Tranny Tackles The Cinema: The Films of 12/25

[transformers2]

Writing a piece before the current weekend is even over feels kind of weird, but that's the fun of taking on the Christmas Day piece when Christmas falls on a Monday.

What do last night's previews tell us about this year's holiday slate besides that Aquaman is going to send the DCU out on a whimper? Possibly, quite a few things!. For starters, Migration could be well-positioned to carve out a lane for itself among family audiences despite the presence of Wonka after putting up $1.5 mil yesterday-which is a bit higher than what Trolls Band Together did last month and registering an excellent 4.5/5 rating on PostTrak.

Then, there's Anyone But You-which surpassed its modest expectations with a $1.2 mil start. While that's not the kind of performance that's going to launch some kind of genre renaissance, it is the second best preview showing for an R-rated comedy this year behind No Hard Feelings and slightly higher than what last year's modest hit Ticket to Paradise. It should continue to find an audience as a light counterprogramming option for adults that don't want to venture back to Atlantis.

The Iron Claw is also worth keeping an eye on. Sure, the money it made last night isn't going to dazzle anyone ($670k from 2,100 theaters), but it's tremendous exit polls (4.5/5 stars/76% definite recommend rate on PostTrak) show that the A24 wrestling biopic has the potential to become a WOM sleeper.

While The jury is clearly still very much out on the limited front as there are no numbers to go off quite yet, it should be a very competitive race between All of Us Strangers, The Zone of Interest and the freshly-expanded American Fiction and Poor Things for eyeballs. I'd expect All of Strangers to be the MVP since it just opened and is one of the best reviewed movies of the year, but as the great Kevin Garnett once said, anything is possibleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Wide Releases:
Wonka's pretty strong opening week is already close to the most success a musical has enjoyed since Cats threatened to destroy the whole damn genre 4 years ago this weekend. The Color Purple (Warner Brothers) will look to keep the song-and-dance genre's box office momentum rolling.

On the surface, Alice Walker's novel or Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film adaptation don't exactly seem like the clearest choice to get the musical treatment, but Broadway found a way to make it work on two seperate occasions in 2005 and 2015 and the latter even took home the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical in 2016. A star from each of its iterations in Fantasia Barrino (Celie) and Danielle Brooks (Sofia) are returning for the big screen version and they're being joined by an impressive ensemble that includes Taraj P. Henson, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, Halle Bailey and Louis Gossett Jr.

Coming out of the gates at least, The Color Purple should do very well. It's reportdley on track to make $10+ mil on Christmas, which could very well be enough for it to win the day. If it proves to be the same type of tearjerking crowdpleaser that Spielberg's version was, it could morph into a full-blown hit that plays well into the new year-regardless of how much or how little attention it ultimately gets on the awards circuit. Keep an eye on those early exits on Tuesday morning and don't be surprised if this one soars higher than expected.

Price: $4 ULT/$4 BO
Predictions: $35-60 mil Mon-Sun ($70-165 mil total BO)/1-5 PTA/3-5 Top 5/low to mid 7 IMDB
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: If you still have $4 to spend at this point of the season, absolutely.


Speaking of exit polling, The Boys in the Boat (MGM) ended up at this coveted spot on the calendar on account of its high test screening scores. If I was handed this information in 1983, I'd be all in on the Boys in the Boat being the sleeper holiday hit of the season, but can a Depression-era underdog sports movie about a college rowing team directed by an A-List actor who isn't exactly associated with putting a lot of gusto into his directorial efforts find an audicence in 2023? I don't think so, but maybe I'll be proven wrong in short order.

Sure, the reviews are average and there are a plethora of options out there for the older set right now, but let's think about America's fathers and grandfathers for a second. Maybe they just want to watch a movie that reminds them of the fare they watched when they were a more spry fellow. But what about Ferrari you say? Totally fair counterpoint. My retort: Racing movies still happen from time to time, Period sports dramas showing up in a movie theater these days is like seeing a Bigfoot ride a Pegasus in front of a Double Rainbow. If The Boys in the Boat does indeed pop, Amazon owes these forgotten men a tip of the cap and at least a few tubes of Bengay for their efforts in supporting fossil cinema.
Price: $3 ULT/$3 BO
Predictions: $7-19 mil BO Mon-Sun ($17-50 mil total BO)/0 PTA/0-2 Top 5/high 6 to low 7 IMDB
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: Unless you have an affinity for old-fashioned fact-based sports dramas or rowing, probably not


In the latest trailer for Ferrari (Neon), Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) makes a remark about having a crisis of identity. The film itself (on paper at least) seems to have the same problem. Is it a racing movie or a psychlogical drama about a professional driver-turned-car mogul whose company is on the brink of extinction due to his obsession with trying to make the best race cars in the world? Is it an event film since it cost an estimated $95 mil to produce or an indie since it got picked up by Neon-whose only had 3 movies in their 6-year history clear $10 mil domestic-following STX's exit from the distrubtion buisness? Is Driver even trying to doing an Italian accent here or is it just so much much less cartoony than the one he did in House of Gucci that it just feels like he's not doing one? All of this kind of points to a movie that is stuck between genres and release stratgies and I don't think that bodes well for its chances to perform at the box office, especially since it doesn't have any real awards buzz behind it.
Price: $3 ULT/$3 BO
Predictions: $5-17 mil BO Mon-Sun ($15-45 mil total BO)/0 PTA/0-1 Top 5/mid to high 6 IMDB
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: No.


