THE WEEKEND WARRIOR Early Edition Jan. 31, 2025

DOG MAN, COMPANION, LOVE ME, VALIANT ONE

January just keeps getting worse and worse, and last weekend was particularly bad with the top 10 movies barely bringing in $55 million, but at least Lionsgate had its second #1 movie of the year with Flight Risk after a dreadful 2024. We’ve now reached the end of the month and the start of February, and other than the Grammy Awards on Sunday–which probably won’t have much effect on box office we’re back to relying on two tried and true genres to get people out to theaters: animation and R-rated horror.

Since I’m not quite sure if I’ll get around to writing a review/repertory roundup this week, since I’ll be watching Sundance movies starting Wednesday, I’m just going to share this week’s box office analysis with all subscribers, maybe hoping that some will want to subscribe once we start getting more interesting releases… if that ever happens.

I’ve already reviewed Companion and hope to get to a few others, but for now, we’ll just look at what’s coming out this week and how they might fare at the box office.

DOG MAN (DreamWorks Animation/Universal)

In the past five years, there was a period when it looked like the COVID pandemic might completely quash the ability for animation to bring family audiences back to theaters. That definitely has changed with Pixar’s Inside Out 2 being the highest-grossing movie of last year, followed by holiday animated and family hits like Moana 2, Mufasa, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which have dominated the past few weeks.

One animated studio that has had huge success in the past but hasn’t quite maintained it in recent years is DreamWorks Animation, who has created huge animated franchises after popular children’s books, such as the “Shrek” movies (with a new one in production to come out in a few years) and “How To Train Your Dragon” (which is delivering a live action adaptation this coming summer). Its most recent movie, The Wild Robot, which many feel will win the Oscar for Animated Feature (24 years after the original Shrek won that category in its inaugural year), only opened with $35.8 million in September and topped out at $143.9 million domestic. The studio hasn’t had a movie gross more than $200 million domestic in 12 years with 2012’s Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.

A few movies have come close, like last year’s Kung Fu Panda 4, but it’s put DWA well behind the competition of Disney and Pixar Animation and Illumination, who have been far more successful for its Universal distributor. Dog Man, based on the spin-off graphic novel by Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey, is trying to change that with its high concept easy-to-understand concept of a man with a dog’s head voiced by Pete Hastings with a cat pal voiced by “SNL” alum Pete Davidson. The cast also includes the ubiquitous Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Ricky Gervais, and more.

It’s being released just eight years after Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie opened with just $23.9 million and grossed just $73.9 million domestic and $52.5 million overseas – which are terrible numbers by any accounts, but definitely showed a major decline for DWA pre-COVID. Looking at those numbers, it’s hard to imagine Dog Man might do much better, except that it benefits from a younger generation that has read the books and seen Captain Underpants via streaming. There isn’t exactly a dearth of animated and family fare in theaters, but most of the movies mentioned above have been playing since before Christmas, so kids and parents are likely looking for new movies to get them into theaters.

Because of that, Dog Man is likely to open over $30 million this weekend and with very few strong family features on its tail, it stands a good chance at being DWA’s next movie to gross over $100 million domestic.

COMPANION (New Line/WB)

This year’s only real horror movie so far was Leigh Whannell’s take on Wolf Man, which was a comparatively huge bomb for Universal and Blumhouse, but we’re about to get a string of R-rated genre fare, and this new violent sci-thriller from Drew Hancock offers an intriguing high-concept premise but one that’s best not to know too much before going to see it. It stars Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher from last year’s A24 semi-hit, Heretic, as a couple who go off on a vacation with friends to a billionaire’s mansion, and things happen. Is that vague enough for you? (Honestly, if you’ve seen the trailer, you already know enough.) The movie also stars Harvey Guillén from the popular series “What We Do In the Shadows,” Lukas Gage from “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria,” and Rupert Friend, probably the best known star in the film.

This is a high-concept thriller with lots of twists that is getting a worldwide release this weekend with lots of buzz from earlier screenings. I already reviewed this movie and reviews are generally solid with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, plus New Line is giving this a hearty release into over 3,000 theaters, which should make it solid counter-programming to Dog Man.

The big question is whether the film, which held off on releasing a full trailer until a few weeks back, has generated enough buzz from early screenings (including this week’s Mystery Movie Monday) to convince people into theaters based on word-of-mouth. In many ways, it’s a bit like last year’s Strange Darling, but Thatcher and Quaid have both been finding fans from their roles in shows like “Yellowjackets” and “The Boys,” respectively, though they also have been parts of major franchises like “The Book of Boba Fett” for Thatcher and “Star Trek: Lower Decks” for Quaid. Companion is going to be just as much a test for whether fans of those shows will follow them into theaters as anything else. The movie is also produced by Zach Cregger, who had a surprise horror hit with Barbarian a few years back, and New Line has been using Cregger’s involvement in the movie’s marketing as well.

