Tranny Tackles The Cinema: The Films of 11/3

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Blumhouse found their big winner in October, it just might've come from a different source than expected.

The long-gestating film adaptation of horror video game Five Nights at Freddy's blew away even its most bullish forecasts by putting together an $80 mil opening weekend. That's good enough to top Halloween '18 as the best OW in Blumhouse's storied history and make it the best opening for any horror movie outside of the IT series ever. And it was streaming day-and-date on Peacock!-where it also set a new viewership record for a movie debuting on the platform. Now that Halloween has passed, Freddy's frontloaded run will begin to reveal itself and it'll probably be out of theaters all together in early December, but it's still an incredible debut that guarantees that this won't be the last time these killer animatronics are seen on the big screen.

The other big story of the weekend was the clash between Alexander Payne's The Holdovers and Sofia Coppola's Priscilla on the high-profile battleground of the NYC/LA arthouse scene. And the winner by a mere $2,000 PTA was...The Holdovers!!! This is a particularly impressive result since The Holdovers played in 2 more theaters than Priscilla did and is an original script that doesn't feature megafamous protagonists at its center. .The Holdovers expands to 50 or so theaters this weekend while Priscilla breaks wide-where it'll aim for a debut in the mid-to-high-single digits.

On the milestone front, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour cleared the $150 mil mark in its second-to-last weekend of release and Relativity Media put out their first wide release since 2016's Masterminds in Freelance-which debuted to a dismal but slightly better than expected $2.1 mil. The Eras Tour should be somewhere in the $160-170 million range when it (presumably) hangs up its bejeweled leotard after Sunday while Freelance gets to enjoy its final week in thousands of theaters before it gets banished to the monotonous hell of VOD and streaming service libraries for decades (?) to come.

Wide Releases:
Slowly but surely the final films produced by STX before they decided to get out of the distribution game are seeing the light of the day. The next film coming out of the vault is The Marsh King's Daughter (Lionsgate/Roadside)-a Daisy Ridley-led thriller based on a best-selling novel by Karen Dionne. Ridley plays a young mother and wife whose forced to confront her traumatic past after her estranged father (Ben Mendlesohn)-who kidnapped her and her late mother and forced them to live in the wilderness for years-breaks out of prison. When he comes after her family, she has to dust off her old skills and fend off the man that taught her everything she knows about how to survive the everpresent danger of nature.

There hasn't been much fanfare surrounding this one ahead of its release. Honestly, it doesn't even feel like its been advertised or even received a passing mention in the trades since it shifted from the first weekend of October to this weekend following the dating of the Eras Tour. That radio silence isn't a good sign for its quality or the confidence that Roadside and Lionsgate has in it, which tracks since the movie kicked around for quite a while before they landed it (it was shot back in the summer of 2021 and started being shopped around to other studios last fall). Some diehard fans of the book will probably show up, but that's about it. Chalk up another loss for Ridley's career outside of Star Wars.


Price: $3 ULT/$2 BO
Predictions: $1.5-5 mil OW/0-1 PTA/0-1 Top 5/low to mid 6 IMDB/ $4-15 mil total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: Not at all.


After 8 years away from Hollywood, Meg Ryan is diving back into the industry headfirst as the star, director and co-writer of What Happens Later (Bleecker Street). Fittingly, Ryan's comeback vehicle is in the romcom genre-where she's done some of the most memorable work over the course of her career. The meet cute scenario in What Happens Later is a bit of a low fantasy take on a classic genre premise as a snowstorm traps two long-broken up exes (Ryan, David Duchovny) in an airport together over night. With nowhere to go and nobody else around to talk to, the former couple decide to take a trip down memory lane and might even manage to rekindle some of their old spark in the process.

If What Happens Later was coming out on this same weekend 15-20 years ago, it would've opened at #1 and went onto make $100+ mil weekend. Now, it'll be lucky to make a few million and stumble into the top 5 in one of the thinnest theatrical marketplaces we've seen all year long. Its combination of past-their-prime stars, indie distributor with a pretty poor track record of opening wide releases and a genre with waning popularity is a brutal one that is going to be mighty difficult for it to overcome and find success.

About the only thing it does have going for is that it was granted an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA for promotion, which Ryan and Duchovny have taken full advantage of by hitting the daytime and late night talk show circuit with a vengeance over the past couple weeks. If nothing else, it could provide an interesting litmus test for just how influential talk show appearances are in the promotional process for a film.
Price: $3 ULT/$3 BO
Predictions: $1.5-5 mil OW/0-1 PTA/0-1 Top 5/low to mid 6 IMDB/ $4-18 mil total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: No.



Limited Releases:
Radical (Pantelion) is the true wild card of the weekend. Not only is the Eugenio Derbez-led teacher drama opening in an unknown amount of theaters, it marks a pretty step departure in material for the Mexican star best known for his work in comedies to take on. 10 years ago, Derbez's Instructions Not Included-which was also released by Pantelion- blindsided box office pundits with a $7.8 mil OW in only 347 theaters. Could he do it again with Radical-which won the Festival Favorite Audience Award at Sundance this year and held previews in select market last Sunday to help build up WOM? Absolutely. It''s going to be really interesting to see where this one lands once the dust settles on this moviegoing weekend.
Price: $4 ULT/$4 BO
Predictions: $2-4 mil OW/1-4 PTA/0-3 Top 5/mid to high 7 IMDB/ $8-35 mil total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: It's one of the few true high-end sleeper picks available in the OCT-DEC game, so it could be worth a look if you're feeling brave.