Limited Releases:
Fresh off making onto the Oscars shortlist for Best International Feature, The Teacher's Lounge (Sony Classics) is blasting off into a few NYC/LA theaters. This German psychological drama has been earning raves Stateside since it made its North American premeire at Telluride and at the moment at least, it appears to be among the favorites to land a nomination for Best International Feature. However, it does have the misfortune of entering an extremely crowded limited marketplace and given its status as a non-English language film, it may have some difficulty cutting through the noise to attract the type of cinephile crowd it seeks.
Price: $2 ULT/$1 BO
Predictions: $45-75k Mon-Sun ($500k-$2 mil total BO)/1-3 PTA/0 Top 5/mid to high 7 IMDB
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: While there's certainly some risk involved with the Monday release, it might be able to sneak into this crowded arthouse marketplace and steal a few PTA points, which would make it a good $2 ULT pick.


Steve McQueen's Occupied City (A24) is a complete non-starter in our game. While a 4+ hour documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam during World War II is a hard-enough sell under any circumstances, the lukewarm reviews and its absence from the Oscars Best Documentary Feature shortlist basically confirms that only the most diehard McQueen fans and WWII historians are going to show up for this one.
Price: $2 ULT/$1 BO
Predictions: $15-35k Mon-Sun BO ($40-120k total BO)/0-1 PTA/0 Top 5/low to mid 7 IMDB/ $20-65k total BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: Not at all.


Weekend Predictions:
1.Wonka $25 mil
2.The Color Purple $19 mil
3.Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom $17 mil
4.Migration $16 mil
5.The Boys in the Boat/Anyone But You $9 mil

-Ferrari $4 mil

PTA: All of Us Strangers, The Zone of Interest, American Fiction, The Boys in the Boat, The Color Purple

Tune in about 2 weeks from now when Screen breaks down the inaugural weekend of 2024 that is headlined by a Blumhouse horror flick that could inflict some serious PR damage on the swimming pool industry.

[Buscemi2]

I've seen absolutely nothing for The Color Purple, outside of an ad for the soundtrack. Therefore, I have no idea how this will do.

[numbersix]

Similar to Boosch, it feels like there's next to no buzz for this one. Maybe it's targeted at a different audience, I don't know, but 22m for next weekend seems high.

[Buscemi2]

Cinemascores:

The Boys in the Boat: A (career best for Clooney as a director)
The Color Purple: A (comparable to West Side Story's A)
Ferrari: B (average for Mann)

[numbersix]

Tranny, I don't envy having to predict this weekend. Seems really hard, especially with the unexpected strong openings of some films, which may not necessarily result in a strong weekend.

It seems many are predicting The Colour Purple to win the weekend, with Wonka coming just behind. Looks like the former will hit $100m though

[transformers2]

Yeah, it's a uniquely weird weekend that's shaping up to be even wilder given how the past 2 days have played out with The Color Purple having massive back-to-back drops without the preview bump that the other Christmas Day wide releases had, Anyone But You appearing to gain WOM momentum by being the only title to pick up consecutive positive gains post-Christmas and Aquaman holding its ground far better than expected given the complete lack of buzz and marketing surrounding it. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm even in the ballpark on the grosses and titles in the Top 5-which have now been updated!

[transformers2]

Weekend Estimates:
Wonka $24 mil
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom $19.5 mil
Migration $17.2 mil
The Color Purple $13 mil
Anyone But You $9 mil
The Boys in the Boat $8.3 mil
The Iron Claw $5 mil
Ferrari $4.1 mil
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes $2.9 mil
The Boy and the Heron $2.5 mil

PTA:
All of Us Strangers $21.5k
The Zone of Interest $16.1k
American Fiction $10.3k
Wonka $5.8k
The Teacher's Lounge $5.2k

No word on Occupied City yet

[Buscemi2]

A lot of people were seeking a warm place this weekend.

[StarLord123]

Aquaman 2 will imminently surpass the domestic take of The Marvels if it hasn't already, and unless it falls off a cliff after this weekend it'll manage the roughly $20M more needed to surpass The Flash. While it's by no means a surprise smash hit, it's safe to say that the holiday release prevented this from being the big disaster that it could've been.

[Buscemi2]

So how many theatres had to close due to the Sony projection issue today?

[transformers2]

Weekend Actuals:
1.Wonka $22.5 mil
2.Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom $18.3 mil
3.Migration $17 mil
4.The Color Purple $11.7 mil
5.Anyone But You $8.8 mil
6.The Boys in the Boat $8.4 mil
7.The Iron Claw $5 mil
8.Ferrari $3.9 mil
9.The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes $2.9 mil
10.The Boy and the Heron $2.4 mil

-The Teacher's Lounge $14,611

PTA:
1.All of Us Strangers $18,934 (6 theaters)
2.The Zone of Interest $16,106 (6 theaters)
3.American Fiction $10,265 (40 theaters)
4.Wonka $5,549
5.The Teacher's Lounge $4,870 (3 theaters)

Ideally, I'll have the final standings up sometime tomorrow night. Again, sorry for the delay.