Movie Preview: June 2024

The summer box office is under way and it began with a thud. May 2024 was a really bad month for the box office. Perhaps a historically bad month. Not counting the two COVID years where movies didn’t really exist, this was the worst May at the domestic box office since May 1998. While the internet has certainly been buzzing about the death of cinema, or at least the death of theaters, I’ll point out that this wasn’t particularly surprising. I noted in my May preview the fact that “Deadpool and Wolverine,” which was the month’s big tentpole event, was removed from the schedule due to the strikes and nothing really stepped up to replace it. That said, it doesn’t help that just about everything else that was on the schedule either hit on the low end of their expectations or straight-up disappointed. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” was the only movie to overperform, but “The Fall Guy,” “IF,” “Furiosa,” and “Garfield” all kinda collapsed.

Is this a sign of things to come or just a strange anomaly of a month? Well, there’s legit concerns about the future of the theatrical experience for a wide variety of reasons, but even in the current landscape, it’s worth reminding people that even this year there’s been stories of movies that did well, like with “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong” in March, not to mention the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon of last year or other movies like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in recent years. People have shown that they are still willing to show up to the movies when there’s a movie that they want to show up for. So is there anything in June that people are going to show up for? Well, there’s at least a title or two where we’ll certainly have conversations if people don’t show up, but let’s dive in and analyze all the options that we have.

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 always subject to change.

June 7 – 9

Sony's "Bad Boys: Ride or Die"

A quick note before diving into the first two new releases of the month is that the weekend of May 31 – June 2 was covered in last month’s preview. Even though two of the three days were in June, the weekend started in May, so that’s where I included it. In that preview, I covered “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle” and “Ezra.” As it turns out, there were two other moderate releases that wound up coming out, “In a Violent Nature,” a slasher horror film from the vantage point of the killer, and “Summer Camp,” a comedy starring Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, and Alfre Woodard who play three best friends who get together for a summer camp reunion after they used to spend every summer there as kids. All four of these movies were moderate releases that opened in around 1,500 theaters. The highest grossing of the bunch was “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,” which opened in seventh with $3.6 million. I also covered “Robot Dreams,” which ended up only opening in two theaters, so I’m guessing that will be expanding here in the next few weeks.

Onto the weekend proper, June begins with the fourth movie in the Bad Boys franchise, Bad Boys: Ride or Die. The first two movies came via Michael Bay in 1995 and 2003, respectively, and starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two off-kilter detectives investigating various drug-related crimes. Both were poorly reviewed, but were of their time and came out at the height of both Will Smith and Michael Bay, so they were both fairly big hits. The franchise was revived in January 2020 with “Bad Boys for Life,” which saw the return of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but had the directing duo of Adil and Bilall take over at the helm. The movie became the first breakout hit of 2020, opening to $62.5 million and finishing with $204.4 million… before the world shut down due to COVID. Because of that, it wound up as the highest grossing movie of 2020. Four years later and a pandemic in between, “Ride or Die” comes out with the same cast and crew returning and will try to replicate that success. But was that third movie received well enough to warrant another huge hit in the franchise or are people done with these movies? Also, this is the first big release for Will Smith since the slap incident at the Oscars. Might that affect the movie’s opening? Or have audiences moved on and are willing to forgive him? Box Office Pro is expecting an opening in the range of $45-55 million going into this weekend, but that was also the expectation for “Furiosa” before that opened to just $26 million, so we’ll see what side of the fence this falls on.

Opening alongside “Ride or Die” is the psychological horror film The Watchers, which comes via the Shyamalan clan. Horror has had a bit of an interesting year so far. There’s been several titles that have been well received by audiences and critics, but none of that has translated into high box office turnout. Currently the highest opening weekend for a horror film is “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” which opened to $11.82 million last month and barely topped January’s “Night Swim,” which opened to $11.79 million. Can the Shyamalan name propel this to an opening that’s at least slightly higher than those two movies or is this another $7-10 million opening for a horror film. Now this is a PG-13 psychological horror film, which should open the door for a younger audience to show up and provide counter-programming to the R-rated, male-targeted action film of “Ride or Die” that it’s competing against. But it should be noted that this is not M. Night Shyamalan himself directing. He’s on as producer and has his own movie called “Trap” coming out in August. Directing the movie is his daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan, with her feature-length directorial debut after helping her dad out on the Apple TV+ show “Servant.” The last two movies from M. Night were “Old” in 2021 and “Knock at the Cabin” in 2023, and they opened to $16.8 million and $14.1 million, respectively, so we’ll see if Ishana can hit her dad’s mark on those two movies as she attempts to create a trail herself. As is typical with a Shyamalan horror/thriller, the plot is intended to be a bit mysterious, with a twist that is sure to come, but the general idea involves a young artist, played by Dakota Fanning, who gets stranded in a forest in Ireland.

June 14 – 16

Pixar’s "Inside Out 2"

Only one new wide release on the second weekend of June, but this is the main movie I referenced in the beginning where if it fails, a conversation will need to be had because this is the opening of the newest Pixar film Inside Out 2. It’s worth mentioning that Pixar has had a bit of a rough go of it since COVID as Mother Disney sent three straight movies of there’s directly to Disney+, which got some out of the habit of seeing their movies in theaters. Disney tried to remedy that with “Lightyear,” but failed as that movie massively under-performed based on Toy Story standards. Then there’s the case of “Elemental” last year, which experienced one of Pixar’s worst openings, but then caught on like wildfire and had a very leggy run in theaters, finishing with $154 million domestically and $484 million worldwide. Might that be the course correction Disney and Pixar needed? A stepping stone in the right direction? If there’s a next step to continue moving Pixar in an upward direction, it’s a sequel to “Inside Out,” one of their most successful original films, which made $356.5 million domestically in 2015 after opening to $90.4 million. The story of “Inside Out 2” follows the natural progression of its main protagonist Riley, as it dives into her teenage years, adding a handful more emotions as it tackles a complex time in a young person’s life. Now there’s several examples of Pixar sequels exploding with $100+ million openings. If this becomes the first $100 million opening of 2024, that’s obviously a huge story. But given the aforementioned struggles of Pixar and the continued existence of Disney+, if this movie can at least come close to the opening of the original, then that should be considered a big enough success. Tracking has this anywhere in the $70-100 million range.

June 21 – 23

Focus Features' "The Bikeriders"

Before we get into the final weekend of June, which has a couple more notable titles, we get a bit of a breather week. “Inside Out 2” will certainly be taking a second weekend at No. 1, while The Bikeriders looks to fall somewhere in the top five. This is a smaller festival film that stars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, director of “Mud” and “Loving,” two other smaller indie films. “The Bikeriders” is about a Midwestern motorcycle club, led by Tom Hardy that goes from being a gathering place for local outsiders into a dangerous underworld of violence, forcing its newest member, played by Austin Butler, to choose between his loyalty to the club and a girl he met, played by Jodie Comer. After debuting at the festivals towards the end of last year, this was initially poised to open in December to make a potential awards run, but amidst the strikes Focus Features pushed it from the awards season to the summer movie season so that the cast could help promote it. Maybe they also read the tea leaves that this was perhaps not quite the awards player they thought it could be following and decided it might be more fit as a summer crowd-pleaser.

Not to be confused with “The Exorcist” or any of it’s sequels and remakes, the second movie to be released this weekend is The Exorcism. Exorcist-related horror movies, whether they be a part of the aforementioned movie’s franchise or not, have been coming out in a steady stream since the original movie back in 1973, so this here is nothing new. Despite the slightly generic title, the spin on this movie is that it’s about an actor playing a priest in a horror film who suddenly starts exhibiting strange behaviors. So it’s a bit meta in that regards – a horror movie about people making a horror movie wherein some sort of demonic presence exists. Now if you watch this trailer and something feels awfully familiar here, outside the general knowledge that these movies come out all the time, it might be because this stars Russell Crowe in an exorcism movie, which he literally did last year with “The Pope’s Exorcist.” And hey, if a guy likes making these types of horror films, then by all means we should let him make these horror films. In that regard, “The Pope’s Exorcist” opened to $9.0 million last April, so that’s the bar here if Crowe wants to replicate his success. That could put it in close competition with “The Bikeriders” for the top new release of the weekend.

