Exorcist: Believer” also just moved up a week, putting it in the second weekend of “Saw X,” which is not great.  

“Saw X” could very well win the weekend, but don’t underestimate the power of “PAW Patrol” as PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie also sees a release this weekend. In regards to both movie’s immediate predecessors, “Spiral” opened with just $8.8 million in May 2021, while “PAW Patrol: The Movie” opened to $13.1 million three months later, in August 2021. Granted, a return to the era of the first two Saw movies could see “Saw X” open closer to the franchise average, which is $23.2 million, or even higher if it hits the $30 million range of the second through fourth movies, but this PAW Patrol thing has been around for some time and is quite popular with the younger audience. The main series began in 2013 and is currently in season 10, having aired over 200 episodes, with a handful of other films, games, video games, and lots of merchandising. And as you can see, family audiences haven’t been given a lot to go to theaters for recently. It’s mostly stuff targeted at adult males, so this could be perfect positioning for this newest PAW Patrol movie, brewing up the potential upset.

“Saw X” and “PAW Patrol” aren’t the only two movies getting a wide release this weekend. In poetic fashion, we began with a movie starring Denzel Washington and now we finish the month with a movie starring his son, John David Washington, for a Washington Family sandwich. John David’s movie is The Creator, which is described as a post-apocalyptic thriller involving a war between humans and AI. And if I lost you with that premise, given that it’s one we’ve see a hundred times, it’s possible I could get your interest back if I tell you this is a from director Gareth Edwards. And if that exactly name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, it will when I tell you that his last directed film was this little known indie film called “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” Before that he did the 2014 reboot of “Godzilla.” And given that the bar here isn’t incredibly high, if Disney decides to give a good advertising push, a weekend win over “Saw Patrol” isn’t a crazy idea. After a month full of adult-targeted male action flicks and horror films, a sci-fi action thriller could appeal to a more broad audience. But that depends on how much awareness it gets. “65” was a similar sci-fi film this year that should’ve done a lot better, but only opened to $12.3 million after poor reviews and low awareness.

Movie Preview: August 2023

Following what was seen as a disappointing June at the box office, the July box office, led by the massive Barbenheimer phenomenon, lit the summer on fire. In fairness to June, it did manage to be the year’s first billion dollar month and was led by the massive hit that was “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” so collectively as a whole it could still be considered a positive month. It was just stained by a string of underperforming blockbusters following “Spider-Verse” that led some to wonder if the general population was getting tired of the theatrical experience.

Nope. My general conclusion last month was that if you make a movie that people are excited about, that also gets great reaction, then people will show up. Maybe people just people weren’t that interested in “The Flash,” “Transformers” and “Indiana Jones.” Each of those were part of long-winded franchises that hadn’t had a great entry in quite some time, which would explain their disappointing performances. Compare that to “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two movies that were highly anticipated by audiences that both got great response from critics and audiences alike, and you have a great formula for success. It’s, of course, a very positive added bonus that the combined release date created the unique Barbenheimer phenomenon, which I definitely feel boosted both movies quite a bit. But I still think both movies would’ve still done well had they released separately. Make a good movie and people will show up.

As far as how big this ended up being? Well, if you look back at my July Preview, you would realize that “Barbie” making $93 million and “Oppenheimer” making $46.7 million was EXACTLY what I was expecting… for their opening weekends. But that’s how much both made in their SECOND weekend. “Barbie” opened to $162 million and “Oppenheimer” opened to $82.5 million. That’s an insane opening combo. I did a very detailed breakdown on my personal Facebook of how many records this set, so I won’t repeat myself here. Wander over there to see that post. But nevertheless, the two movies combining for nearly $250 million in their opening weekends helped set lots of records and pushed the overall month of July to a $1.328 billion, the highest grossing July since 2016.

The unfortunate consequence of this is that “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Haunted Mansion” were both swallowed up in this success. “Haunted Mansion” seemed doomed to fail, but the failure of “Dead Reckoning” is a peculiar one because it was set up for success. Popular franchise. Great critic reviews. Great audience reviews. Tom Cruise being hugely popular after “Top Gun: Maverick.” But the result was one of the worst entries in the franchise at the box office. Outside maybe the “Part One” label causing people to be less interested, this seems to come down to an unfortunate release timing, one in which you can’t really blame Paramount for because no one expected Barbenheimer to be as massive as it was.

