September
I really missed some stuff last time. Spirit Halloween: The Movie? Jeepers Creepers: Reborn? The Infernal Machine? The delicious irony of a special event showing of a film called "Superspreader"?
Maybe that stuff wasn't announced a week before the month they came out. That Reboot (2022) Trailer finally came out.
I haven't watched any of the movies I noted were coming out this month (some still haven't come out). The only one that's made a cultural splash has been Don't Worry, Darling and that was only because of something about Harry Styles and spitting.
I do not wish to know, but here's an interview where he describes it as being a movie while press junket veteran Chris Pine lets him twist in the wind. https://youtu.be/67haessFQ44?t=344
(And yes, it only takes a little bit of listening to understand what he's actually trying to say here)
Also, The Woman King has gotten passed around the social media sphere because it has black people in it and women in it, so it's gonna get that kind of attention at the very least.
Related: I just found this trailer, which was a fun little surprise: https://youtu.be/zUqIv5PvbGk
Thanks as always to The Numbers.com and Rotten Tomatoes for comprehensive lists of upcoming media.
October
This is my third month doing this, so I'll also be looking back at the first round of movies to see if any predictions I made about them came true.
To that end, I'll also be making more concrete predictions about films moving forward as a feedback mechanism for all the shit I talk. Might help me focus up a little more as well. Predictions will be followed up two months after I make them, so when I predict a movie gross, it's from the date of its release until about the last week of the second month after its release.
Amsterdam (October 7th)
I like a fun, weird movie with a cool mystery. Its cast is way too good for it and I think it's going to be a top-notch movie. My bet is that it grosses $10-15 million in the two months after release. Barely makes any money back, if it breaks even.
Halloween Ends (October 14th)
Shit. It is Halloween. Literally. And it doesn't end. Jamie Lee Curtis has killed her brother about four occasions in at least two timelines.
No offense to the Queen of Scream, but I think the unholy trinity of horror films peaked with Wes Craven's New Nightmare. But they keep making money so here we are. Speaking of: $50 million gross from release 'til the end of December.
Detective Knight: Rogue (October 21st)
Is it bad form to rip on a movie which centers on about 10 scenes with an actor who has announced his retirement from acting due to his health? Let me answer that question with a question: is Detective Knight: Rogue the laziest action flick to have a full-time nurse on set?
If a particularly literate 14-year-old knew who Bruce Willis was, their autocomplete would write this script. How on the edge is the disappointingly not-a-vampire Detective Knight? He's on the edge with at least three Macho Organizations (LA Cops, NYC Cops, and Marine Corps).
But if you've got sexy young people who are too good at crime--and you're very lucky--the spirit of Halloween--not that one--will come and murder them all in front of a green screen with the acting energy of Harrison Ford playing Harrison Ford playing early-aughts Keanu Reeves reading dialog from the back of his gun.
I think this is another Bruce Willis direct to video joint, we probably won't have numbers. But just in case we do: $1,000,000.
The School for Good and Evil (19th October)
Man, I almost went with Lyle, Lyle Crocodile on this one, the [famous performer as CGI character] film so lazy, the Crocodile cannot speak lest Shawn Mendes be revealed for being kind of a trick pony.
But of all the lazy, late-to-the-party, good-and-evil group-hopping movies I've seen--and I've seen The Vampire's Apprentice--this is the most all of those things. If pressed, kids will probably like it though.
At the very least, it's better than giving money to J.K. Rowling, who you could despite for her political views or for her efficacy at smearing her greasy butt all over the Harry Potter series with an enthusiasm that would make George Lucas balk.
Netflix original so no money numbers. I could guess viewer numbers, but because Netflix doesn't release those, there's no way to verify it.
Also: "Signourney Weaver-lookin'-ass-bitch in the thumbnail." Couldn't work that in anywhere else.
Project Wolf Hunting (October 7th)
It's a Korean action movie. I don't even get who the main characters are or who we're rooting for. It looks like a wall of meat rolling bloodily through a ship until everyone is dead. So imagine if they remade Under Siege, took out Tommy Lee Jones, kept modern-day Steven Seagal, and then Steven Seagal tripped down some stairs.
I'd watch it if it was on.
Can't even calculate money for this one. $225 million globally? It looks very Korean and I assume that at least Koreans like that.
Hellraiser (October 4th)
I guess if I'm declaring Halloween part of an unholy trinity of horror films, we have to accept Hellraiser as one of the more important saints. Probably the one of toxic BDSM.
Y'see, what was scary about the first Hellraiser wasn't the rubik's cube which spawned flesh hooks or the albino with a bulk discount on piercings from Claire's; it was the twisted thing crawling in Kirsty's attic which seduced her step-mother and ended up wearing her father's flesh.
Ironically, it was her uncle's sexual anhedonia which led him to seek new realms of pleasure and sucked him into a universe of extreme, non-consensual S&M.
But whatever. Now there's rules and you solve the puzzle by running your fingers over a prop and run from Cenobites.
Released on Hulu, so there's no sales figures. But there is a little hope there; I've heard nothing but good things about Hulu's Predator movie.