All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (A24) is the other Sundance 2023 selection making its way into select theaters weekend. The feature debut from writer/director Raven Jackson follows the life of a Black woman (Charleen McClure) living in Mississippi from childhood to old age. While the film has gotten good reviews and counts Barry Jenkins among its producers, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt doesn't feel like the typical arthouse slam dunk for A24. Film festival audiences have been polarized by its storytelling approach-which uses minimal dialogue and a lot of nature shots. This particular brand of minimalism seems to have prevented people from developing the same degree of widespread emotional resonance that some other recent unconventional coming-of-age stories like Moonlight and The Florida Project were able to earn before, during and after their theatrical runs.

Further hurting its chances is it less than ideal release date where its being thrown smack dab into the middle of a slate that's brimming with awards contenders-including A24's own Priscilla, which is less than ideal for a tiny, quiet movie that doesn't share those gold statue aspirations. Its super limited release still presents it with a great opportunity to snag some PTA points over the next couple of weekends, but it has the type of shaky floor that you typically don't see from cinephile's favorite indie studio.
Price: $2 ULT/$1 BO
Predictions: $15-35k OW/1-6 PTA/0 Top 5/high 5 to low 6 IMDb/$40-120k total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: BO is a clear no-go, but there are definitely worse $2 ULT options to take a chance on.


Weekend Predictions:
1.Five Nights at Freddy's $23 mil
2.Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour $9 mil
3.Priscilla $7 mil
4.Killers of the Flower Moon $6 mil
5.What Happens Later $3 mil

-Radical $2 mil
-The Marsh King's Daughter $1.5 mil

PTA: The Holdovers, Priscilla, Radical, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Five Nights at Freddy's

Tune in next week when six breaks down a slate that includes Marvel's latest potential financial catastrophe, Nicolas Cage's benign takeover of humanity's dreams and the long-awaited musical re-telling of The Nativity Story from Glee's executive music producer.

[Buscemi2]

I don't even think The Marsh King's Daughter or What Happens Later clear $1 million. There's been no marketing for either film, neither has critic reviews out, and both films seem to exist solely to fill out streaming packages.

As for The Marvels, even if it underperforms domestically, international should bail it out. Captain Marvel made 62% of its worldwide total outside the US. Don't believe what YouTubers and men's rights/incel figures say.

[Buscemi2]

What Happens Later is getting decent early reviews. However, some of the positive reviews come from critics who usually give good reviews to these middle-of-the-road type movies (Mick LaSalle, Katie Walsh, Richard Roeper), so I'd leave one to make up their own mind on it.

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I wonder will Taylor Swift get a bump because it's the last week, and fans only have one last chance to gush over Queen Mediocre.

Will be interesting to see how Freddy drops. All logic points to a massive one, although the fans seemed to love it, as its RT audience score is insanely high.

What a sucky week, though, and such a poor move by the studios to not have at least one film out. Such as Hunger games, as that's sold on the brand rather than the cast, who are relative unknowns for the prequel.

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Yeah, I was a bit surprised/confused by The Hunger Games not moving up to this slot after Dune got postponed since it would benefit from being the only show town in for a week.

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Yeah, I was a bit surprised/confused by The Hunger Games not moving up to this slot after Dune got postponed since it would benefit from being the only show town in for a week and not losing its PLF presence after 4 days like it's set to on its current date.

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A lot of people assumed that The Marvels would move up to this weekend, which would've given it 2 weeks of PLFs and minimal competition, but it sounds like they're counting on having a last minute promotional push with the cast next week if the strike hopefully ends. It may be too little too late for its box office however....

It's kind of baffling that Hunger Games managed to get an "interim agreement" for promotion. Lionsgate isn't part of the AMPTP but it's still a big movie release.

[Buscemi2]

The last three Hunger Games entries opened the week before Thanksgiving. Lionsgate was probably just keeping tradition.

[Buscemi2]

Five Nights at Freddy's will the weekend, despite having a Friday-to-Friday drop of 86%. The biggest second weekend drop for any movie to open to even $10 million is Friday the 13th, with an 80.4% drop. Five Nights at Freddy's could just pass it if has a standard Saturday bump followed by the usual expected Sunday drop.

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Weekend Estimates:
Five Nights at Freddy's $19.4 mil
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour $13.5 mil
Killers of the Flower Moon $7 mil
Priscilla $5.1 mil
Radical $2.7 mil
The Exorcist: Believer $2.2 mil
After Death/Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie $2 mil
What Happens Later $1.6 mil
Freelance $1.2 mil

-The Marsh King's Daughter $849k
-All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt $12.6k

PTA:
The Holdovers $9.4k
Radical $6.5k
Five Nights at Freddy's $5.9k
All Dirt Roads Tasts of Salt $4.2k
Priscilla $3.8k

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Weekend Actuals:
1.Five Nights at Freddy's $19 mil
2.Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour $13.6 mil
3.Killers of the Flower Moon $6.9 mil
4.Priscilla $5.1 mil
5.Radical $2.7 mil
6.The Exorcist: Believer $2.1 mil
7.Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie $2.02 mil
8.After Death $2 mil
9.What Happens Later $1.5 mil
10.Freelance $1.2 mil

-The Marsh King's Daughter $849,006
-All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt $12,529

PTA:
1.The Holdovers $8,875 (64 theaters)
2.Radical $6,344 (419 theaters)
3.Five Nights at Freddy's $5,015
4.All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt $4,176 (3 theaters)
5.Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour $3,777

-What Happens Later $1,021
-The Marsh King's Daughter $805

[Buscemi2]

The Eras Tour is getting one more week. It would make perfect sense to continue it until Renaissance and add Monday-Wednesday shows in the process.