Hello everyone, welcome back to our monthly tradition of predicting the box office for the month’s film slate. With August came the end of the Summer Movie season, and it was a meh way to end off a pretty disappointing summer for most studios not Disney. Sure on the one hand Hobbs & Shaw is kicking butt globally as expected while also becoming a serious contender for the year’s biggest non Disney or MCU grosser, while films such as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Good Boys, and Angel Has Fallen, have been pleasantly over performing above expectations. On the other hand small scaled studio programmers (The Kitchen, Blinded By the Light, and Where’d You Go Bernadette) aimed at adults were once again ignored by audiences, families stayed away from well received fare such as Dora and the Lost City of Gold (which is admittedly doing okay domestically) and the Angry Birds Movie 2 (admittedly doing okay worldwide), in favor of seeing Disney’s the Lion King again, and even Hobbs & Shaw is doing merely pretty good business here. But now that Summer is over, the lessons have been taken away, it is time we move on to the Fall season starting this month in September. September is usually one of those months with a maybe a handful of high profile releases every now and then, and this month looks to be no exception with a lot of interesting films coming out. So without further ado let’s go and see how these new releases could fare financially.
Lets get things started with the clown that will most likely scare up all the money when It Chapter 2 releases on September 6. The second and final installment of the two part adaptation of the hit 1986 Stephen King novel is expected to give the 2019 box office a much needed shot in the are after an underwhelming Summer. The first installment was a massive success exceeding tracking expectations, and scoring the biggest debut for a horror movie with $123 million over its opening weekend. It may not have been the leggiest, but when your $35 million horror film makes $327 million domestic, and $700 million worldwide (without playing in China), legs essentially don’t matter. So how will this highly anticipated follow-up perform? Well I think It will do very well, just not as good as the original obviously. While I’m sure anyone who loved the first one, the source material, or the 1990 mini series are sure to show up in droves, and the trailers have done a very good job of pitching the It all ends here angle, I’ve noticed that the buzz is surprisingly not as huge as I thought it was going to be. Don’t get me wrong it’s there, its just that compared to the first one’s massive buzz this one’s can’t help but feel a little muted by comparison. There’s also the fact that early reviews have been pretty mixed to positive with most of them stating how inferior this one is to the original, and how it doesn’t earn its nearly 3 hour run-time which could affect word mouth and hinder the legs. I believe this film is going to make a lot on opening weekend thanks to fan interest, and the fact that this year hasn’t had one big over performing horror flick with the exception of Jordan Peele’s Us, but end up being very front loaded thanks to some of the factors I listed above. So I’ll be going with an $105 million opening weekend, a $256 million domestic total, and a $659 million worldwide take which would still be excellent for an R rated $70 million 3 hour horror flick, and be among the biggest grosser’s in the genre. It’ll also end up most likely being the second biggest non MCU/Disney movie worldwide behind Hobbs & Shaw (third if Jumanji is as huge as last time), and give Warner Bros. a much needed home run after their shockingly disappointing Summer.
The next week we have two more wide release films that look to target adults, one that might be a surprise hit, and one that might be an unsurprising bomb. Lets start with what could a surprise hit, Hustlers, STX Entertainment’s latest film, and hopefully the one that could hit it big for the struggling studio. With the exception of the Upside ($108 million domestic, and $122 million worldwide), the rest of their slate this year so far has consisted of films whose box office totals have been very poor (the Best of Enemies, Poms, and UglyDolls), and their other ones coming out remain big question marks (21 Bridges, Brahms: the Boy 2, and Playmobil, all of which have been delayed months from their original release dates) so yeah they are in desperate need for a solid hit, and there’s reason to believe this will be the one. The plot which concerns former strip club employees who team up against their wall street clients, has fun girls night out flick written all over it, and we’ve seen in the past how well those can perform (Girl’s Trip, Oceans 8, and STX’s very own Bad Moms franchise). Couple that in with some solid trailers that sell the film well, strong buzz, it being unique in the theatrical marketplace right now, and a cast comprised of the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Cardi B, and more, well there’s not much that could go wrong with this likely sleeper hit. I think it will over perform on opening weekend with a $28 million debut, and It think it will be leggy enough to cross the century mark domestically with $113 million domestically, and $145 million since I don’t see much overseas appeal for this one. Then there’s the likely bomb with the Goldfinch which looks like the type of movie that probably would have done well in a different theatrical environment years ago. Even with an acclaimed source material, and extremely talented cast (Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson, and Finn Wolfhard among others), I really doubt this ones going to hit it big after how WB’s other films geared towards adults have fared like the Kitchen (which to be fair I wasn’t expecting much from in the first place), and Blinded By the Light (which by all means should have had leggy sleeper hit written all over it). Buzz has also been surprisingly muted given how acclaimed the novel is, so it’ll probably be another disappointment for the studio with a $7 million opening, a $20 million domestic gross, and a $42 million worldwide total. It’s a shame because the film does look like a pretty good drama but oh well. At Least the Dream Factory has Pennywise, and Joker ready to scare up those bucks for them.