What does this all mean for the month of August? Well, what it means is that we’re going to play a game of “what can dethrone ‘Barbie’ at the box office?” And, spoiler alert, I’m not so sure anything can. But let’s dive in and find out!  

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

August 4 – 6

Paramount's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem"

Before we dive into the first of our two new releases this weekend, the baseline I’m establishing for this little game of ours comes from another movie that opened earlier this year. “Barbie” is a fairly unique movie with little to directly compare it to and while it’s not a direct apples-to-apples comparison, the stars have aligned in an interesting way that “Barbie” has followed an almost duplicate trajectory of our current top grossing movie of the year, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” “Barbie” opened to $162 million. “Mario” opened to $146.4 million, but that was muted a bit by it opening on a Wednesday. Its five day total, Wednesday through Sunday, was $204.6 million. “Barbie” had the advantage of opening in the summer, so higher totals on weekdays with school not in session than “Mario” in April, but nevertheless “Barbie” earned $214.1 million in its first five days. Both movies fell about 40 percent in weekend 2, “Barbie” slightly more, but they both wound up with nearly identical weekend results, “Barbie” earning $93.0 million and “Mario” earning $92.3 million.

If we make the prediction that “Barbie” continues to closely follow “Mario,” we note that “Mario” in weekend 3 fell just 35 percent to $59.9 million, with only “Evil Dead Rise” and “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” as competition, both of which were very different target audiences. So with that $60 million mark as our projected total for “Barbie,” is this the weekend it falls?

The first of our two competitors is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which actually gets a head start on the weekend, opening on Wednesday, August 2. In my calculations, this is the fourth attempt at starting up a new TMNT franchise cinematically. We had the live action trilogy in the 90s, the 2007 animated movie, and the two live-action Michael Bay produced movies in the 2010s. Added to that, of course, a long series of various comic books, TV shows, and video games, all of which began as a comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, released by Mirage Studios, in 1984. It was more or less a parody of various superhero comics at the time and has now blossomed into its own mega franchise. This latest version, “Mutant Mayhem” takes the characters back to animation, with an animation style that seems to take influence from the Spider-Verse films, which can be seen as a new era of animation where not everything is your traditional 3D, computer generated animation. The team behind the mayhem is Seth Rogen and Evan Golberg, who have collaborated on a lot of things on the writing and producing side of the game, from your long list of raunchy comedies that you might associate Seth Rogen with to various shows like “The Boys” and “Invincible.”

Rogen does lend his voice to the movie as well, as John Cena and him voice Rocksteady and Bebop, but he’s primarily been pushed as writer and producer of this, the trailers advertising, “From permanent teenager Seth Rogen.” While animation is often a team effort, the actual directors of this are Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears, Rowe being a co-director of “Mitchells vs. the Machines” and Spears having directed 20 episodes of Disney’s “Amphibia.” As far as our game of can it beat “Barbie”? Well, a $60 million debut is probably a bit on the high end here, especially with it opening on a Wednesday.  If you look at the six previous theatrically released TMNT movies and adjust for ticket price inflation, the original 1990 movie would clock in at $63.4 million ($25.4 million unadjusted) for its opening weekend and the 2014 Michael Bay produced movie would equal $84.5 million ($65.6 million unadjusted), so it has theoretically been done, but maybe the more apt comparison is the 2007 animated movie, which unadjusted opened to $24.3 million, which would equal $37.1 million adjusted. With great early reviews that should lead to positive word of mouth, while this probably won’t top “Barbie,” it could end up as its new second place running-mate throughout the rest of August.

