Paramount Pictures is hoping that horror fans are ready to Smile on September 30th. The supernatural fright fest marks the directorial debut of Parker Finn with a cast including Sosie Bacon (daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick), Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan.
This is a genre that’s been well served in September with Barbarian and Pearl (and The Invitation in late August). The trend will continue with Halloweens Ends in mid-October. There could be a bit of fatigue, but Smile may have a feather in its cap. The mysterious and creepy teaser spot played all summer long in front of a little film called Top Gun: Maverick… the one that’s made over $700 million domestically.
A premiere in the $20 million range is certainly possible. However, I’ll say high teens is where this lands.
Crossing a John Grisham style potboiler with the 1994 Jodie Foster woman in the wild pic Nell begets Where the Crawdads Sing. This is the adaptation of the hugely popular 2018 bestseller from Delia Owens (so well known that Taylor Swift offered to contribute an end credits tune called “Carolina”).
That’s North Carolina beginning in 1953 where Kya lives in the marshland with her alcoholic father, abused mother, and siblings. One by one they all flee until the seven-year-old is all by her lonesome. She sells mussels to the married local store purveyors (Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer Jr.) to make ends meet. Kya attempts an education, but the harassment of schoolmates makes that a one-day excursion.
As she grows into a young woman (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones), her interest in arts and nature hints at a promising career. The screenplay concentrates on Kya’s two romances. The first is with Tate (Taylor John Smith), who helps her learn to read and write before he’s slated to go away to college. The second is with star quarterback Chase (Harris Dickinson) whose union with The Marsh Girl (as the townsfolk call her) is his little secret.
For those uninitiated with the source material (this includes me), I’ll be careful not to wade into heavy spoiler territory. It’s not revealing too much to say that Kya’s publishing future is interrupted by a murder trial where she’s defended by David Strathairn’s dignified counselor.
Crawdads is all about Kya’s many experiences with abandonment. Part of the problem is that both of her beaus are blank slates. I never felt the chemistry between the Kya/Tate or Kya/Chase connections as much as they’re just presented to the audience. And that assisted in abandoning my own investment in the proceedings… both romantically and legally.
The screenplay never finds the right balance between the trial and the trials of our heroine away from the courtroom. From Edgar-Jones on down, the performances are serviceable but nothing beyond that. Crawdads has beautiful scenery to be sure. I wanted a more compelling story to occur there.
Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke are half brothers who reunite at the funeral of their bad father in Raymond & Ray. The dramedy comes from Rodrigo Garcia, who directed Glenn Close to a Best Actress nod in 2011’s Albert Nobbs. Most recently, he helmed Close and Mila Kunis in the drug abuse drama Four Good Days. His latest premiered at the Toronto Film Festival ahead of its October 21st Apple TV streaming debut. Costars include Maribel Verdu and Sophie Okonedo.
Reviews here are perfectly split down the middle at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. It came and went at the Canadian fest with little fanfare and scant awards buzz. Expect that to be the case moving forward. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
British director Joanna Hogg’s last two efforts were the critically heralded semi-autobiographical pics The Souvenir (2019) and The Souvenir Part II from last year. Both Souvenir‘s featured Honor Swinton Byrne and her mother – Oscar winner Tilda Swinton.
Mom is back in The Eternal Daughter, a mystery with supernatural themes that premiered in Venice and also played Toronto. Besides Swinton, the cast includes Joseph Mydell and Carly-Sophia Davies. It’s flown a bit under the radar on the fest circuit, but the Rotten Tomatoes score is a sturdy 91%.
The A24 release could garner some mentions on year end critics lists. Like her earlier titles, I question whether the Academy will get on board. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Olivia Wilde’s psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling with Florence Pugh and Harry Styles will test the “all publicity is good publicity” theory when it opens this weekend. We also have the re-release of James Cameron’s 2009 phenomenon Avatar ahead of the December debut of sequel Avatar: The Way of Water. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on both here:
Darling, with my projected high teens start, should manage a first place showing. Yet it may need to worry a little about the sophomore hold of The Woman King (more on its opening below). I still think the former should edge the latter fairly easily.
Avatar is a little tricky to project (the reported 1800 screen count is lower than I would’ve thought). $10 million could be a reach and my estimate is in higher single digits. Either way, it’s looking at 3rd place.
As for the rest of the top 5, it should be filled with horror holdovers Barbarian and Pearl.
Here’s how I see it:
1. Don’t Worry Darling
Predicted Gross: $18.9 million
2. The Woman King
Predicted Gross: $12.4 million
3. Avatar
Predicted Gross: $8.5 million
4. Barbarian
Predicted Gross: $4.9 million
5. Pearl
Predicted Gross: $1.9 million
Box Office Results (September 16-18)
Viola Davis and company were crowned box office champions as The Woman King made $19 million. That’s better than my $14.7 million prediction as the historical action tale opened on the north end of its anticipated range. There’s better news still as it’s only the second 2022 release to nab an A+ Cinemascore grade (the other is Top Gun: Maverick). That should mean minimal drops in coming weekends and I only have it falling about 15% in weekend #2.