June 28 – 30

Paramount's "A Quiet Place: Day One"

Speaking of movies that were supposed to come out, but got postponed by the strike, a common story that I have been covering, this final weekend of June at one point was the scheduled release date for the eighth Mission: Impossible film, previously titled “Dead Reckoning – Part Two,” but now currently untitled as they dropped the “Part One” and “Part Two” thing. However, unlike “Deadpool and Wolverine” that pushed back only a couple of months, Mission: Impossible 8 moved all the way to Summer 2025. So if you need another example of a dead zone left by a departing franchise film that has impacted this summer, there you are.

Taking its place in this spot is another franchise film, A Quiet Place: Day One, which continues John Krasinski’s popular A Quiet Place saga by telling the story of how the world became quiet. Both A Quiet Place movies did very well, especially for a horror genre that often comes with lower production budgets. The first movie opened to $50.2 million on a budget of $17 million and eventually went onto make $188 million domestically and $334 million worldwide. The second movie, despite opening in 2021 when the box office was still recovering, managed to duplicate those numbers, opening to $47.5 million and making $160.2 million domestically and $296 million worldwide, albeit on a slightly larger budget of $61 million, which it earned by the first movie doing as well as it did. Might this be a sign that “Day One” is a good position to be a relatively safe hit at the box office? I think there’s certainly an argument that this should do quite well. However, one might look at “Furiosa” as a slight cautionary tale. While there’s not one definitive reason as to why “Furiosa” failed, one potential explanation was the fact that it was a prequel with a different cast. And maybe that caused people to be a bit hesitant to check it out, having been burned by many prequels in the past. In that case, “Day One” is also a prequel with a different cast, so no John Krasinski or Emily Blunt. And speaking of Krasinski, while he did help write this movie, he’s also absent from the director’s chair, with Michael Sarnoski, director of the 2021 movie “Pig,” taking the helm. Maybe this won’t matter in the long run, especially since the budgets of these movies don’t require as high of a bar for success, but it will be a test to see how strong the brand of A Quiet Place is, if it can survive with a different cast and crew.

The other notable release of the weekend is also the biggest wildcard of the month and that is Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. This is a movie that’s gotten quite a bit of buzz in certain film circles, mostly due to its unique approach. This is a Western from Kevin Costner, who wrote, directed, and stars in the film. What makes this unique is that this is a multipart film where “Chapter 1” and “Chapter 2” have both been made and are both coming out this summer. “Chapter 1” right here at the end of June and “Chapter 2” in August. Word on the street is that Costner also wants to make a “Chapter 3” and a “Chapter 4” at some point soon as well, although production hasn’t begun on those final two just yet. The first challenge here is the genre. There’s been a few Westerns here and there that have surfaced, whether it be via movie or series. And the genre certainly has its following. But the heyday of Westerns being enormously popular with the masses has long since passed and we don’t have a ton of examples of ones that have performed super well recently. On top of that, audiences will be committing to, not one but two of these movies this summer. And on top of that, “Chapter 1” debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May and it was learned that the movie is three hours long. And given that this was written as a four-part story, that’s mostly three hours of introducing the world and all the characters. Reaction from Cannes has been understandably divisive. So how will this do with general audiences? That’s a great question. The long range forecast from Box Office Pro has this anywhere from $20-40 million for its opening. I’m inclined to think it’ll wind up on the lower end of that. But regardless, we’ll be back in a couple months to re-evaluate this project for when “Chapter 2” rolls around.

The final wide release of the weekend is a smaller one and that’s Blue Lock The Movie -Episode Nagi-, which is another anime from Crunchyroll. They’ve been rather consistent with these releases and the strategy has worked well for its niche targeted audience. “Blue Lock” is a bit unique in that it’s a sports anime, following the Japanese National Football Team, or Soccer as we say in the States. It’s based on a Manga that was first released in 2018, with the anime series debuting in Japan in 2022, running for 24 episodes. Crunchy Roll’s website describes “Episode Nagi” specifically as a prequel movie to the series. Some of these anime films have been known to surprise at the box office, so that’s always something to look out for. But the easiest comparison is to look at the most recent one that came out, that being “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle” opening in 1,119 theaters at the end of May and earning $3.6 million.

Movie Preview: May 2024

May has arrived and in the land of Hollywood that means the summer movie season has begun! In regards to April, if you ask yours truly, it was a solid month in terms of quality of releases. However, given that one’s personal take on a movie is always a subjective thing, an objective look at April doesn’t provide a very rosy take. At a cumulative gross of $426.9 million total at the domestic box office, this was the lowest April since 1997, not counting 2020 and 2021 when COVID meant that movies barely existed. So not good. But not particularly surprising. It was a month full of low to medium budgeted movies, none of which managed to break out, with no major high profile release. The biggest new release was “Civil War,” which opened to $25.5 million and made $56.2 million through the end of April. As a whole, the month performed much more similarly to January and February, making the year as a whole feel like there’s a lot left to be desired.

Moving into May, the goal will obviously be to get back to where March was and continue to build in a positive way. And with it being the first of the four summer months, there are a handful of high profile releases that lend the month potential. Although of note, that I’ll get to in more depth in the first weekend section, is that there is a major absence. The highest profile release was moved off and nothing managed to replace. It does give some of the other releases a bit more breathing room, but this May is certainly not expected to be as big as June and July are poised to be. With those expectations in place, there are several highly anticipated releases, so let’s dive in and take a look!

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

May 3 - 5

Universal's "The Fall Guy"

It is tradition to kick of the summer movie season with the latest big Marvel Cinematic Universe release. And if not MCU specific, then at least something Marvel or comic book related. And when I talked about a high profile release that is missing, this is exactly what I’m referring to. The initial plan was to release “Deadpool and Wolverine” in this spot. Given the buzz behind that movie with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine teaming up with Deadpool, and the fact that the first two movies opened to $132.4 million and $125.5 million respectively, this was going to be a massive kick-off to the summer movie season. But then the strikes happened. And deadlines just weren’t going to be made without actors and writers for a large portion of last year. That pushed “Deadpool and Wolverine” to July and everything else from the MCU out of 2024 altogether. They’ll be back with four movies in 2025 (February, May, July, November), so MCU fans will have to be a tad bit patient.

In the meantime, the movie actually opening the summer off is The Fall Guy, the latest action movie from director David Leitch, this one starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, with Gosling playing a stuntman for a movie and Blunt playing the director of his latest movie. When trouble arises, a job as a fictional stuntman necessitates him being thrown into a real life action role when the star of the movie goes missing. David Leitch, after being the co-director of the first John Wick movie, has gone onto solo direct several action movies. He has done a couple of other franchise films, that being “Hobbs & Shaw” and the aforementioned “Deadpool 2,” but the best comparison here comes with his non-franchise efforts. As such, “Atomic Blonde” opened to $18.3 million in 2017, while “Bullet Train” opened to $30 million in 2022. Positive reviews for “The Fall Guy” as well as Ryan Gosling coming fresh off his role as Ken in “Barbie,” as well as the lack of competition, has provided a lot of buzz for this movie that may not have existed if “Deadpool and Wolverine” had made its initial release date. So there is breakout potential here. But Thursday and Friday numbers do suggest its opening will remain in the “Bullet Train” range, with potential to have decent staying power.  

The other new wide release this weekend is the horror movie Tarot. It’s been a pretty rough year for horror movies in terms of the box office. Even last month with good reviews, “The First Omen” only opened to $8.3 million and “Abigail” only opened to $10.3 million, leaving “Night Swim” in January as the highest opening for a horror release in 2024 with $11.8 million. With little buzz and awful early reviews, “Tarot” isn’t likely to be the movie to break that that. Based on the 1992 novel “Horrorscope,” which was also the initial title of the movie, a group of friends rent out a mansion for one of their friend’s birthday and to pass the time decide to have one of their friends read their horoscopes with some tarot cards they found in the basement. Reviews for this movie were embargoed right up until the moment the movie was released. While that is not always a terrible sign, it appears to be the case this time as through 21 reviews, it’s at a whopping 5 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as of me writing this. An opening of $5-8 million was the expectation going into the weekend. It could fall even below that if/when the bad word of mouth starts to spread. Although the PG-13 rating could give it some sort of boost among the teenage crowd who probably don’t care what critics say.

As of me publishing this, it is currently May 4th. Also known as Star Wars Day. To celebrate this, Disney is throwing Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace back into theaters, honoring its 25th anniversary. Yep, you read that right. It’s been 25 years since “The Phantom Menace” was first released. That make you feel old? It’s interesting to note that Disney has not yet released a new movie this year. At least not under their main Disney banner. They might’ve released a movie or two under their Searchlight or 20th Century Studios banners. The first quarter of they year for them has been focused on a handful of different re-releases. Those don’t often jump out, so I haven’t noted all of them. But Star Wars on Star Wars Day in 2,700 theaters could make a slight impact. “The Phantom Menace” is not exactly everyone’s favorite Star Wars movie these days, but it should do enough to crack the top five. It might only need about $5 million to do so.