Armageddon Time (28 October)
Well, I certainly wasn't expecting a demonstration of the dynamics of social assimilation, racism, and class as seen through the eyes of a child who is explicitly learning these implicit rules from that title.
Very little shit looks like it's going to blow up in Armageddon Time. Might do a number on your soul though. Looks like a hard watch.
It has a limited release, so I don't know. $50 million?
Call Jane (28 October)
A great lobster once said, "First with the jokes, then comes the heavy stuff." I really only wanted to do one thoughtful movie with a social message, but both Armageddon Time and Call Jane looked really, really good. Not as movies with messages I agree with (although I do) but as movies which demonstrate the dynamics which make doing the right thing hard.
It looks really, really good.
Again, limited release. $50 mil.
Ticket to Paradise (October 21st)
To quote another famous denizen of the 31st Century, "You raised my hopes then dashed them quite expertly." This looked fun, but stupid, before we got to the pretty typical fish out of water vacationing parents schtick with testicular trauma and gave us all of the plot points.
It didn't spoil that George Clooney and Julia Roberts get back together, but does it have to?
Will gross $75,000,000 dollars from October 21st until the end of December.
Black Adam
DC feels like some kind of savant that can only knock it out of the park when they absolutely are not trying, and the Justice League-light of the Justice Society in a film headlined by The Rock reeks of effort.
Also, if I have to hear The Rock proclaim on social that the balance of power in the DC universe will change forever, whether I respect his loyal adherence to his contract to promote the movie or not, what the people will smell are his balls cooking.
I can't think of anything more pointlessly pretentious than trying to get people to buy into your movie than promising huge changes to the tattered collection of ideas branded into a shared universe that we call the DCEU.
"Yeah, we're going to radically change the organization of the sand that was thrown into a fucking dryer in 2013. How? By throwing more different sand into it." Get fucked, DCEU.
I won't write off Black Adam for the same reason you never write off a honey badger with cancer, one eye, a coke habit, and a gaping stomach wound; you can't predict what an animal this wounded is going to do next.
$450,000,000
August
Remember these movies? How did they do?
Three Thousand Years of Longing
It made a disappointing $12mn international ($8mn domestic) and it's considered reasonably fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (RoTo). That's about what an interesting, fantastic, character-driven story with a trailer that speaks to the imagination instead of safely spelling out the story beats would be expected to do.
Samaritan
From the time before I had a hard and fast, "I have to be able to embed the trailer" rule. A Sly Stallone movie on Amazon Prime. The Numbers says it was canceled, but it was uncancelled enough to get some faint criticism from critics and marginal approval of fans on Rotten Tomatoes. Don't know if maybe someone cut some checks and forgot to tell their recipients not to publish reviews of an unpublished movie or if who cares next.
(It actually appears to be on Amazon Prime)
Bullet Train
It made about $230mn off of $86mn so I think I need to revise a lot of my estimates above. Which is crazy. Critics bombed it and audiences barely liked it more than that, based on Rotten Tomatoes. I expected a bit more enthusiasm for something which made so much bank.
I assume reviews are biased towards Americans, but a little less than half of it's money was domestic. Maybe that was just good enough? It was #1 at the box office for two weeks. I guess Easter Sunday, Fall, and Mack & Rita just didn't have anything to compete with it.
They/Them
They/Them was on the Peacock streaming service so there's no numbers on it except the Rotten Tomatoes score, which is shit. Very bad. Even when you add a 10% bump for homophobia to the audience score, it's pretty bad.
I predicted it would be a solid slasher or a hate crime and it looks like it was neither.
Dragonball Z Superhero
It made heaps of money and has great RoTo reviews. I do feel like anyone reviewing it probably liked DBZ anyway.
But then that does let us know it's apparently not fucking up the franchise. Fair enough.
Luck
This was on Apple+ and the recurring inability to evaluate the performance of streaming movies is one reason why there have been so few since August. It was panned by critics--albeit less than the other movies on this list--and barely squeaked by with audiences.
Let's set the cranked-out childrens' CGI movie bar right down here. As far as Luck itself goes, "meets expectations."
The Invitation
I called out The Invitation as looking more interesting than Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. It made more than twice as much as BBB, but critically it sucked in comparison.
Just remember that in case I ever get all haughty about crap making bank because idiots don't know a good thing when they see it. I certainly don't.
Easter Sunday
It made $5,000 overseas. Like, did this movie about Filipino-Americans get released in the Philippines?
Did poorly both critically and financially (even in the US). I hope it was cheap to make.
Darlings
Netflix release so no financials. It was well reviewed. I don't know if I should qualify that by mentioning this movie about Indians is mostly reviewed by Indians. But hey, I guess most of the reviews for Captain America: The First Avenger were from Americans.
Would you and I like it? I dunno, the trailer was cute.
Mack & Rita
This movie made no one money and made no one happy. Turns out it was hipster jackoff bullshit after all. Maybe there's a problem doing a story about generational gaps where nobody feels particularly well represented.
More like, "Rita in Peace," am I right?
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