The other movie opening this weekend is one that feels like it should’ve come out 2-3 years and that is The Meg 2: The Trench. While “Mutant Mayhem” will be primarily attracting young males and boys, “The Meg 2” is a movie that will attract older males. This means that both movies can co-exist, both with each other and with “Barbie,” which had an opening weekend audience that was 65 percent female. “The Meg” was a very simple movie that was a huge surprise back in August 2018 as the movie about Jason Statham fighting a giant Megalodon opened to $45.4 million, when it was expected around $20 million. It also came out around the time of a random string of other shark movies, like “47 Meters Down” and “The Shallows.” If you do that well, you typically want to capitalize on that by getting the sequel out a year or two later. But five years later? Do people still care? Now, if you do the math, maybe they tried to start production and were stopped by COVID. So perhaps it’s not all their fault. But nevertheless, five years ago, with a pandemic in between, makes August 2018 feel like 10 years ago. “The Meg 2” is also projected at around $20 million, so is it possible we’re in for another surprise? Sure. But if so, probably not a $60 million surprise. The original didn’t even hit that. The other challenge is that, a few days away, awareness doesn’t seem super high and the reviews have not been released. This movie could surprise, but it’s also an easy candidate to be a dud.

August 11 – 13

Universal's "The Last Voyage of the Demeter"

The second weekend of our will it top “Barbie” game will most likely see “Barbie” come in around $40 million. In the fourth weekend of “Mario,” it fell an even softer 32 percent to $40.8 million, with the only competition being the moderate release of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” If neither “Mutant Mayhem” or “The Meg 2” were able to hit $60 million, ain’t no way that our one new wide release will sniff $40 million.

If this weekend feels a bit empty, it’s because Sony took one look at the Barbenheimer success and said, “Yeah… no. We’re not releasing ‘Gran Turismo’ this weekend.” That movie was supposed to come out this weekend, but was bumped last minute to the final weekend of August. So we’ll tackle it there. That leaves the only wide release of this weekend as The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which is a Dracula-themed horror film that’s tracking to open to less than $10 million. The specifics here is that this is a movie based on one specific chapter of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” specifically the chapter titled “The Captain’s Log,” where a crew was haunted by this Dracula figure as they were traveling on their ship from Transylvania to London, of which there ends up being no trace of the crew when the ship arrives in London. Believe it or not, production on this film dates way back to when writer Bragi F. Schut was inspired by the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” The rights to the film were first acquired in 2003 and it’s been a long journey since. It also winds up being the second Dracula-themed movie this year, as April’s “Renfield” was a major flop, opening to just $8 million on an $86 million budget. Early signs point to “Demeter” opening in a similar way with a budget that might be even larger?

August 18 – 20

Warner Bros.' "Blue Beetle"

The third weekend of August is where our “Barbie” game becomes interesting. “Mario” becomes slightly less helpful in this instance because in its fifth weekend it went up against “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and plummeted 55 percent, its first big drop. But nevertheless, it still made $18.6 million. With that on the low end of the spectrum, and $25-30 million being more on the realistic side if it continues to only fall 30-40 percent, this is the first weekend where it seems like the top spot at the box office could be up for grabs if one of our late August films over-performs.

I say the “Mario” comparison is slightly less helpful here, but as it turns out there is a superhero movie opening on this weekend. And while it ain’t no “Guardians 3,” DC will have Blue Beetle opening here. This is a movie that perhaps has the absolute worst timing. It’s been well documented that DC, at the end of last year, has already made plans to completely reset their universe, with James Gunn leading the charge. And that was questionable timing even at that point given that DC had four movies in the old DCEU on the docket. And so far the people questioning that timing seem to have been proven right. While poor reaction to the first two could’ve been a big reason why they failed, the idea that the future was very cloudy for the characters of Shazam and Flash had to at least play a big role in why their movies failed. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” opened to just $30.1 million and finished with just $57.6 million total domestically, which was almost less than the opening weekend of 2019’s “Shazam!” at $53.5 million, which itself was considered a bit of a disappointment. That, of course, was followed up by “The Flash,” which, despite three variations of Batman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and a handful of Superman cameos, in addition it being advertised as a big multiverse movie that even James Gunn promised was pivotal to his universe in using Flashpoint Paradox to reset things, opened to just $55 million, tanking historically to making just $107 million domestically, not only finishing with less than “Guardians 3” did in one weekend ($118.4 million), but barely beating out the opening weekend of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which opened to $106.1 million.