May 10 - 12

20th Century Studios' "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"

While “The Fall Guy” gets the honor of being the movie that officially opens the summer movie season, the first big franchise film of the month goes to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the now fourth movie in the recent reboot Planet of the Apes series. While “Rise,” “Dawn,” and “War” can be seen as a prequel trilogy to set up the events of the Apes taking over the planet, “Kingdom” looks to be the start of the new chapter in this saga. Generations appear to have passed since “War” and although we are still in a reboot timeline, it appears we have arrived to a parallel joint to where the very first 1968  movie began, with the Apes dominating and the humans being more animal-like. Given the very positive reaction to the recent trilogy, this new movie also has quite a bit of hype leading up to it, paired with a very successful advertising campaign. Slight hesitation might be given based on there being no Matt Reeves or Andy Serkis involved. New director Wes Ball doesn’t have quite as much notoriety. But if reviews come out great and word of mouth ends up strong, might this have breakout potential on the level of March’s “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong,” both of which opened in the $80 million?

For the sake of comparison, “Rise” opened to $54.8 million in 2011, “Dawn” opened to $72.3 million in 2014, and “War” opened to $56.3 million in 2017. So it is possible that there was a peak for the franchise with “Dawn.” It’s also been seven years since “War,” with a pandemic in between then. So if “Kingdom” ends up more in the $40-50 million range, a combination of those factors could be the reason. But again, the reaction to this might tell the story. And if it’s good, there’s two weeks before the next big competition. “War” opened right in between “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Dunkirk” in 2017, so giving movies more breathing room before the next big thing is beneficial.

Some non-religious folks might relate to the title of our next movie, which is Not Another Church Movie. On record, I am fine with religious movies myself, just making a commentary here. And perhaps my opening commentary is the point with this movie’s target audience because this is a spoof comedy. It also looks to be a spoof of Tyler Perry comedies as the poster has “Tyler Perry” crossed out and “Church” put on top of it. As such, our main character is named Taylor Pharry, played by Kevin Daniels and he is commanded by god (Jamie Foxx) to write a movie inspired by his dysfunctional family, but the Devil (Mickey Rourke) has his own plans in that regard. Spoof comedies are very hit and miss at the box office, usually leaning more on miss, but for a certain niche audience, this is an available option.  

May 17 - 19

Paramount's "IF"

The third weekend of the month takes a break from the big male-targeted franchise blockbuster film before returning to that over Memorial Day weekend, but family audiences finally get a movie targeted to them with John Krasinski’s IF, which coincidentally enough is the second movie this year about imaginary friends, following March’s low-budget horror film “Imaginary.” In this case, the imaginary friends aren’t trying to kill anyone, but nevertheless the movie follows a girl named Bea who starts seeing everyone’s imaginary friends that they left behind when they grew up. Most know Krasinski from his long and successful run as Jim on “The Office,” but recently he’s taken up a directing career, having directed the first two “A Quiet Place” movies. And while he gave up the reigns for “A Quiet Place: Day One,” which comes out later this summer, to someone else, he’s turned his directing focus to this family comedy and he’s brought in about half of Hollywood with him. Ryan Reynolds plays the lead adult in the movie, with a long list of others joining in, mostly as voices to the various imaginary friends. Given that the latest major family-targeted movie was back in March, this is poised to do quite well, especially if the reviews end up being positive.  

As mentioned earlier, it’s not been a great year for horror films at the box office. But given the low production cost to make them, there’s always a bunch of them, anyways. The latest one on the docket is the return of “The Strangers” franchise with The Strangers: Chapter 1. The franchise began in 2008 with “The Strangers,” which was about a couple who went to a secluded summer home for some time away, only to be invaded by three psychopathic strangers wearing masks. This was followed up in 2018 with “Strangers: Prey at Night,” which had the same basic premise. And now “The Strangers: Chapter 1” is the first in a proposed prequel trilogy, all of which are supposed to come out this year. “Chapter 2” and “Chapter 3” don’t yet have solid dates, but all three were filmed consecutively, so it’s assumed that they will come out. “The Strangers” in 2008 opened to $20.9 million. A decade later in 2018, “Prey at Night” opened to half of that, with $10.4 million. And now six years later it remains to be seen how much of a fan base this franchise his, so expectations here probably aren’t super high. I wouldn’t expect “Chapter 1” to be the horror movie to break this year’s horror losing streak.

The final movie of the weekend brings us back to the musical biopic with the movie Back to Black, which is about pop singer Amy Winehouse, who had a pretty successful music career in the 2000s, with “Rehab” in 2006 being her highest charting hit. Unfortunately her challenges with alcoholism and substance abuse led to her way too early death at the age of 27 in 2011, when she died of alcohol poisoning. An exploration of her life and career via documentary has been done three times now, most notably with the 2015 movie “Amy,” but also in 2018 with “Amy Winehouse: Back to Black” and in 2021 with “Reclaiming Amy. And now we go from documentary to biopic with “Back to Black.” While not all of these musical biopics have performed well, enough of them have done very well to justify Hollywood continuing to find the next musician to explore, so this makes sense in many ways. This movie has had early screenings and the prognosis is not so hot with it currently being at 38 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after 63 reviews. Buzz doesn’t seem to be super high like it was with “Bob Marley: One Love” earlier this year, but this genre has surprised before, so you never know.

May 24 - 27

Warner Bros.' "Furiosa"

Memorial Day weekend should have the box office flying high and that should be led the return to the Mad Max universe with Furiosa. This is a franchise that began back in 1979 with Mel Gibson playing the lead of Max and George Miller directing. That first “Mad Max” had two decently successful sequels with “The Road Warrior” in 1981 and “Beyond Thunderdome” in 1985, but really launched into the stratosphere nine years ago with “Mad Max: Fury Road” in 2015, one of the best reviewed action films ever. Despite it being a summer blockbuster with a very simple plot, it was so highly praised that it even crossed over into awards territory, earning 10 Oscar nominations, winning six of them. A follow-up from George Miller, who has directed all of these movies, has been highly anticipated. And we finally have it in form of a prequel following the character of Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron in “Fury Road” and Anya Taylor-Joy in this movie. Chris Hemsworth also joins the cast here, playing Dr. Dementus. “Fury Road” was a surprise hit initially, but it did open to $45.4 million before legging it out to $153.6 million domestically and $369.9 million worldwide. So those numbers are the benchmark for what “Furiosa” should be able to do. Buzz has been high, but the actual response to the movie will, of course, be key.

Theoretically speaking, “Furiosa” could have some competition at the top spot if all went well for this weekend’s other new major release, The Garfield Movie. At the very least this could provide some solid counter-programming to the male focused “Furiosa,” giving family audiences another option to go see. Although if “IF” from the previous weekend is well reviewed, that could provide direct competition for “Garfield” that could put a dent in its potential. Nevertheless, Garfield as a character has been around for a long time, first showing up 45 years ago in 1978. How much relevance he still has among today’s kids is a different story, but he’s at least consistently shown up over the years. And now he gets the Chris Pratt treatment in an attempt to draw kids out, which worked well for Mario last year. Perhaps not the best comparison, though, as Mario is a much more massive IP than Garfield and the movie doesn’t come from a major animation studio like Illumination. The movie is distributed by Sony, with animation done by DNEG Animation, which was founded in 2014 and recently worked on the Netflix film Nimona. The movie is directed by Mark Dindal, who directed “The Emperor’s New Groove” and “Chicken Run.” Exact comparisons financially might be tricky, but the last time Garfield was adapted to a movie was the live-action ones with Bill Murray, the first of which opened in 2004 to $21.7 million. According to the-numbers.com, that would be equal to $37.7 million today when adjusted for ticket price inflation, which seems like a fair target for this new one. 

While “Furiosa” and “Garfield” are likely to dominate headlines over Memorial Day weekend, there is a third movie scheduled for wide release and that is the latest Angel Studios film Sight. This tells the story of Dr. Ming Wang, a Chinese immigrant who moves to America, attends Harvard and MIT, and becomes a world-renowned eye surgeon who helps develop innovative technology in the world of eye surgery. Angels Studios is most well known for their TV series “The Chosen,” based on the life of Christ, as well as last summer’s massive breakout hit “Sound of Freedom.” But they’ve also released a handful of other smaller films, the most recent being “Cabrini” back in March of this year, which opened to $7.2 million. In December they also opened “The Shift” to $4.3 million, so that is probably the realistic range that we’re looking at for “Sight.”

