David Cronenberg came to prominence over four decades ago with his wild mix of gore and sci-fi that resulted in such notable pics as Scanners, Videodrome, and The Fly. In the 20th century, his crime thrillers A History of Violence and Eastern Promises were met with acclaim and acting nominations for William Hurt in Supporting Actor and Viggo Mortensen in lead, respectively.
At the Cannes Film Festival, the 79-year-old auteur returns to the body horror genre that made him known with Crimes of the Future. Like his earlier fare, critics indicate this may not be for everyone (including those with weak stomachs). Yet the Rotten Tomatoes score is currently a sturdy 90%.
Starring frequent collaborator Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart (fresh off her Spencer nomination), I don’t see this staying fresh in awards voters brains after its stateside debut on June 3rd even as it may satisfy admirers of Cronenberg’s early work. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
***And a final update for Top Gun: Maverick as my prediction rises again to $113.4 million for the three-day and $138 million for the four-day. That it gives it the #2 all-time Memorial Day for both frames.
***Blogger’s Note: Another day, another significant update raising my Top Gun: Maverick prediction. Now at $103.7M for the three-day and $124.4M for the four-day.
**Blogger’s Note (05/24): My Top Gun: Maverick prediction has risen from a $75.6M and $98.8M three and four-day start to $86.6M and $104.9M
Tom Cruise is poised to land his largest debut of all time over this Memorial Day weekend with the long in development sequel Top Gun: Maverick as the animated The Bob’s Burgers Movie is also served up. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on the pair here:
Arriving 36 years after the first entry made Cruise a superstar, Maverick is generating terrific buzz. For the three-day portion of the holiday frame, it needs to surpass the $64 million earned by 2005’s War of the Worlds in order to set a personal best start. I have it achieving that feat with over $10 million to spare with a gross just shy of $100 million for the Friday to Monday haul.
As for Burgers, it could find itself locked in a race with Downton Abbey: A New Era for third.
After a three-week reign atop the charts, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will drop to second with The Bad Guys likely rounding out the top five.
Here’s how I see for the four-day frame and I’m throwing in the three-day projections for the newbies:
1. Top Gun: Maverick
Predicted Gross: $138 million (Friday to Monday); **$113.4 million (Friday to Sunday)
2. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Predicted Gross: $22.1 million
3. The Bob’s Burgers Movie
Predicted Gross: $11.6 million (Friday to Monday); **$9.2 million (Friday to Sunday)
4. Downton Abbey: A New Era
Predicted Gross: $9.5 million
5. The Bad Guys
Predicted Gross: $6.2 million
Box Office Results (May 20-22)
The good doctor held off competition for the third week as Multiverse took in $32.3 million, ahead of my $27.8 million projection. The MCU juggernaut is up to $342 million thus far.
Downton Abbey: A New Era settled for second with $16 million, a bit shy of my $18.4 million take. That’s on the lower end of expectations and significantly under the $31 million that its 2019 predecessor earned out of the gate.
The Bad Guys was third with $6.1 million, in range with my $5.7 million prediction for $74 million overall.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 took fourth with $4 million (I said $3.5 million) to bring its impressive tally to $181 million.
Alex Garland’s Men failed to attract an audience with $3.2 million for fifth. I was a little more generous at $4.1 million. Despite some decent reviews, the Cinemascore grade was a putrid D+.
Everything Everywhere All at Once was sixth with $3.1 million compared to my $2.7 million guesstimate. With $52 million in the bank, it is now A24’s highest domestic earner.
Baz Luhrmann’s eagerly awaited Elvis isn’t the only feature about a 60s rock icon premiering at Cannes this week. We also have Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, a documentary that marks the solo directorial debut of Ethan Coen. Just last year, his brother Joel’s first filmmaking foray without his brother The Tragedy of Macbeth nabbed three Oscar nods.
Trouble faces a more troubled path to awards attention. Early critical reaction puts it at 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. The story is apparently told almost entirely through archival interviews and it may appeal only to diehard fans of the troubled and dynamic singer.
Way back in 1989, Mr. Lewis got the biopic treatment with Dennis Quaid portraying the piano man in Great Balls of Fire! It received mixed reaction as well and didn’t resonate with the Academy. This probably won’t either. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
In 2017, Vicky Krieps drew critical praise for her work opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread, but she did not gather any Oscar attention. Recently seen in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, the actress headlines the historical revisionist biopic Corsage. Krieps plays Empress Elisabeth of Austria circa the late 1870s. From director Marie Kreutzer, the pic is receiving pleasing notices from its Cannes screening. The result is a 100% current Rotten Tomatoes score.
IFC Films has already picked distribution rights and I assume they’ll mount a campaign. The reviews are strong enough that Krieps could be at least on the radar screen for Best Actress. Production Design and Costume Design are possibilities as well.
The real question is whether this generates enough buzz to be in the mix a few months from now. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
When legendary filmmaker George Miller was last behind the camera, 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road garnered 10 nominations and a ceremony high 6 victories in tech categories. Before he moves to Fury‘s prequel Furiosa, his in-between picture is Three Thousand Years of Longing and it’s premiered at Cannes before its late summer bow.