And with DC’s image and reputation at an absolute low, perhaps a historic low, “Blue Beetle” is supposed to follow up? A movie based on a comic book character that few have ever heard of? Had DC been doing great, this would’ve been a solid intro to a new character. But even then, Marvel even sometimes has a hard time taking a brand new character and making everyone care. It’s not often they strike gold with a “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Going in favor of “Blue Beetle” is that it’s either the first or one of the first major superhero movies based on a Latino character. Representation can go a long way in that realm. Just look at “Shang-Chi” or “Black Panther.” But again, do people care? Even if the movie is well received, it’s possible that DC’s reputation is so low that people just don’t show up and cause “Blue Beetle” to be dead on arrival. Reviews probably have to be through the roof for this to find success, and even then it would probably be a word of mouth hit rather than a huge opening. Actors not being able to promote this during the strike also doesn’t help. In Box Office Pro’s long range forecast, they said initial tracking has it significantly behind “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” which again, only opened to $30.1 million. They pegged it as a $12-17 million opening weekend, with a $27-55 million range for its final domestic total.

If worse comes to worse for “Blue Beetle,” it might not even be the top competition for “Barbie” this weekend. That might end up being Strays, an adult-targeted raunchy comedy about a group of stray dogs wanting to get revenge on their owners that abandoned them. The trailers point to this as being from the humans who brought you “21 Jump Street” and “Cocaine Bear,” those humans being Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who have a long string of success in the comedy realm. Lord and Miller are producers on this film, with the director being Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) and the writer being Dan Perrault (“American Vandal”). Although the real draw is Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx leading the voice cast of foul-mouth dogs. This movie isn’t a Seth Rogen vehicle, but speaking of his team, they had a movie called “Good Boys” that opened to $21.4 million in late August of 2019 that this could replicate. And if “Barbie” ends up in the $18-25 million range, this could be a competition.

August 25 – 27

Sony's "Gran Turismo"

The final weekend of August will be the most vulnerable “Barbie” will be if nothing still has knocked it out. Continuing the “Mario” comparison, in weekend 6, “Mario” dropped just 32 percent to $12.6 million, but again that was after getting dinged the weekend before. If “Barbie” ends weekend 5 in the $25-30 million range, $15-20 million could be its range for weekend 6. In late August with little to offer, this is where often a previously popular summer film either continues to reign or even resurfaces at top after conceded the previous weekend. Will “Barbie” complete the sweep of August before “The Equalizer 3” and “The Nun 2” hit in early September?

This was going to be another empty final weekend of August, but as mentioned earlier, this is where Gran Turismo got moved to. And Sony has been pushing this one hard. In fact, if I’m projecting “Barbie” to earn somewhere in the $15-20 million range, it’s noteworthy that that’s the exact range that Box Office Pro has “Gran Turismo” at for its opening weekend. Granted, their last Long Range Forecast post was right before it swapped dates, but still. The bar isn’t very high and there’s no guarantee “Gran Turismo” clears it, but there’s at least a pathway for it to, uhh… “race” to the first place finish. “Gran Turismo” began in 1997 as a racing game for PlayStation and the franchise has since become the highest selling video game franchise under the PlayStation brand. The franchise so far has eight primary releases, the most recent being “Gran Turismo 7” in 2022, as well as a handful of secondary releases. The movie adaptation is not based specifically on the game itself, but rather tells the true story of Jann Mardenborough, who transitioned from being a video game player to a professional  race car driver after winning the GT Academy competition in 2011, beating 90,000 other entrants. The GT Academy was a television program from 2008 to 2016 that allowed the best Gran Turismo players the chance to earn a professional racing career. Mardenborough was the third and youngest winner, successfully transitioning to a racing career despite having no previous on-road experience.   

There are two other movies scheduled for a wide release this weekend. Both of them seem like they’re heading for weekends that barely register. Typical late August affair as this last weekend of August before Labor Day is often the worst weekend of the year. But anyways, speaking of unlikely success stories in sports, the first of these two small films is The Hill, a movie based on the story of Rickey Hill, a baseball player who had to overcome a severe physical handicap (the trailer shows him having very bad legs) to becoming a professional baseball player. Dennis Quaid plays his dad in the movie who is trying to be real with him, saying he’s not going to make it with his condition. The movie is being released by a small distribution company named Briarcliff Entertainment, whose highest grossing movie is the Liam Neeson thriller “Blacklight,” which opened to $3.5 million in February 2022. Relevant to “The Hill,” they also released the sports drama “Sweetwater” this April, which only earned $351,010 in 1,204 theaters.