May 31 - June 2

NEON's "Robot Dreams"

The final weekend of May has only one day in may and two days in June. In this cases with these movie previews, I go by which month we started in as opposed to when we finished. It works out that we end the month with this weekend rather than beginning next month’s preview here as this is a cool down weekend without any new major releases. Whichever movie ends on top over Memorial Day Weekend will likely be spending a second weekend at time this weekend.

That said, there are a few smaller releases that could hit some form of wide release. Listed on the schedule at the moment here is the movie Ezra, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. The movie is about a father, played by Bobby Cannavale, who goes on a road trip with his autistic son Ezra, played by William A. Fitzgerald. The movie also co-stars Robert De Niro, Rose Byrne, Vera Farmiga, and Rainn Wilson. Bleeker Street is handling distribution and they tend to focus on smaller or medium releases, which is what I’m guessing this will be, although I don’t know for sure.

Also on the schedule from Crunchyroll is the anime movie Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle. As I mentioned frequently in these previews, anime has a building audience here domestically and there;s a lot of examples of these movies breaking out and surprising at the box office. Although outside the likes of “Demon Slayer” or “Dragon Ball,” it’s a lot more hit and miss. “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle” is a movie spin-off of the anime series “Haikyu!!,” which currently has four seasons and has ran from 2014 - 2020. Perhaps the easiest comparison in terms of box office April’s “Spy x Family Code: White,” which opened to $4.8 million. If “Ezra” is indeed a smaller release in just a couple hundred theaters, a release like that could be enough for “Haikyu!!” to be the highest grossing new release.

The final movie I’ll mentioned is the curios case of Robot Dreams. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this movie was nominated for best animated feature at the Oscars this year, which celebrated the movies released in 2023. We are not currently in 2023, but maybe this will be case where the Academy takes a second look at their eligibility rules. NEON is in charge here and they clearly gave it an Oscar qualifying run at some point at the end of 2023 to make it eligible. And then somehow screeners got out to enough people to get it in the lineup. But instead of actually releasing the movie in regular theaters in January or February, or at some point close to the Oscars, NEON has decided to wait all the way until May to put it out to regular audiences. And even then, this is scheduled as a limited release as opposed to a wide release. Anyways, the movie has had excellent reviews from those who somehow managed to see it. In a general sense, it’s about the misadventures of a dog and a robot in New York City in the 1980s and is an animated movie that comes without any dialogue. It seems like a movie worth seeing, if it is ever actually available to see. But maybe it should be up for next year’s Oscars that honor movies from 2024 rather than sneaking into the 2023 lineup. But anyways, that’s your Oscar rant/debate of the day. And the conclusion of this post.

Movie Preview: April 2024

It was a miserable start to the box office in the first two months of the year. Through that point, the highest opening weekend of the year was “Bob Marley: One Love” with $28.659 million. I used three decimal points in that case to show that right behind it was “Mean Girls” with $28.635 million, just under $25,000 behind. In exact totals, “Mean Girls” was $23,687 behind “Bob Marley.”

And now after adding just one more month into the year, “Bob Marley” is in 5th place on the year, with “Mean Girls” in 6th place, in terms of opening weekends. Yep, March was huge. Both “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” opened with over $80 million, doubling the openings of their 2021 predecessors. “Kung Fu Panda 4” surprised with a $57.9 million opening, almost matching the $60.2 million opening of the original, and opening higher than both the second and third movies, which were both in the $40 million. And finally, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” nearly replicated the opening of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” with $45 million (“Afterlife” opened to $44 million. The 2016 “Ghosbusters” opened to $46 million, so this has been an extremely consistent franchise as of late). I suppose not improving over a 2021 COVID recovery film could be seen as a mild disappointment, but this was four very solid openings, which led to the highest overall month of March since 2019.

This is a very solid positive trend for our upcoming Summer movie slate beginning in May. But first we need to get through April? Which is historically usually always a cool down month, the silence before the storm between March and May, barring the random Marvel or Fast & Furious movie getting a jump on the summer, which isn’t the case this year. But there are plenty of titles to talk about on the schedule, so let’s get started!

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 always subject to change.

April 5 - 7

Universal's "Monkey Man"

As mentioned in the intro, “Godzilla x Kong” opened with a massive $80 million opening, that being in the last weekend of March. That means in its sophomore weekend, it’s poised to make somewhere between $25-30 million if it follows the trends of its predecessors, which have mostly all been pretty front-loaded. That should still be enough to give it a second weekend win over the two newcomers this weekend.

The biggest competition for the monster movie is looking to be Dev Patel’s new action movie Monkey Man. As an actor, Dev Patel got an Oscar nomination for his performance in “Lion” from 2016, but has also shown up in movies such as “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield” and “The Green Knight.” As a director, this is his first attempt at a feature-length film. He’s directed a couple of shorts, but nothing on this scale yet. And by the looks of things, this appears to be an excellent first feature attempt. It’s about a man unleashing vengeance on some corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to do not-so-good things. In an era of action films that have taken heavy inspiration from John Wick, this looks to be another movie riding those coattails. Some have even called this “Indian John Wick.” It premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival last month to strong positive reaction and currently holds an 89 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. That could lead to positive word of mouth and decent legs over the course of the month.

Nun-related horror movies have been a decently common thing as of late. Perhaps that’s inspired by the huge success of “The Nun” and “The Nun II” from the Conjuring Universe. But also, religious-themed horror films have been a huge thing ever since “The Exorcist” in the 70s. Either way, last month we had “Immaculate,” which I didn’t actually cover in my March preview because it wasn’t initially listed as a wide release. But this month we have The First Omen. Both movies have a similar premise about a young woman looking to begin her ministry to the church only to learn of unexpected darkness. “Immaculate” had a bigger name as the lead with Sidney Sweeney, but “The First Omen” seems to have been getting a bigger marketing push and is in more theaters. “Immaculate” wound up opening to $5.3 million from 2,354 theaters. “The First Omen” will be opening in 3,375 theaters and is projected at a $10-15 million opening.

April 12 - 14

A24's "Civil War"

Certainly bound to be one of the most talked about movies of the year is Alex Garland’s Civil War. No this is not a superhero movie. And no this is not a historical movie about the Civil War in the 1800s. This is a fictional, dystopian movie set in the perhaps not-so-distant future about another United States Civil War breaking out, with half the country seceding, which includes an alliance between Texas and California, so obviously not meant to be an exact replication of today’s political divide as Texas and California would seem like the last two states to join forces today. Yet regardless of the exact message this movie is attempting to portray, a movie about a future Civil War coming out during what’s already been a very contentious election year seems a bit too on-the-nose to be completely coincidental. Like “Monkey Man,” this is also a movie that premiered at South by Southwest last month, also getting strong positive reaction. Alex Garland as a directed has usually kept to sci-fi horror movies like “Ex Machina,” “Annihilation” and “Men.” And I suppose this could also qualify as “horror,” albeit in a slightly different type of horror.

Latest on the list of remakes that you perhaps didn’t see coming is the remake of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, which is based on the 1991 movie of the same title, that only made $25.2 million in its domestic run and was received with mostly negative reviews. Although despite the poor box office and negative reviews, the movie gained at least somewhat of a cult following, enough to stay in the public conscious to some degree. The movie follows a group of kids who are looking forward to a summer of freedom with their mom on vacation, only to be a bit disappointed when learning their mom hired a rather mean and cruel babysitter to watch over them. But, well… as the title suggests, the babysitter dies and the kids are able to then have the freedom they initially desired. The 1991 original had Christina Applegate in the lead role. This remake has a relatively lesser known group of kids in the starring roles with a relatively lesser known director, with June Squibb as the dead babysitter. So the reliance on the original property will be a pretty heavy lean here and thus it’ll test to see how popular the original property has become or perhaps how much people wanted a remake.

April 19 - 21

Universal's "Abigail"

A very crowded week in terms of new releases as the-numbers.com has a grand total of six movies listed for wide release this weekend. Sifting through the weeds a bit, there’s a couple of movies that are most notable, with the other bunch being movies that we’ll see how wide they actually end up being.