The fantastical romance casts Tilda Swinton as an academic whose life is turned upside down when she encounters a genie in the form of Idris Elba. If the movie is wishing for Oscar attention, the answer is cloudy as to whether that is granted. Early reviews have resulted in a 78% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Some critical reaction is gushing while some is decidedly more mixed.
Miller is, of course, known for visual skills and Longing could be in play for its Cinematography (by the great John Seale), Production Design, and Visual Effects. As for the leads, Swinton is (rather shockingly) just a one-time nominee when she won for 2007’s Michael Clayton. Elba is no time nominee having notably been snubbed for 2015’s Beasts of No Nation (for which he took home the SAG).
My feeling is that this would have to vault into serious Best Picture discussion (and for Miller’s direction) for Swinton and Elba to be viable. This will certainly have its vocal supporters based on Cannes chatter, but I’m not confident it will be enough. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Emily Watson scored a pair of Oscar nominations back in the 90s – one for her debut performance in 1996’s Breaking the Waves and another for Hilary and Jackie (1998). It’s been a long break since then though she recently received an Emmy nod for Chernobyl.
God’s Creatures is an Irish psychological drama from directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer and it’s premiered at Cannes. Early critical reaction indicates this is Watson’s most impressive big screen role in some time and there’s additional praise for costar Paul Mescal.
With an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating, the small sample of reviews indicates only Watson could realistically be championed come awards time. Distributor A24 would really need to mount an aggressive campaign for that to occur. I question whether that’s doable considering the amount of competition likely to come. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
James Gray has been a favorite of the critical community when it comes to writer/directors, but that hasn’t translated to Academy attention. The sole nod for his seven previous pictures belongs to 2019’s Ad Astra and a Sound Mixing nomination.
His latest is Armageddon Time and it’s a Queens set autobiographical tale taking place in the early 1980s. The film has debuted at Cannes and Focus Features will almost certainly make an awards push for it. Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Anthony Hopkins, and newcomers Banks Repeta and Jaylin Webb headline the cast.
The coming-of-age drama is receiving its share of kudos with the embargo lifted. That praise is not universal as other reviewers and bloggers are calling it a disappointment.
There was some question as to whether Strong or Hopkins would be the most likely recipient of the studio’s Supporting Actor push. Based on early buzz, I’d bet on the latter with Hathaway in the mix for Supporting Actress. I wouldn’t look for either to make my predicted five when I update my list on my blog. Other possibilities include Best Original Screenplay or Darius Khondji’s cinematography. However, with the somewhat mixed reaction stemming from overseas, Armageddon may simply fizzle out as the busy time of the season heats up in a few months. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
I will readily admit that I’m no expert when it comes to this prediction as I’ve never seen an episode of Bob’s Burgers. The cinematic adaptation is slated to debut over Memorial Day weekend. Based on the Fox series that began in 2011 and recently completed season #12, Bernard Derriman directs. Voice actors participating from the show include H. Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, Larry Murphy, Kristen Schaal, John Roberts, Zach Galifianakis, and Kevin Kline. Familiar faces joining the fun are Aziz Ansari, Gary Cole, Jenny Slate, and Stephanie Beatriz.
Burger’s was originally ordered up for summer of 2020 before its COVID delays. The TV program certainly has its dedicated admirers, but I’m not convinced it will translate to a robust holiday weekend. Plenty of fans could simply wait until it’s available to stream. In other words, this might make about a tenth of what The Simpsons Movie made ($74 million) for its beginning.
I’ll also confess that I could be underestimating this based on my unfamiliarity with the source material. A four-day take near $20 million would be pleasing for the studio considering the reported $60-70 million price tag. I’m not willing to go that high.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie opening weekend prediction: $9.2 million (Friday to Sunday); $11.6 million (Friday to Monday)
The Cannes Film Festival is underway and you can expect to see a few Oscar Predictions write-ups coming your way! It begins with Final Cut which opened the French shindig yesterday.
Known as Coupez! in its native country, this is the latest feature from Oscar winning director Michel Hazanavicius. Back in 2011, he was the big winner when his silent pic The Artist took Best Picture and Director (as well as three other gold trophies).
Since that time, his follow-up efforts have attracted zero Oscar buzz. This zombie comedy is a remake of the 2017 Japanese pic One Cut of the Dead. Don’t expect this Cut to get Mr. H back on the Academy’s radar. The Rotten Tomatoes score stands at a so-so 63% and it simply doesn’t sound like an awards player. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Men is a later than usual addition to my box office predictions as it opens in just two days. This is Alex Garland’s latest feature after his acclaimed sci-fi pics Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018). More of a horror experience than his usual fare, the A24 distributed tale currently holds an 82% Rotten Tomatoes score. Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear star.
While that’s certainly solid, some critics have predicted that this won’t be an audience favorite. The best hope might be for a decent start as a hefty sophomore weekend drop is likely coming. It sounds as if it’s going quite wide at an estimated 2500 screens (something I wasn’t aware of until this late date). I could see Men debuting in the same range as X from the same studio. It grossed just over $4 million and that sounds about right here.
Men opening weekend prediction: $4.1 million
For my Downton Abbey: A New Era prediction, click here:
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