And actually, speaking of Liam Neeson thrillers, he has yet another one coming out this weekend with our other small film, that of Retribution. In this scenario, Liam Neeson is in a car with his kids when he gets a phone call from a person saying that there is a bomb in his car that will go off if he decides to leave the car, so he is held hostage in his own car while being forced to follow the demands of the person on the phone. If this type of generic action thriller, that feels like he’s redone “Taken” about a hundred times, is what Liam Neeson enjoys doing, then all power to him. Do what you enjoy. But they’ve definitely become very predictable, at least at the box office. The last five of them have all made less than $20 million total at the domestic box office and all opened below $5 million. The said openings are “Honest Thief” (October 2020) - $3.6 million, “The Marksman” (January 2021) - $3.1 million, “Blacklight” (February 2022) - $3.5 million, “Memory” (April 2022) - $3.1 million, and “Marlowe” (February 2023) - $1.8 million. Based on that, you should know what to expect from “Retribution.”

Movie Preview: July 2023

We’re halfway through the summer box office season! While June was certainly an eventful month in terms of the quantity of high profile releases, and while the combined box office of all the releases led to the first billion dollar month of the year and just the second since COVID (July 2022 being the other), the month was nevertheless viewed as a bit of a train-wreck in terms of the constant stream of individual disappointments. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” “The Flash” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” all opened in the $60 million range domestically for their three-day weekends, which considering their budgets and expectations were not what the studios were hoping for, especially since international numbers didn’t help much either. In a surprise turn of events, “Rise of the Beasts” was the highest of this trio and considering some thought it might only open with $35-40 million, a $61 million opening was a small silver lining, even though that was a far cry from what a Transformers movie used to open to. Meanwhile, on the animated front, both Pixar and DreamWorks earned their worst opening weekends ever with “Elemental” and “Ruby Gillman,” respectively.

What went wrong this month? Well, there’s probably not just one answer. I often mention that too many high profile releases at the same time can end up cannibalizing each other. And that’s certainly a possible part of the equation. But in each case with the so far mentioned releases, the movies were part of bigger franchises with less than stellar reputations. Combine that with mixed reaction on the movies themselves and you have an unfortunate formula for disappointment.

The obvious omission so far is that of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which was the lone bright spot of the month. It opened to $120 million and has legged out to over $330 million domestically so far, putting it on track for the highest grossing movie of the summer. The difference? Well, people loved “Into the Spider-Verse,” were excited for “Across the Spider-Verse,” and were very pleased with the result as the movie had very high marks across the board. Moral of the story, make a good movie that people want to see and people will go see it. Transition that into our upcoming July slate and the initial prognosis is looking very positive, although we’ll obviously have to wait until the movies come out to see the exact reaction, but let’s take a look at what we have on the schedule!

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

July 7 – 9 

Angel Studios' "Sound of Freedom"

This first weekend of July will see the second weekend of “Dial of Destiny” pull in around $25-30 million, which could make this a close race for No. 1, given the current projections of our three new films. And while there is a major studio film on the schedule that we’ll get to in a second, the potential spoiler comes from Angel Studios with their new film Sound of Freedom. Angel Studios is a Utah-based distribution company most well-known for the TV series “The Chosen,” of which they’ve actually had major success with in releasing certain episodes in theaters. “Sound of Freedom” tells the story of Tim Ballard, who quit his job as a government agent in order to dedicate his life to rescuing children from child sex trafficking, with the specific mission portrayed in this film taking place primarily in Colombia. Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard and the movie is directed by Alejandro Monteverde. As far as its box office potential goes, the movie actually opened on July 4 in 2,634 theaters and actually beat “Dial of Destiny” on that day with an opening day total of $14.2 million, compared to Indy’s $11.7 million. Could that spill over into the weekend, giving it a surprise upset at the top? It’s quite possible. Although it should be mentioned that both Monday previews and a certain total from a pay-it forward campaign were rolled into that $14.2 million, so that could indicate a bit of frontloading. But so far word of mouth is very positive with an A+ CinemaScore, an 8.6 score on IMDb, and a 99 percent Rotten Tomatoes audience score. That should at least translate into a very healthy theatrical run.    