The first of the two notable movies is the horror film Abigail. This comes from the directing duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who after finding good success with the 2019 horror comedy “Ready or Not,” a movie about a bride who suddenly has to fight off a bunch of her crazy in-laws during a wedding ritual, were hired on to write and direct the latest two “Scream” movies. And now their next project is about a group of criminals who think they’ve kidnapped a normal girl, the daughter of a powerful underworld figure, only to find out that said girl is a vampire girl. Locked in a house, they somehow have to fight off and survive a crazy, wild ballerina vampire girl. With the big advertising push, the backing of a bigger studio in Universal, and positive vibes from the directing duo, this has the chance to be the biggest horror opening of the year, even if that’s not a huge bar at the moment (currently “The Night Swim” with $11.8 million - which *could* be topped by “The First Omen). A potential comparison on a best case scenario is fellow Universal horror movie that also has a girl’s name as the title, “M3GAN” from January 2022, which opened to $30.4 million.

The other notable movie from this weekend is the latest Guy Ritchie film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which is certainly one of the more catchy titles of late, which could’ve been even longer as it was based on the 2014 book “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII,” a book title that definitely does a good job of describing the plot. It’s based on the Special Operations Executive, an organization formed by Churchill in 1940 to perform espionage and sabotage in Nazi-occupied Europe. Although Ritchie’s movie is mostly likely a highly fictionalized version of this organization and events, but with plenty of guns, grenades, explosions and shootings portrayed in the trailer, Ritchie fans probably aren’t here for a history lesson. Ritchie’s most recent movie was also a war film released on the third weekend of April, that being last year’s “The Covenant,” which opened to $6.4 million. The range of $6-10 million is what most of Ritchie’s recent films not named “Aladdin” have done, so that’s the expectation again here.

Sorting through the rest of this weekend’s releases is a bit of an interesting game. Perhaps the next most notable movie is actually the wide expansion of Sasquatch Sunset, which is set to open in limited release on April 12. This is a movie that debuted at Sundance this year, then hit the Berlin International Film Festival in February before then hitting South by Southwest, so it’s had some coverage in the festival circuit that could give it a bit of buzz among the film community. It looks to be a unique, somewhat off-kilter comedy following a Sasquatch family for a year and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, Christophe Zajac-Denek, and Nathan Zellner, the latter of whom is also one of the co-directors. This is maybe not a movie that lands well with mainstream audiences, but this could land with a niche crowd who is looking for a more unique film experience.

It’s also probably not a good idea to completely overlook the latest Crunchyroll release as they’ve done good at delivering surprise hits in the anime realm. This weekend they have Spy x Family Code: White, a continuation of the “Spy x Family” anime TV series that began in 2022. This movie was released in Japan last year and was met with very high acclaim and did well at the box office over there, although how that translates over to the states is a different story that we’re about to see. While anime has surprised plenty, this is a franchise that’s not quite on the level of a “Dragon Ball,” “Demon Slayer” or “One Piece” in terms of popularity. Sprinkled in with the major successes are others that made just a few hundred thousand or a million or two.

Movie No. 5 on this weekend is one that I’m a bit surprised to see listed as a wide release and that’s Villains Inc., which is a movie that could most easily be described as the latest feature-length film from J.K. Studios, the group formerly known as Studio C, a sketch comedy group originating from BYU in Provo, Utah. They most recently made the movie “Go West” last year and that one peaked in just 38 theaters as mostly a Utah release. Local Utah distributor, Purdie Distribution, only rarely has released movies in the triple digits, their highest being “The Stray” in 639 theaters, followed by “Meet the Mormons” in 303 theaters. Most movies they do are under 100 theaters. But theater count aside, this is directed by Jeremy Warner, a member of the group who also directed “Go West,” and has Mallory Everton and Jason Gray featured most notably on the poster, although most of the group are likely to show up in some roles, big or small. Mallory and Jason are joined on the poster by “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” alum Colin Mochrie in a movie that seems like a fun comedy about villains trying to be the best villains they can be.

The final movie here is the one that I’m not 100 percent sure actually exists. Every once in a while there’s a movie like this that’s technically listed as wide release on the-numbers.com’s list that I feel obligated to bring up. This one is Wildfire: The Legend of the Cherokee Ghost Horse. If this is a real movie, it’s about a girl who feels guilty about the tragic death of her parents and moves with her brother to their grandma and begins training for a horse competition when a mystery horse shows up and befriends her. The reason I’m not 100 percent this movie exists is because the only trailer I could find is one that was released 10 months ago, only has 7.4K views, and is a really low quality trailer that makes the movie look really bad. Outside that, no signs of much marketing for this. Maybe this hits a couple hundred theaters and makes a few bucks from some family audiences, but outside that I don’t have much hope, but I could be wrong.

April 25 - 27

MGM's "Challengers"

We finish off the month with just two new wide releases, the first being the Zendaya tennis drama Challengers, from director Luca Guadagnino, most notable for the 2017 movie “Call Me By Your Name.” Zendaya plays a former tennis prodigy turned coach who is trying to help her husband on his tennis redemption tour when he has to face off against her former boyfriend, creating a lot of drama and tension and past and present collide. This is a movie that was supposed to debut at last year’s Venice Film Festival and was thought of as a potential awards player, having an initial release date in September, shortly after its festival release. It was pulled from the schedule and pushed into 2024 due to the actor’s strike. Perhaps Amazon shifting focus and dumping it in April instead of letting it be an awards player is a bit of a red flag in regards to their confidence, but having Zendaya available to promote the film felt more important, which should work out nicely, especially since the movie has had plenty of online buzz to help it perform at least somewhat decently.

The final movie of the month comes from the Christian pop duo For King & Country as they tell the story of their older sister Rebecca in the movie Unsung Hero. Specifically this is written and directed by Joel Smallbone, who along with his brother Luke form the duo of For King & Country, which began as Joel & Luke in 2007 before changing their name a few years later as what they currently are and becoming Christian music superstars. But again, this is not a movie about them. This is a movie about their sister, who had a much earlier start, releasing her first studio album in 1991 and is known professionally as Rebecca St. James. The movie is also about their parents trying to hold their family together through various struggles. Faith-based movie meets musical biopic is a formula that could work well if the Christian audience shows up. Lionsgate is pushing their connection to their 2018 movie “I Can Only Imagine,” which was a similarly themed Christian movie that did very well, opening to $17.1 million and making $83.5 million total. Best case scenario is that it could push “Challengers” as the biggest new release on a quiet weekend. Or it could follow the trajectory of fellow Christian movie “Ordinary Angels,” which opened to $6.2 million in February.

The 96th Academy Awards: Predictions

The 96th Academy Awards will take place tomorrow, March 10, in the year of our Lord 2024, honoring the films from 2023. Or at least the movies that hit the minimum qualifications to count towards this year’s ceremony but are really 2024 movies in my book. We’ll get to those when we see them.

Anyways, this is one of my favorite posts of the each year where I go through every single category at the Oscars and list two things: who I think is going to win in each category (“will win”) and who I would personally vote for if I had an Oscar ballot (“should win”). This is mostly just for fun. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. And most likely no one will remember or keep tally outside myself. In a way you can see this as what I was personally expecting going into the night. If I’m mostly right, then cool. That makes me look good. If I get a lot wrong, then that means there was a lot of chaos and unpredictability, which often makes the night more interesting. I think the highest I’ve gotten is 20 or 21 correct. The worst is around 14 or 15. I think this night will land a bit more on the predictable side of the fence, but we’ll see what happens.

As far as my process, you should know that I watch a lot of movies. And I have seen most of these. You might know that I’m also super nerdy when it comes to the awards season. Even if I wind up unhappy with what actually wins the awards, the movies that are in contention are often really good. And this season’s lineup was rather great. Five of the best picture nominees were in my personal top 10 of the year and a few others were pretty close. But yes, I follow the awards season pretty close all year through various podcasts and YouTube channels, my favorite being Awards Radar. In making a prediction, part of it is keeping my finger close to the pulse of what others are thinking, another part of it is looking at the precursors to see who and what have been winning, and then finally sometimes you just gotta go with your gut if you’re not sure, trying to attempt to balance brain and heart.

Enough of all that, though. Here’s my picks and predictions! This is always a long post, but hopefully it’s organized in a way that you can spend as long or short as you want with it. If you have any thoughts about anything I bring up, let me know and we can discuss!

