With awards buzz lifting its potential box office prospects, Damien Chazelle’s FirstMan debuts next weekend. Ryan Gosling headlines as Neil Armstrong in the story of the journey that led him to walk on the moon. Costars include Claire Foy (in a role garnering Oscar chatter), Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Ciarán Hinds, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, and Lukas Haas.
Since premiering at the Venice Film Festival, FirstMan has received positive word of mouth with a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 88%. Like Chazelle’s last two pictures (Whiplash and LaLaLand), a Best Picture nomination is expected. Older audiences should turn out (and Gosling fans), but it could be a film that plays well for weeks as opposed to a huge opening.
October has been kind to space flicks, most notably Gravity and TheMartian. They both launched to over $50 million out of the gate. FirstMan is not expected to achieve those numbers. Competition is serious with the second weekends of Venom and AStarIsBorn in particular.
I’ll say this manages a low to likely mid 20s start with solid grosses continuing beyond.
FirstMan opening weekend prediction: $23.5 million
For my Goosebumps 2, Haunted Halloween prediction, click here:
Size matters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the decade old multi-billion franchise reached its most epic heights in Avengers: InfinityWar. The only superhero who’s had their own stand-alone pic not to appear in that gargantuan production was Ant-Man, the character brought to life by Paul Rudd in the summer of 2015. Sequel Ant–ManandtheWasp follows a traditional Avengers tale like the original did. To say it feels smaller in scope is an understatement. Part one often failed to strike a satisfying mix and surprisingly struggled to make Rudd’s title character a memorable one. Whereas Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord were instantly iconic heroes, it didn’t work that way in Ant–Man. That’sdespite its star’s well-known ability to mix comedy and drama and some nifty visuals that made the third act a treat.
Rarely do we find an MCU effort without parental issues involved and they’re here. Scott Lang/Ant-Man is nearing the end of a two-year house arrest bid based on the events from CaptainAmerica: CivilWar. His former love interest Hope/heroine Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and science wiz dad Hank (Michael Douglas) are hiding out as well while conducting experiments to find their mom and wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer). She’s been stuck for three decades in the quantum realm that Ant-Man briefly visited in the original. His experience there leads Hope and Hank to believe she’s alive and the search is on. The technology that leads to that mystical place is sought by a low life criminal (Walton Goggins) and his crew. The FBI is curious about it, including the main agent (Randall Park in amusing turn) tasked with monitoring Scott. And then there’s Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a molecular challenged young lady who has her own reasons to gain powers. She teams up with a former colleague of Hank’s played by Laurence Fishburne.
If you’re thinking that’s a lot of characters to follow, I haven’t even mentioned Scott’s returning daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson), ex-wife (Judy Greer), and current husband (Bobby Cannavale). There’s also his business partners and occasional fellow crime fighters including Michael Pena and T.I. So while there’s plenty of action to follow, the MCU knows how to make it easy to follow. Compared to InfinityWar, the amount of subplots seems practically minuscule.
Wasp finds Rudd settling more comfortably in the role and more humorously. That’s an aspect that was oddly not around much in 2015. Finding Scott with Pfeiffer’s character in his head in one scene provides some genuine laughs. Like in the original, Mr. Douglas appears to be having a ball. He gets his own chance to save the day at one point while his counterparts are engaged in a visually impressive car chase in the streets of San Francisco. Lilly doesn’t just share title credit here. She does have more to do.
Ant–ManandtheWasp is an improvement over the first. That’s a trait shared by other MCU sequels, especially in the Captain America and Thor series. Peyton Reed returns as director and the whole production feels more confident. It also doesn’t have the burden of being an origin story… something we go through a lot with this constantly growing genre. Like many of its subjects, the importance of what happens in these two hours feels small compared to the grand scale of other stories in this universe. More so than in 2015, however, Ant-Man’s existence in it feels welcome.
The October box office gets underway this weekend with a strong likelihood that the month’s record will be broken as the comic book adaptation Venom and Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga Oscar hopeful and musical drama A Star Is Born open. You can peruse my individual detailed prediction posts on them here:
Both are expected to post impressive debuts. The current October record holder is from five years ago when Gravity made $55.7 million out of the gate. Venom is tracking to open between $60-$70 million. I believe it will match expectations and premiere on the lower end of that range, taking the all-time monthly debut with it.
While Venom could always fail to meet projections, I believe the real wild card here is A Star Is Born. Ever since it screened on the film festival circuit, praise and awards buzz has been loud for Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut and third remake of a tale that began in the 1930s. My initial estimate last week was $37.6 million and it has now risen to $48.6 million. It’s not out of the question that the projection could continue to rise during the week.
The two newcomers will easily take the top spots. As for holdovers, Smallfoot seems destined to experience a smaller drop than current champ Night School. I expect them to place 3rd and 4th, respectively, with The House with a Clock in Its Walls rounding out the top five.
And with that, my top five take on the big record-breaking weekend ahead:
1. Venom
Predicted Gross: $62.5 million
2. A Star Is Born
Predicted Gross: $48.6 million
3. Smallfoot
Predicted Gross: $13.6 million
4. Night School
Predicted Gross: $12.7 million
5. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Predicted Gross: $7 million
Box Office Results (September 28-30)
As expected, the Kevin Hart/Tiffany Haddish comedy NightSchool opened in first place with $27.2 million, a bit under my $31.6 million prediction. While not reaching the heights of some other Hart laughers, it’s still a solid start. I do expect a fairly large drop this weekend.
Warner Bros animated Smallfoot premiered in line with expectations at $23 million. My prediction? $23 million! I foresee a second weekend drop around 35-40 percent.
TheHousewithaClockinItsWalls dropped to third with $12.6 million, falling further than my second weekend estimate of $15.3 million. It’s made $44 million thus far.
ASimpleFavor was fourth with $6.5 million (I said $7 million) for a three-week tally of $43 million.
TheNun rounded out the top five with $5.4 million (I said $5.5 million) for an overall gross of $109 million.
Halloween themed horror pic HellFest yielded unimpressive results in sixth place with $5.1 million, in line with my $5.6 million projection.
Finally, the Pure Flix version of LittleWomen was a total bust this weekend with just $705,000 for 16th place. I was more generous at $1.1 million.
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