The aforementioned major studio film getting released this weekend, that’s also in contention for the top spot is Sony Pictures’ Insidious: The Red Door. This is the fifth movie in the Insidious franchise, with the previous entry, “The Last Key,” having been released in 2018. So it’s been five years, which could be seen as too long of a break for a horror sequel, but nevertheless these are very low budget horror films made for $10 million or less that have in turn have come close to or made more than $100 million worldwide. So they’ve been very profitable. “The Red Door” is reported to have a budget of $16 million, the highest in the franchise, but that’s still a very low bar for profitability. The movie itself is actually a direct sequel to the second movie as the third and fourth movie followed a slightly different arc. The movie thus sees the return of Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne as Josh and Renai Lambert as the main conflict centers around their son Dalton, now in college, having the demons from his past come back to haunt him. Ty Simpkins will also be reprising his role as Dalton. Patrick Wilson will actually be directing this movie in his directorial debut, with a story by Leigh Whannell, director of the third movie, and produced by James Wan, director of the first two movies.  

Not to be forgotten, but also most likely looking at a fourth place debut, is the comedy Joy Ride. Although this is the second comedy of its nature to come out in three weeks, the other being Jennifer Lawrence’s “No Hard Feelings” on June 23, it’s nevertheless noteworthy the adult comedy has been much more rare than it has in the past, at least in terms of a theatrical release. Many of them have instead gone straight to streaming and found much success there. That means there should be a healthy market for “Joy Ride,” given that fans of the genre haven’t had much in terms of quantity. “Joy Ride” follows four Asian-American friends traveling in search of one of their birth mothers, with many shenanigans happening along the way. The movie is directed by Adele Lim, who was a part of the writing team for both “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Raya and the Last Dragons,” and stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Sabrina Wu as the four friends. Also helping the film out is the very strong initial reaction. The 91 percent Rotten Tomatoes score as of this post suggests that it’s a great crowd pleaser and that should help word of mouth. As a comparison, it’s fellow comedy “No Hard Feelings” opened to $15 million, although that was boosted by the star power of Jennifer Lawrence.   

July 14 – 16 

Paramount's "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"

Opening on Wednesday, July 12, most likely in an effort to keep as many IMAX screens as possible before Oppenheimer steals most of them away, is the next major summer tentpole, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. This is perhaps among the final wave of films that was directly impacted by COVID. Word on the street early on was that this two part “Dead Reckoning” story was to be filmed back-to-back, with Part One set for a July 2021 release and Part Two set for an August 2022 release. Filming for Part One began in February 2020, which was obviously immediately cut short. Instead of taking the route of rushing to film and release as soon as possible, the production team took the route of “Top Gun: Maverick” in patiently waiting for the right moment. Three years later, the movie is finally being released, with Part Two currently scheduled for next summer. Patience is looking to pay off as not only is this particular franchise continued to get more and more popular over time, with the 2018 release of “Fallout” finding huge success, but “Dead Reckoning” is also bound to get a bump due to the massive success of last year’s aforementioned “Top Gun: Maverick,” which not only made $1.48 billion worldwide, $718 million of that coming domestically, but was also a huge awards contender after being universally praised by pretty much everyone.    

“Dead Reckoning Part One” obviously sees Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt, but also sees Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg all return as well, with Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Cary Elwes being among the new additions. Director Christopher McQuarrie, who directed both “Rogue Nation” and “Fallout,” is also returning as director for both Part One and Part Two. As for its box office comparison this weekend, “Rogue Nation” opened to $55.5 million in 2015, while “Fallout” opened to $61.2 million. So that’s the previous bar set by the franchise. How much will the massive success of “Top Gun: Maverick” boost that? “Maverick” opened to $126.7 million last year. “Dead Reckoning” is not likely to get that high, nor is it fair to expect it to replicate that movie’s success, but it should manage to open higher than “Fallout,” with the other note being that the Wednesday opening is likely to mute the traditional 3-day numbers, with it’s opening being spread out over those five days. All things noted, Box Office Pro has it pegged at a $65-75 million range for its opening. As of this posting, initial critical reactions have begun to come out and it is sitting at a very strong 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after 119 reviews. From the note to start this post, if you make a good movie, people will generally show up. And if audiences like this movie as much as critics are, then this is in for a very healthy run throughout the rest of the summer. 