 

Documentary Short Film

Nominations

- “The ABCs of Book Banning” - Sheila Nevins and Trish Adlesic

- “The Barber of Little Rock” - John Hoffman and Christine Turner

- “Island in Between” - S. Leo Chiang and Jean Tsien

- “The Last Repair Shop” - Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers

- “Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó” - Sean Wang and Sam Davis 

Will Win

- “The Last Repair Shop” - Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers

Should Win

- “The Last Repair Shop” - Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers

 

Starting with the shorts, these are always the most unpredictable. If you do an Oscar pool with any friends, getting lucky enough to get these right are usually how you’ll win because even the “experts” have no idea how these will go. Pick a name from a hat and see what happens. Any buzz you here seems to indicate that it’s between “The ABCs of Book Banning” and “The Last Repair Shop.” It could go to “The ABCs of Book Banning” due to the social commentary behind that. But I actually watched all of these, most are on YouTube, the others either on Disney+ or Paramount+. And in doing so, “The Last Repair Shop” is just so much better than the other four for me and it’s not remotely close. Maybe this is the wrong way to pick for this one, but I have a hard time seeing people watching all of these and not going with “The Last Repair Shop,” so that’s what I’ll predict.

 

Animated Short Film

Nominations

- “Letter to a Pig” - Tai Kantor and Amit R. Gicelter

- “Ninety-Five Senses” - Jerusha and Jared Hess

- “Our Uniform” - Yegane Moghaddam

- “Pachyderme” - Stéphanie Clément and Marc Rius

- “War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko” - Dave Mullins and Brad Booker

Will Win

- “Ninety-Five Senses” - Jerusha and Jared Hess

Should Win

- N/A

 

This one feels like a trap. Unlike the previous category of shorts, I have not seen any of these because, annoyingly, they aren’t available to be watched unless you go find the theatrical release of shorts, which for me is 45 minutes away. But anyways, just glancing through the titles, it seems like many will see John and Yoko and give that the way off of name recognition. That’s the trap I’m seeing, though. I think it might go to either “Letter to a Pig” or “Ninety-Five Senses.” I decided to go with the latter with my unscientific approach of me wanting to see Jerusha and Jared Hess, writers and directors of “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre,” win an Oscar. It also has the highest IMDb score of the five, which I’ve sometimes gone with and nailed all three.

 

Live Action Short Film

Nominations

- “The After” - Misan Harriman and Nicky Bentham

- “Invincible” - Vincent René-Lortie and Samuel Caron

- “Knight of Fortune” - Lasse Lyskjær Noer and Christian Norlyk

- “Red, White and Blue” - Nazrin Choudhury and Sara McFarlane

- “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” - Wes Anderson and Steven Rales

Will Win

- “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” - Wes Anderson and Steven Rales

Should Win

- N/A

 

This one also feels like a trap. Is it too easy to just go with Wes Anderson here? There might be some who don’t want to see Wes Anderson’s first ever Oscar win come via a short. There also might be some who think he’s too mainstream and thus might not like such a big name winning in such a small category. But I don’t know, there’s close to 10,000 Academy members and I just have a feeling that most will like the opportunity to give Wes an Oscar. It’s also the highest viewed short by a long shot. I have also not seen any of these, but in this case it’s my own fault. I simply ran out of time. But Wes Anderson did release a series of shorts on Netflix this past year and I’ve been meaning to get around to them. “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is a movie that I’ve had on my radar. It was on my 2023 yearly movie preview, back when I thought it was a feature-length film and not just a short. So I’ll definitely get around to it.

 

International Feature Film

Nominations

- “Io Capitano” - Italy

- “Perfect Days” - Japan

- “Society of the Snow” - Spain

- “The Teachers’ Lounge” - Germany

- “The Zone of Interest”

Will Win

- “The Zone of Interest”

Should Win

- N/A

 

These movies I would like to give a watch to. But they’re rarely available to be watched, so it’s tough. I have seen two of them, that being “Society of the Snow” and “The Zone of Interest.” The former is on Netflix and the latter had a wide enough theatrical release to hit my local cinema. Of those two, I prefer “Society of the Snow,” but it didn’t feel right making an official pick without having seen the other three. As far as what’s going to win, if France had submitted “Anatomy of a Fall” or if Japan had submitted “Godzilla Minus One,” maybe this is more of a discussion. Beause that’s how this works. They don’t just pick the best international movies. The country has to officially submit their entry and that’s the pool they have to go from. France and Japan submitted different movies. That leaves us with an easy win for “The Zone of Interest,” which got five total nominations, including best picture and best director. When “Society of the Snow” is the only one to even get a second nomination, and that was for makeup and hairstyling, this race was over on nomination morning.

 

Documentary Feature Film

Nominations

- “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” - Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp and John Battsek

- “The Eternal Memory” - Maite Alberdi

- “Four Daughters” - Kaouther Ben Hania and Nadim Cheikhrouha

- “To Kill a Tiger” - Nisha Pahuja, Cornelia Principe and David Oppenheim

- “20 Days in Mariupol” - Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath

Will Win

- “20 Days in Mariupol” - Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath

Should Win

- “20 Days in Mariupol” - Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath

 

I did spend this past week watching all of these movies. They’re all available to stream. Except for “To Kill a Tiger,”  which doesn’t get released on Netflix until Sunday. I’ll watch it, but I didn’t want to wait to post this. The biggest conversation with this category is the documentaries that DIDN’T get nominated, namely “Still: A Michael J. Fox Story” and “American Symphony,” the two movies that people thought were the two front runners. That leaves us with a rather easy choice because “20 Days in Mariupol” is about the start of the Russian/Ukraine war, as a journalist was in the city for 20 days, showing the terror that average, innocent citizens were experiencing as the Russians were attacking and killing everyone, while trying to cover it up. It’s a hard watch, but one that I think is one that everyone should check out.

 

Music (Original Song)

Nominations

- “The Fire Inside” - Becky G (From “Flaming Hot”; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren)

- “I’m Just Ken” - Ryan Gosling (from “Barbie”; Music and Lyric by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt)

- “It Never Went Away” - Jon Batiste (from “American Symphony”; Music and Lyric by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson)

- “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” - Osage Tribe Singers (from “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Music and Lyric by Scott George)

- “What Was I Made For?” - Billie Eilish (from “Barbie”; Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell)

Will Win

- “What Was I Made For?” - Billie Eilish (from “Barbie”; Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell)

Should Win

- “What Was I Made For?” - Billie Eilish (from “Barbie”; Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell)

 

Billie Eilish will become one of the youngest women to win two Oscars, which I think is really cool. I’ve been a big fan of hers since the start. I remember telling people when I first discovered here that they should check her out because she deserves to become a big name in the music world. And that definitely came to pass, much more than I expected. And as excited as I am to see Ryan Gosling perform “I’m Just Ken,” and as fun as it would be for it to win, Billie’s song was my favorite of last year, movie or not. So I gotta go with it. And I’ll be happy to see her win.

 

Music (Original Score)

Nominations

- “American Fiction” - Laura Karpman

- “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” - John Williams

- “Killers of the Flower Moon” - Robbie Robertson

- “Oppenheimer” - Ludwig Göransson

- “Poor Things” - Jerskin Fendrix

Will Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Ludwig Göransson

Should Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Ludwig Göransson

 

This is an easy category to predict. It’s going to be “Oppenheimer.” A trend that you’ll see throughout this post. It’s a harder one to decide which one is my favorite. I went on a road trip in January and played all of these scores on the drive and they’re all really good. It’s very close for me between “Oppenheimer” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” I almost went for the latter because it feels a tad bit more unique. But listening to the score of “Oppenheimer” felt like I was re-watching the movie and I could see in my head what was happening in the scenes when I was listening. To me that speaks volumes about how impactful the score was in helping get across the message and emotions of the movie.

 

Visual Effects

Nominations

- “The Creator” -  Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould

- “Godzilla Minus One” - Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Chibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima

- “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” - Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams and Theo Bialek

- “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning” - Alex Wuttke, Simone Coco, Jeff Sutherland and Neil Corbould

- “Napoelon” - Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet, Simone Coco and Neil Corbould

Will Win

- “Godzilla Minus One” - Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Chibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima

Should Win

- “Godzilla Minus One” - Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Chibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima

 

I’m going with my heart on this one. Logic says “The Creator” will win. If you look at precursors, it has most of the statistics to back it up. But “Godzilla Minus One” was very late to the party and I do feel that there’s a lot of passion behind it. When it’s name came up on nomination morning, there was a very loud, positive response to that announcement. And with “Dune: Part Two” leaving 2023, that left this race wide open. I feel that’s the perfect opportunity to give a fun movie a great win. No one will remember “The Creator” in a year from now. It was visually stunning, but a terrible movie. So can’t we just give Godzilla an Oscar instead?

