WEEKEND WARRIOR EARLY EDITION 11/8/24

Happy Election Day!

I’m going to be trying something different for the next few weeks and depending on how well it goes, we’ll see how this goes moving forward.

In case you missed my posts on the subject, including last week’s column, I’m no longer writing box office for Gold Derby. I’m not too happy about that, since I really enjoyed that gig, and I just have no way of surviving without what was my last semi-steady income. 

But I’ve been saying for a while now that I need to start offering a paid newsletter, but I also needed to figure out what would be worth charging readers for, and I think getting some box office info and predictions before the trades get to it on Wednesday might be something worthwhile to some. So we’ll give it a try with a few of these sent out on Tuesdays (just to newsletter subscribers, not to socials), and the next few weeks will be free, but then I hope to start charging by 11/22 and beyond. (Note: You might also notice some random reviews on my site, as I have a small gig reviewing indie films that haven’t been reviewed that much. I’m not sure I’ll be sending those out via Email or not.)

BOX OFFICE ANALYSIS FOR 11/8/24

This week’s wide releases are another mixed bag before we get to some of the bigger movies of the holiday season, but the good news is that Sean Baker’s ANORA is scheduled to expand nationwide on Friday, as NEON continues to put a lot of eggs in that guaranteed awards basket. 

Otherwise, the four main wide releases are: 

Lionsgate’s THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER is a typical family comedy, this one based on a 1972 children’s book by Barbara Robinson, which I’m not sure how many parents will know about, but it’s also directed by Dallas Jenkins, creator of the popular biblical series, “The Chosen,” which has made its way into theaters in recent years. The cast isn’t that strong but it does include two personal favorites, Lauren Graham and Judy Greet, as well as comedian Pete Holmes, who I’m really not familiar with.

A24 has Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ HERETIC, starring Hugh Grant, Chloe East, and Sophie Thatcher, the creators of “The Quiet Place” concept tackling a religious thriller in which the latter two actresses play Mormon missionaries who go to visit an odd recluse living on his own who decides to teach them something about belief and disbelief. 

The Luc Besson written and produced WEEKEND IN TAIPEI, starring Luke Evans and Sung Kang, both veterans of the “Fast and Furious Franchise,” directed by George Huang, whose first movie was the amazing 1994 film, Swimming with Sharks. This one is being released by Ketchup Entertainment, who recently released Goodrich to absolute silence, plus they ended up dumping Hellboy: The Crooked Man to VOD.

Crunchyroll is releasing a new anime called OVERLORD: THE SACRED KINGDOM, which is based on a popular series of novels and Manga that’s been turned into an anime series. This just isn’t my world, and it never has been, so it’s a tough movie to gauge how well it might do with anime fans, who haven’t really  been flocking to theaters the way they used to. Maybe they know that it will be on the Crunchyroll streamer soon enough.

The first two probably stand the best chance at coming close to $10 million, just by the nature of the genre, one being a holiday movie, the other being a thriller with a big name star like Hugh Grant. Weekend in Taipei and Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom will have a tougher time being genre films geared towards a single demographic, though the former should be able to bring in $4 million or so from diehard action fans aka dudes. Apparently, Overlord isn’t going to be in more than 550 theaters, so it’s unlikely to even open in the top 10.

I’ll probably give Heretic a slight advantage this weekend over The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, just because it’s coming into the weekend with better buzz, although I wouldn’t count out Lionsgate’s latest offering, just because it’s officially the holiday movie season, and that’s very much on people’s minds leading up to Thanksgiving in three weeks, plus it’s a much-needed family film with The Wild Robot benefitting from the lack of family pics.  Heretic goes into the weekend with strong reviews from its debut at the Fantastic Fest in Austin back in September, currently at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. I imagine that none of the other movies will have reviews before Wednesday or Thursday.

A few other movies to keep an eye out for are the aforementioned Anora, which is going to be expanding wide on Friday, and Elevation, the new sci-fi action thriller from filmmaker George Nolfi that reteams him with his The Adjustment Bureau and The Banker star, Anthony Mackie, joined by Deadpool’s Morena Baccarin. It’s a monster movie that might get a wide release by Vertical, but one I doubt will get much attention.

A few of the notable limited releases this weekend are the Irish drama, Small Things Like These, starring Oscar-winning Cillian Murphy and Emily Watson, and IFC Films’ Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which I know nothing about. Also, British filmmaker Andrea Arnold returns with the Irish-set Bird, which stars newcomer Nykiya Adams and co-stars Franz Rogowski and Barry Keoghan. Hope to have more about all of these if I can get a column posted Thursday.

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THE BOX OFFICE CHART

What’s interesting about this weekend is that Venom: The Last Waltz is likely to continue bringing in business, and as long as it stays above $11 or $12 million, it will win its third weekend with ease, since none of the new movies are that strong. In fact, this may end up being one of the worst weekend in months, with the top 10 maybe not even getting to $50 million. It’s a shame, but as I mentioned elsewhere, November doesn’t really get going until next week and then the week before Thanksgiving, so we’ll just have to take what we can get and hope for the best.

(Please note that these numbers might change by the time the full Weekend Warrior runs on Thursday and I have more accurate theater counts. As of now, I don’t have counts on some of this weekend’s new movies, including Anora.)

1. Venom: The Last Dance (Sony) - $14.4 million -45%
2. Heretic (A24) - $8.7 million N/A
3. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Lionsgate) - $7.8 million N/A
4. The Wild Robot (Universal) - $6 million -20%
5. Smile 2 (Paramount) - $4.3 million -37%
6. Anora (Neon) - $4 million +100%
7. Weekend in Taipei (Ketchup) - $3.8 million N/A
8. Conclave (Focus Features) - $3.5 million -34%
9. Here (Sony) - $2.7 million -46%
10. We Live in Time (A24) - $2.2 million -35%

That’s it for the early/lite edition, which eventually will be available via subscription only, but as mentioned last week, I’m doing my civic duty by working as a pollworker on Tuesday, have a bunch of things going on Wednesday, and I’m not 100% sure I’ll be able to get to much else in terms of this column, or at least not as far as reviews… but we’ll see how it goes. I often surprise myself.