One other quick note on this weekend is that Crunchyroll will be releasing the anime film Pscyho-Pass Providence this weekend. These anime films are always a bit of a wildcard. Sometimes you’ll get a situation like “One Piece Film: Red” opening to $9.3 million in November 2022 or “Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village” opening to $10.1 million in March of this year. Other times will be like two of the other releases this year, “The Time That I Got Reincarnated as a Smile: Scarlet Bond” opening to $1.5 million from 1,473 theaters in January or “Sword Art Online” opening to $607,000 from 892 theaters in February. How popular is the “Psycho-Pass” anime? Well, the initial run had three seasons, beginning in 2012. It’s also had three movies released since then, none of which have had a domestic release. So “Providence” will be a first for the franchise in that manner as they celebrate the 10th anniversary. There’s also been a few mangas, novels, and video games. The release will obviously be overshadowed by “Dead Reckoning,” but its niche audience could show up as well.

July 21 – 23

Warner Bros.' "Barbie" and Universal's "Oppenheimer"

The third weekend of the month has been potentially one of the buzziest weekends of recent memory as two very different movies that can most definitely coexist will go head to head in a fated duel. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” vs. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” The online chatter for this weekend has been so strong that “Barbenheimer” t-shirts have been made and sold. The likely winner of this epic duel? 

You guessed it. Greta Gerwig’s live action adaptation of Barbie. It’s Barbie’s World and we’re all just living in it. As a writer and actress, Greta Gerwig has been around the indie scene for quite some time, going back to 2006. As a director, she came on strong with “Lady Bird” in 2017, which got five Oscar nominations. She followed that up in 2019 with her adaption of “Little Women,” which got six Oscar nominations. Both movies were nominated for best picture and screenplay, while Gerwig got a directing nomination for “Lady Bird.” So naturally it makes sense for her to follow that up by doing a live-action “Barbie” movie. But hey, when you’ve gained that much notoriety, you have more freedom in Hollywood to do what you want. And if Greta wants to do “Barbie,” then we let Greta do “Barbie.” She quite literally dragged her partner Noah Baumbach on against his will to help write, who himself has had quite the prestigious career with indie films such as “The Squid and the Whale,” “Frances Ha” and “Marriage Story.” The Hollywood power couple now combine their forces together to make the whole world excited to see a live-action Barbie movie.

Starring as Barbie in what might be the perfect casting choice is Margot Robbie, with Ryan Gosling co-starring as Ken. But there’s also a lot of other Barbies and Kens in the Barbie World, with Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Sharon Rooney, Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, Ana Cruz Kayne, and Rita Arya being among the actresses playing different variations of Barbie, while Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and John Cena as different Kens. Not that one needs a plot for a Barbie movie, but the plot sees Margot’s Barbie suffering an existential crisis where she journey’s into the human world with Gosling’s Ken to learn what “real life” is like. That world has Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel and America Ferrera as a Mattel employee named Gloria who helps Barbie and Ken. Helen Mirren is the narrator of the movie. So yeah, everyone in Hollywood got on board for “Barbie.” Given how unique this movie is, there’s not really a direct box office comparison, but Box Office Pro currently has it opening in the $65-90 million range. If the response to this movie is as great as the advertising is leading people to believe, that could be even higher. I’ve seen projections as high as $80-100 million from different sources. So this is set to be quite the event.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is certainly not going to be left completely in the dust, though. The movie stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist who is often credited as the father of the atomic bomb. The movie is telling his story of the role he had in developing these nuclear weapons that of course were used later in August 1945 in the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. This movie seemingly has Christopher Nolan moving away from his huge, mainstream blockbusters like “Inception,” “Interstellar,” and “Tenet” and at least temporarily going back to his roots when he did movies like “Memento” and “Insomnia,” movies that are more psychologically grounded and adult-targeted. In fact, it’s his first R-rated film he’s directed since “Insomnia” back in 2002. That combined with the three-hour run time and the heavy subject matter will likely make this less of a huge summer opening and more of a long-term play with excellent staying power, assuming that the response to the film is positive. “Barbie” is likely to win the weekend, but “Oppenheimer” is likely to have the last laugh when all is said and done, especially if it manages to be a huge awards player. That said, Box Office Pro still has it opening in the $45-57 million range, which would put it in the realm of Nolan’s last non-COVID release, that being the $50.5 million opening of “Dunkirk” in July 2017. In fact, also in that range, “Interstellar” opened to $47.5 million in November 2014, while “Inception” opened to $62.8 million in July 2010. “Tenet” only opened to $20 million, but that was during COVID in September 2020, perhaps an unwise choice in hindsight.