 

Sound

Nominations

- “The Creator” - Ian Voigt, Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic

- “Maestro” - Steven A. Morrow, Richard King, Jason Ruder, Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic

- “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning” - Chris Munro, James H. Mather, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor

- “Oppenheimer” - Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo and Kevin O'Connell

- “The Zone of Interest” - Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn

Will Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo and Kevin O'Connell

Should Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo and Kevin O'Connell

 

Another easy category. “Oppenheimer” is winning. Although for my personal pick, I thought long and hard about “The Zone of Interest.” I didn’t love the movie as a whole, mostly because I don’t know why we needed another Nazi movie. But in regards to the sound design, that kinda made the whole movie. You’re watching a couple and their family live what seems like a normal, average life. Except their Nazi leaders living by the Concentration Camp and the sounds you hear in the background is what makes it horryifing. So in that regard, it’s a solid choice. But at the same time, I decided not to overthink things. “Oppenheimer” is a movie about dropping the bomb on Japan during the war. Sound design is also kinda a big part of that movie, too.

 

Makeup and Hairstyling

Nominations

- “Golda” - Karen Hartley Thomas, Suzi Battersby and Ashra Kelly-Blue

- “Maesto” - Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou and Lori McCoy-Bell

- “Oppenheimer” - Luisa Abel

- “Poor Things” - Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston

- “Society of the Snow” - Ana López-Puigcerver, David Martí and Montse Ribé

Will Win

- “Poor Things” - Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston

Should Win

- “Maesto” - Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou and Lori McCoy-Bell

 

This is one of those categories where I have to go with my gut feeling. And my gut feeling tells me that “Poor Things” might have a decent day. It got 11 nominations, which told me that the Academy likes it more than I was expecting. And I don’t think it gets 11 nominations without sneaking away a few wins in the process. It has a giant “Oppenheimer” in the way that will hold it back a tad bit. But this particular category goes down to “Poor Things” and “Maestro.” And it might be the one chance to give “Maestro” a win. And even though I didn’t care for “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s transformation over the course of the movie is enough for it to get my vote, but I think the love for “Poor Things” will put it over the edge. You can use Willem Dafoe as an argument in and of itself. His look was wacky and it’s the makeup that did that job and made the movie even more quirky.

 

Film Editing

Nominations

- “Anatomy of a Fall” - Laurent Sénéchal

- “The Holdovers” - Kevin Tent

- “Killers of the Flower Moon” - Thelma Schoonmaker

- “Oppenheimer” - Jennifer Lame

- “Poor Things” - Yorgos Mavropsaridis

Will Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Jennifer Lame

Should Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Jennifer Lame

 

I’ll be short and sweet here. Another technical category that “Oppenheimer” runs away with. And it’s well deserved. Film editing is sometimes hard for me to judge because if an editor does their job, you won’t notice the editing at all. But in this case, a three hour movie flew by in part because of phenomenal editing work, in my opinion. So Jennifer Lame, come on down!

 

Costume Design

Nominations

- “Barbie” - Jacqueline Durran

- “Killers of the Flower Moon” - Jacqueline West

- “Napoleon” - Janty Yates and Dave Crossman

- “Oppenheimer” - Ellen Mirojnick

- “Poor Things” - Holly Waddington

Will Win

- “Poor Things” - Holly Waddington

Should Win

- “Barbie” - Jacqueline Durran

 

Costume design and production design are two of the trickier categories this year. I suppose I won’t be too surprised to hear “Oppenheimer” get called if it sweeps absolutely everything it’s nominated in, but these two categories have the exact same five nominees and it both cases it’s “Barbie” vs. “Poor Things.” I went back and forth on this. For costume design, it’s hard to argue against the Barbie and Ken outfits. They were brilliant and that’s easily my pick. But is that enough to win? I hope so. But I noted that “Poor Things” surprised me on nomination morning by how much it seemed people liked it. “Barbie,” on the other hand, seemed like it disappointed a bit. Maybe there’s a tad bit less enthusiasm. No hard feelings for me. It made $1.435 billion at the worldwide box office alone. It doesn’t need any gold statues to justify it. It would be nice to see it win, but my brain is overruling my heart on this one and saying that “Poor Things” wins out.

 

Cinematography

Nominations

- “El Conde” - Edward Lachman

- “Killers of the Flower Moon” - Rodrigo Prieto

- “Maestro” - Matthew Libatique

- “Oppenheimer” - Hotye van Hoytema

- “Poor Things” - Robbie Ryan

Will Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Hotye van Hoytema

Should Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Hotye van Hoytema

 

I technically haven’t seen “El Conde.” That’s a bit of a random nomination there. But does there need to be much discussion here? It’s an “Oppenheimer” win. And Hotye van Hoytema might want to consider thanking Warner Bros. in his speech for moving “Dune: Part Two” out of 2023. Having seen that movie this month, that would’ve definitely won and will win next year. But with that not an option, it’s an easy “Oppenheimer” win and a deserving one, too.

 

Production Design

Nominations

- “Barbie” - Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

- “Killers of the Flower Moon” - Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Adam Willis

- “Napoleon” - Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Elli Griff

- “Oppenheimer” - Production Design: Ruth De Jong; Set Decoration: Claire Kaufman

- “Poor Things” - Production Design: James Price and Shona Heath; Set Decoration: Zsuzsa Mihalek

Will Win

- “Poor Things” - Production Design: James Price and Shona Heath; Set Decoration: Zsuzsa Mihalek

Should Win

- “Barbie” - Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

 

See my conversation above in the costume design section. It’s a “Poor Things” vs. “Barbie” competition here. I want “Barbie” to win. They built the entire Barbie Land and I was very impressed with that. But I can’t really argue too much with “Poor Things.” It’s not as obvious as “Barbie,” but there is a lot of great work there. And if certain voters can’t get past the idea of giving a win to a “Barbie” movie, “Poor Things” is a solid choice here.

 

Animated Feature Film

Nominations

- “The Boy and the Heron” - Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki (Studio Ghibli)

- “Elemental” - Peter Sohn and Denise Ream (Pixar)

- “Nimona” - Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Karen Ryan and Julie Zackary (Annapurna Pictures)

- “Robot Dreams” - Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estapé and Sandra Tapia Díaz (Multiple Production Companies)

- “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” - Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal (Sony Pictures Animation)

Will Win

- “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” - Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal (Sony Pictures Animation)

Should Win

- “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” - Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal (Sony Pictures Animation)

 

This was a bit of a race for a while. One that seemed to be swinging the way of “The Boy and the Heron” after it came out. But recent trends see “Spider-Man” taking the moment back. And from what I hear, that might be a case of the team behind “The Boy and the Heron” not caring too much to campaign their movie. I’m not the insider on that, but that’s one podcast episode I listened to mentioned. I’m not basing my prediction on that statement. I’m mostly looking at what wins each movie has had recently and “Spider-Man” has had most of them. Thus that insight kinda makes sense. This is a fantastic category, though. “Robot Dreams” is one of those movies that met the minimum qualifications to be eligible, but isn’t being released theatrically until May, which is weird. I’ve heard great things, but we’ll see. The others, though, were all pretty high on my end of year list. Which would normally make this is a hard personal choice because I love all of them. But “Across the Spider-Verse” was my No. 1 of the year, so there’s not exactly much of a debate in that realm. Animated sequels don’t often do well in this category, but this seems like it’s going to be an exception to that.

 

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Nominations

- “American Fiction” - Cord Jefferson

- “Barbie” - Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

- “Oppenheimer” - Christopher Nolan

- “Poor Things” - Tony McNamara

- “The Zone of Interest” - Jonathan Glazer

Will Win

- “American Fiction” - Cord Jefferson

Should Win

- “Barbie” - Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

 

And now for the big ones. The screenplay awards have seemed to recently become a place to give wins to slightly smaller movies that aren’t winning the big awards. That’s not always the case. But “American Fiction” seems like a movie that was made to win said screenplay award. I wasn’t as high on it personally, but I know a lot of people who love it and it’s literally a movie about a writer, so it kinda makes sense. Honestly, though, I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see any of these movies get their name read, so I’m not very confident in this pick. I also had a tough time sitting down and analyzing in my brain which of these had the better writing. There’s solid cases both ways. But you’ll probably not be surprised to see me lean “Barbie” here.