The film’s marketing has been focusing a lot on the dark romance at the film’s core, selling it as “the perfect date movie,” just a few weeks before Valentine’s Day, and it should indeed have a similar appeal to men and women, probably in the 17 to 30 range. The only other movie hitting theaters that might appeal to that demo is Love Me (see below), but this one has a stronger premise that should lead to it opening in second place this weekend with a solid $11 to $12 million.

(Note that I hope to have an interview with Drew Hancock over on Cinema Daily US later this week.)

LOVE ME (Bleecker Street)

Opening wide in roughly 500 theaters is this odd romance film, starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, from filmmakers Andrew and Sam Zuchero, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It has a strange premise in that it follows a “smart buoy” (voiced by Stewart) and a satellite, who “connect” at the end of the world after humans are all gone, and they model their relationship on a couple they see on Instagram. The big draw for this one is clearly the pairing of Stewart and Yeun, which in theory, could make up for the strange premise.

Stewart has clearly achieved superstar status with a mix of franchise fare (aka the “Twilight Saga”) and well-regarded indies (including an Oscar nomination for Spencer a few years back), her 2024 crime-thriller Love Lies Bleeding only grossed $10.4 million worldwide after a high-profile Sundance debut. Yeun continues to grow as one of the most popular Asian-American actors with his early appearance as the popular Glenn on “The Walking Dead,” leading to his Oscar-nominated role in Minari, and his Emmy and Golden Globe wins for Netflix’s “Beef.” Love Me is going to be a good test for both of them as box office draws even if the strange twist on a romance film makes it a tougher sell.

Reviews for the movie were mixed out of Sundance last year, but it was one of the favorite movies I saw, having reviewed it over at Above the Line, before that site crashed and burned… and I’m still owed $15,000 for my work there, so I never even got paid to write that review.

Regardless, Bleecker Street is only opening the movie in 500 to 600 theaters this weekend, but with clever marketing that inserts Stewart and Yeun into actual Instagram feeds similar to the characters they portray. It’s hard to tell if that will be enough to get people into theaters, and it is competing directly with Companion with bigger name stars but significantly fewer theaters. Even so, A24 had a decent-sized hit with We Live in Time last year based solely on its stars, so maybe Bleecker Street can bring in a million or more this weekend and then build on that leading up to V-Day.

VALIANT ONE (Briarcliff)

This week’s anomaly (definition: something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected) is this high-concept action-thriller involving a US military helicopter crashing in North Korea amidst the conflict between North and South Korea. It stars Chase Stokes and Lana Condor from Netflix’s “To All The Boys” romcom series (as well as the voice of DreamWorks Animation’s Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken) as two soldiers in a group trying to escape that predicament.

Honestly, I’m not sure anyone realizes this movie even exists, and it’s shocking that it’s getting a wide release at all, though it’s become the norm for smaller distributors to make a play to get their smaller movies into more theaters, since there are so many screens available. Fingers crossed I’ll be reviewing this later in the week, but there’s nothing to say that Condor’s fans from “To All the Boys” will have any interest in this kind of movie, so it’s probably going to struggle to make more than a million this weekend.

THE BOX OFFICE CHART

One of the things that is going to happen with the introduction of Dog Man to the market is that a lot of family films that have been doing quite well over the past few weeks are likely to lose theaters and make room for new entertainment for families and kiddies. Companion might not have as much competition from the R-rated fare in theaters. (It will be interesting to see what kind of bump A Complete Unknown gets after Timothée Chalamet’s appearance on “SNL” this past weekend.)

1. Dog Man (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) - $33 million N/A
2. Companion (New Line/WB) - $11.2 million N/A
3. Flight Risk (Lionsgate) - $5.4 million -55%
4. One of Them Days (Sony) - $5.2 million -35%
5. Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney) - $4.5 million -48%
6. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Paramount) - $2.7 million -50%
7. A Complete Unknown (Searchlight) - $2.3 million -25%
8. Moana 2 (Disney) - $2 million -52%
9. Presence (Neon) - $1.7 million -49%
10. The Brutalist (A24) - $1.6 million -44%
– Wolf Man (Universal) - $1.5 million -55%
– Love Me (Bleecker Street) - $1.1 million N/A
– Valiant One (Briarcliff) - $650,000 N/A

Hopefully, I’ll be able to make the time to write a few reviews and a repertory round-up though I will be pretty ensconced in Sundance stuff starting on Wednesday, and then next week I have jury duty, so who knows what I’ll have time to write?