July 28 – 30 

Disney's "Haunted Mansion"

After what is certainly poised to be a grand, epic weekend, with the winner likely to take a second weekend crown in this final week, Disney is nevertheless entering themselves into the ring with their remake of Haunted Mansion. The first “Haunted Mansion” came out in 2003 and was a decent hit that year. Starring Eddie Murphy it opened to $24.3 million, finishing with $75.8 million domestically and $155.8 million worldwide on a reported $90 million budget. While this 2023 movie is essentially a remake of that movie, it’s probably more accurately described as a second adaptation of the popular Disney theme park attraction, located at Disneyland, Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland. Movies based on rides don’t always work out, but it certainly did with “Pirates of the Caribbean” and every once in a while Disney attempts to see if they can replicate that success with other ride to movie adaptations. This certainly has the elements to work as a more family oriented horror/comedy. The haunted house subgenre of horror has existed ever since horror has existed, essentially. So it’s not too crazy of a stretch. The movie is directed by Justin Simien and has a cast that’s headlined by LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, and Rosario Dawson. The biggest question is why was this not released closer to Halloween instead of in the middle of the summer? It’s projected to earn around the same as the 2003 movie in its opening, which probably wouldn’t be considered a success given that we’re 20 years later. You would think that a September or October release would’ve given it a boost as opposed to being in the shadow of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”    

That’s mostly it for the weekend, and the month for that matter. But there is two other smaller films scheduled for a wide release on this weekend worth quickly mentioned. One of them is actually another horror film, that being A24’s Talk to Me. Although this is probably the opposite of “Haunted Mansion” as it’s an adult-targeted supernatural horror film that’s most definitely not for families. The movie follows a group of friends who discover how to conjure spirits using a certain embalmed hand. You grab the hand and say “talk to me.” Given the genre, this of course goes from a fun thrill to a deadly threat. While this sounds like things we’ve seen before, the movie had its debut already, initially at the Adelaide Film Festival in Australia in October 2022, given that Australia is its country of origin, then at both the Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest Film Festival in January and March of this year, respectively. And the reaction has been very positive. After 62 reviews, it has a 97 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie was directed by Danny and Michael Philippou, two brothers who run the RackaRacka YouTube channel. Best case scenario would be an opening like last year’s “Smile” or “The Black Phone,” both of which opened just over $20 million. But that would depend on how heavy A24 decides to push their campaign and how wide they actually release it.

The other smaller release is another anime film, this time being GKIDS’ release of The First Slam Dunk. See my comments above on “Psycho-Pass Providence” on how anime can be a wild card at the domestic box office. Another comparison in this instance might be the movie “Suzume” from this April, which had already made over $300 million at the international box office before then opening to $5 million here domestically. I mention that because “The First Slam Dunk” is a movie that’s already made $262 million at the international box office, most of that coming from China, Japan, and South Korea beginning at the end of last year. It also won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the year. So its domestic launch is irrelevant. But nevertheless it’s an anime sports film based on the “Slam Dunk” manga that ran from 1990 to 1996. It follows the Shohoku High School basketball team challenging the inter-high basketball champions, the Sannoh School. Central to the story is the character named Ryota Miyagi, the point guard of the team whose older brother of three years inspired him to play basketball.