 

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Nominations

- “Anatomy of a Fall” - Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

- “The Holdovers” - David Hemingson

- “Maestro” - Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer

- “May December” - Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik

- “Past Lives” - Celine Song

Will Win

- “Anatomy of a Fall” - Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

Should Win

- “Anatomy of a Fall” - Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

 

“Anatomy of a Fall” is a movie that, despite not having been submitted by France as their international pick, is one that has a lot of support from a lot of people. It did get five nominations. It’s tough competition here from “Oppenheimer” and “The Holdovers,” with “Past Lives” being a dark horse. But it does seem like the place where “Anatomy of a Fall” gets it’s win, especially since Justine Triet has given wonderful speeches in previous awards shows this season. I think that helps. For me personally, I thought really hard between “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Past Lives.” I love them both and I would be happy to see either get a win. But if I’m looking at it really closely, I think “Anatomy of a Fall” is helped mostly by the writing, while “Past Lives” is very much an acting vehicle that makes it connect. So that’s how I made my decision.

 

Actress in a Supporting Role

Nominations

- Emily Blunt - “Oppenheimer”

- Danielle Brooks - “The Color Purple”

- America Ferrera - “Barbie”

- Jodie Foster - “Nyad”

- Da’Vine Joy Randolph - “The Holdovers”

Will Win

- Da’Vine Joy Randolph - “The Holdovers”

Should Win

- Jodie Foster - “Nyad”

 

It seems like there’s at least one acting category each year where someone pretty much gets anointed beforehand as the person who is going to win literally every single award. And that person this year has been Da’Vine Joy Randolph. She’s won everything. She will win the Oscar. There’s no debate. It would be one of the biggest shockers in Oscar history if they read someone else. And I think the moment this was decided was the moment Lily Gladstone got campaigned and nominated for lead actress. And Da’Vine gives a great performance. I have no issue with her winning and being the representative for her movie, which is a very lovely, heartwarming movie. But when I consider all these performances, I think Jodie Foster gives the best performance. And I’m not one to care for how many times someone has or hasn’t won. I would vote for the best performance, even if they have won twice.

 

Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominations

- Sterling K. Brown - “American Fiction”

- Robert de Niro - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

- Robert Downey Jr. - “Oppenheimer”

- Ryan Gosling - “Barbie”

- Mark Ruffalo - “Poor Things”

Will Win

- Robert Downey Jr. - “Oppenheimer”

Should Win

- Ryan Gosling - “Barbie”

 

This is another category that is also actually kinda over. The difference between this category and the supporting actress category is that people thought this would be an intense race. Ryan Gosling was expecting to rack up a few wins and make this a suspenseful Oscar moment. But then Robert Downey Jr. simply just won everything. So he’s going to win the Oscar. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Ryan Gosling got his name called, but neither actor has an Oscar win yet and this year just seems like it’s RDJ’s year. He’s been waiting longer for this and sometimes that’s just how it goes. Again, for me I don’t personally take that into consideration. I just go my favorite performance. And I thought about this one for a long time, but I do think I liked Ryan Gosling a bit more and I do think it would bring me more joy to see him win, given how great he was as Ken. But I have no problem with an RDJ win. Everyone loves him, me included.

 

Actress in a Leading Role

Nominations

- Annette Bening - “Nyad”

- Lily Gladstone - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

- Sandra Hüller - “Anatomy of a Fall”

- Carey Mulligan - “Maestro”

- Emma Stone - “Poor Things”

Will Win

- Lily Gladstone - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Should Win

- Lily Gladstone - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

 

In regards to the acting categories, this one is the most intense of the night. Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone have been battling all season for this award and I don’t really know whose name will be read. I wouldn’t be surprised at either. I’m going with the SAG winner, though. And that was Lily. And based on me watching these other award shows, it appears that no one would be happier with a Lily win than Emma. Just watch her reactions to Lily winning. And it’s a win that I decided that I do want to happen. I don’t know all the statistics with Native American actors and awards, but if it’s happened, it hasn’t happened very much. And I don’t know if it’s happened in this particular category. So it’s good history to happen. I also simply just loved her subtle performance. There was no big moment in the movie where you’d say “That’s her Oscar clip.” But she outshined everyone in that movie, Leo and de Niro included, mostly with her expressions and non-verbal acting. My personal second choice that I was debating between was her and Annette Bening. Emma was great, too. But if you couldn’t tell, I really enjoyed “Nyad.” Annette Bening and Jodie Foster were both excellent.

 

Actor in a Leading Role

Nominations

- Bradley Cooper - “Maestro”

- Colman Domingo - “Rustin”

- Paul Giamatti - “The Holdovers”

- Cillian Murphy - “Oppenheimer”

- Jeffrey Wright - “American Fiction”

Will Win

- Cillian Murphy - “Oppenheimer”

Should Win

- Cillian Murphy - “Oppenheimer”

 

Lead actor has been on quite the roller coaster this season. I got out of “Oppenheimer” thinking that Cillian Murphy NEEDS to win the Oscar. It was the performance of the year for me from an actor that I’ve loved for a long time now that I’ve been waiting for him to get his due. When the season began, people thought that Bradley Cooper was going to have his year to finally win. Then Paul Giamatti started to win awards, leading people to think it was his year. And although I imagine vote tallies will be close in this, Cillian ended up getting the wins that he needed, specifically at SAG, that makes it feel like this race is now done. I wouldn’t be totally surprised to hear Paul Giamatti be called. It would be a great win and he’ll give a wonderful speech. But I do like how things have seemingly settled on the right course of action. In the year of “Oppenheimer,” you can’t let it sweep the Oscars and NOT give the man who played Oppenheimer the award. He literally made the movie work.

 

Directing

Nominations

- Justine Triet - “Anatomy of a Fall”

- Martin Scorsese - “Killers of the Flower Moon”

- Christopher Nolan - “Oppenheimer”

- Yorgos Lanthimos - “Poor Things”

- Jonathan Glazer - “The Zone of Interest”

Will Win

- Christopher Nolan - “Oppenheimer” 

Should Win

- Christopher Nolan - “Oppenheimer”

Speaking of people being annointed beforehand to win everything. Christopher Nolan is winning. And it’s about time, too. I’d argue he should’ve already won at least one for “Inception,” if not for something like “Memento” or “The Dark Knight” as well. The fact that he doesn’t have a win yet is crazy. And “Oppenheimer” is not just a career win. It’s a deserving win for one of his best movies. It’s going to happen. And we will all cheer. If Greta Gerwig had actually gotten in, maybe it would’ve been a harder personal choice for me. But yeah, give Nolan his Oscar.

 

Best Picture

Nominations

- “American Fiction” - Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson and Jermaine Johnson, Producers  (Amazon MGM Studios)

- “Anatomy of a Fall” - Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion, Producers (Le Pacte)

- “Barbie” - David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner, Producers (Warner Bros.)

- “The Holdovers” - Mark Johnson, Producer (Focus Features)

- “Killers of the Flower Moon” - Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese and Daniel Lupi, Producers (Paramount Pictures & Apple Original Films)

- “Maestro” - Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning and Krisstie Macosko Krieger, Producers (Netflix)

- “Oppenheimer” - Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers (Universal Pictures)

- “Past Lives” - David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon and Palema Koffler, Producers (A24)

- “Poor Things” - Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, Producers (Searchlight Pictures)

- “The Zone of Interest” - James Wilson, Producer (A24)

Will Win

- “Oppenheimer” - Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers (Universal Pictures)

Should Win

- “Barbie” - David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner, Producers (Warner Bros.)

Most years there is a certain level of suspense going into the final award of the night. Even last year with “Everything Everywhere” looking like it would take the win, there was still a certain level of uncertainty. But not here. The biggest award of the night might be the easiest one to predict. I don’t even know what the upset would be. Maybe “Poor Things”? But this is ranked choice and oftentimes it means I overthink this, but in this case I think that doesn’t even matter because I don’t know how many people dislike “Oppenheimer.” I’m sure it’s top three on most ballots. And it’s a great win. I ranked all of the best picture nominees. Head over to my Letterboxd to see that list. “Barbie” is my favorite of the nominees. “Past Lives” is my second choice, actually. But then “Oppenheimer” is third. And all three made my year-end list of favorite movies, along with “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” So it’s a great year for this category.

But yeah, that means I have “Oppenheimer” going home with eight Oscars, followed by “Poor Things” with three and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Barbie,” “The Holdovers,” “American Fiction,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest” all getting one each. Of the best picture nominees, I have “Maestro” and “Past Lives” going home empty. “Maestro” going home empty and “Barbie” only getting one feels wrong. But I don’t know what to change at this point, so I’m not. I’ll take the L on that, wherever it is.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what your thoughts on this ceremony is, especially if you’re one who made it this far on this post.