In the third frame there are three big new releases coming out each of which could break out to some degree. First I want to talk about what is probably the most important one, which is Brad Pitt’s latest star vehicle, Ad Astra. The James Grey Sci Fi flick is yet another chance for Disney to prove that they can see a Fox movie to decent numbers because as far as I’m concerned aside from the low budget Ready Or Not, they haven’t had any success since they bought the company. The hope is that this, and November’s Ford V. Ferrari will be able to make waves in the awards circuit, and at the box office, and with this one is a bit of a tricky one to predict. Lets start with the pros, the biggest being is that it looks great, and judging by early word out of Venice it most likely is. Early Reactions have been very positive, buzz has been strong ever since that first trailer debuted, Brad Pitt has proven he can sell films before, and sci fi has proven to be a genre that can still pull in a good sized crowd as proven by the successes of Arrival, Interstellar, Gravity, and even Passengers was able to leg it out to $100 million domestic, and $300 million worldwide. And then there’s the cons which is that James Grey has never really been known for making mainstream fair (meaning it could be one of those films that looks mainstream but end up being less so when the movie releases, and divides audiences), and that sci fi has also proven to not be as safe a bet as once thought with the failures of Blade Runner 2049 (which to be fair had an insane budget which made decent numbers look like a disaster), Life, and First Man (which is probably the worst case scenario for this film). So how do I think this allegedly $80 million production will fare? I think Tom Cruise’s Oblivion from 2013 would be a realistic comparison here (though that one wasn’t very leggy), but I do want it to go higher, and be a huge success, and hopefully it will. So I’m going with a $26 million opening, an $82 million domestic total, and a $256 million worldwide gross which would be an okay number for a film like this. But it is entirely possible that it could be topped by one of the other openers of this weekend which is Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo Last Blood. The fifth, and (allegedly) final installment in the Rambo franchise looks to continue Lionsgates streak of over performing action sequels after John Wick Ch. 3 ($171 million domestic, and $321 million worldwide or more what the first two earned combined), and Angel Has Fallen ($47 million, and counting) thanks to strong buzz, and a marketing campaign emphasizing that this will be the end of the line for John Rambo a la Logan (which this film shares some similarities too). Looking at the box office totals for the franchise, it seem like Rambo is more of cult franchise than anything else since with the exception of First Blood Part II ($150 million domestic, and $300 million worldwide a record back then) the others have stayed pretty flat grossing from between $42 to $53 million domestic, and $113 million to $189 million. I think this will end up taking second place in the states, and play about as well as the first one worldwide even with the long wait between movies. So cue a $24 million opening, a $57 million domestic gross, and a $126 million worldwide take. Lastly for this weekend is a big screen movie of the award winning TV series Downton Abbey which I know for sure is a very popular show, and this movie is bound to bring in all of the fans, and likely no one else. The thing with movie like this is that they can be pretty front loaded since they usually just bring in the fans, and not many causal viewers meaning legs are probably not going to be strong for this one. But I still think think the fanbase is eager to see how the story continues, and it will have a good sized $22 million opening weekend, a $65 million domestic total, and a $172 million worldwide gross, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it end up going higher (maybe even Sex and the City numbers which is unlikely but still possible).
Finally we have the final weekend of September which now has only one new wide release after Universal pulled the plug on the Blumhouse feature, the Hunt, due to political circumstances. That leaves Dreamwork’s Animation’s latest, Abominable, all to itself this weekend and this will prove to be a test case for them, and their new partnership with Universal. Yes this deal did get off to a good start earlier this year with How to Train Your Dragon the Hidden World ($160 million domestic, and $519 million worldwide) but that was the final installment of a very popular franchise that sold itself as a big deal and was able to attract a lot of people. This one won’t have that advantage, and will actually be the first wholly original DWA flick since 2013’s Turbo (which didn’t turn out well) because when you think about all of their films between now, and then have been part of known franchises (Kung Fu Panda 3, and Penguins of Madagascar), based off a pre existing IP (Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and Trolls) or loosely based off a book (the Croods, Home, the Boss Baby, and Captain Underpants). This was something I didn’t realize until recently, and I’m sure not many general audiences knew about these most of these movies being based on books, or IP’s so that could work here even if the marketing has been somewhat muted, the cast isn’t exactly too well known, and the fact that we have gotten two Yeti related films already with last year’s Smallfoot (which opened on this exact same weekend weirdly enough), and this year’s Missing Link so maybe audiences have grown tired of these types of films. Also unlike Smallfoot it won’t have the benefit of being the only family biggie in town until November, as United Artist Releasing has their Addams Family reboot coming out a couple weeks later, and Disney has Maleficent Mistress of Evil opening soon after. Still this flick does have a number of things going for it, like it premiering at TIFF should increase buzz, and awareness, the Chinese setting, and diverse cast could make it a hit in that country, and here as well, its could benefit from other family flicks opening before it under-performing, and since its a collaborative production with another studio (in this case Pearl Studios) I doubt it cost too much to make (which was a huge problem for DWA for awhile, since they spent way too much on certain movies). I think it will land somewhere between Captain Underpants, and Turbo, and have an opening similar to Smallfoot’s which means a $22 million opening, an $80 million domestic take, and $240 million worldwide gross which would be a decent enough gross, though DWA is going to have to prove they can still open original flick to decent numbers because after their 3 upcoming sequels release their going to need to.
So those are my box office predictions for the month of September! What do you think? Will It Chapter float higher or lower? Will Hustlers, and Rambo Last Blood exceed expectations? Will Ad Astra be a much needed win for Diney/Fox, or another big whiff? Can DWA still open an original flick with Abominable? All of these questions, and more will be answered by October.
Leave your thoughts down below in the comments, and see you guys later!
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