Barbarian held up well in its follow-up frame (especially for a horror pic) with $6.5 million (I was lower at $5 million). The critically heralded scary movie has made $21 million in ten days.
The fright fest competition may have hurt Pearl, which opened in third with $3.1 million (in line with my $3.4 million take). That’s more than a million under what its spring predecessor X did out of the gate.
Audiences weren’t into solving the mystery of See How They Run as the Saoirse Ronan/Sam Rockwell caper posted a fourth place debut with $3 million (I was close with $3.2 million).
Finally, Bullet Train rounded out the top five with $2.5 million. This is on track with my $2.3 million estimate and the total is $96 million.
The 29th time is not the charm for the MCU with Thor: Love and Thunder, a franchise entry meant to be bursting with joy. It somehow feels middling the majority of the time and it’s a significant downgrade from Taika Waititi’s predecessor Thor: Ragnarok from 2017.
Our Asgardian God of a title character (Chris Hemsworth) has been through a lot in the last half of a cinematic decade. He’s lost his family (including Loki more than once) in earlier Thor and Avengers tales. That even caused him to turn to the bottle and humorously pack on the pounds during Avengers: Endgame.
He found a new lease on life with the Guardians of the Galaxy during those previous Avengers epics. That’s where we find him at the outset, but it doesn’t last long. The Guardians are off on a new adventure while old acquaintances pop up for Thor. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who hasn’t been seen since 2013’s The Dark World, reappears in a cancer stricken state. She discovers that her ex’s hammer Mjolnir gives her super strengths. Her old beau needs all the help he can get with a new nemesis. Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) is on a mission to off all the Gods (hence the name) after his own leader causes his young daughter to perish. That killing spree will eventually include Thor and the newish King of Asgard Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson).
In what has become a common theme in Marvel’s stories, the main villain sorta has a point with his murderous schemes. We see that most of the Gods, including Russell Crowe’s Zeus, have turned into lazy do-nothings. However, when Gorr snatches a bunch of Asgardian kids, the fight is on.
Ragnarok was able to find a measured balance between dramatic elements and Waititi’s comedic sensibilities. Thunder feels downright goofy most of the time with its screaming goats and Guns n Roses greatest hits soundtrack playing over the battles. Just a little patience from the director might’ve made it more tolerable. More often than not, it falls into self parody territory. Maybe it’s on purpose. That doesn’t make it worthwhile.
What’s clear is that Waititi was given plenty of freedom to paint his canvass with this fourth official pic in the Thor series. I wish that translated to a more fruitful experience. Thor and Jane’s romance in the first two movies was never exactly a highlight so their reunion left me ambivalent. To be honest, Portman almost seems a bit bored during her transformation to the Mighty Thor. Bale doesn’t seem disinterested but his bad guy is of the one note and forgettable variety.
Thor: Love and Thunder does have a few jokes that land (I chuckled at a character mispronouncing Jane’s full name). Yet I couldn’t escape this thought when the credits rolled the first and second and final time… I’d rank this 29th MCU saga 29th.
What’s Love Got to Do with It? is not a remake of the Tina Turner biopic nearly three decades after the original. Instead it’s a rom com about arranged marriage from Shekhar Kapur, best known for directing Cate Blanchett to two Oscar nominations for Elizabeth (1998) and its follow-up The Golden Age (2007). Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, and Taj Atwal are among the cast.
The film premiered at Toronto to a middle of the road reaction with 67% currently on Rotten Tomatoes. At the moment, Love is slated for a UK opening in January and it’s not clear if an awards qualifying run is happening for 2022.
I don’t think it matters. This might’ve been a pic that could make waves at the Globes in the Musical/Comedy races, but even that seems like a stretch. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Just how indicative is nabbing the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival of eventually receiving a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars? Let’s go the numbers: 13 out of the last 14 have and that includes the past 10 in a row. 2011’s Where Do We Go Now? is the only outlier since 2008. Of those 13 films, five would go on to win the Academy’s top prize (Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, 12 Years a Slave, Green Book, Nomadland).
So it was with anticipation that awards prognosticators like yours truly awaited the bestowment of the Canadian fest’s biggest award. True to form, it went to a movie widely anticipated to be in the BP mix: Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. The legendary director’s most personal work to date was his first journey up north and he was rewarded handsomely for it. When I did my latest round of predictions on Friday, I had The Fabelmans listed in first place and this helps solidify that decision. Don’t get me wrong – this doesn’t mean the BP race is over (far from it). Yet there’s no doubt that The Fabelmans has positioned itself as a major threat to take the top prize.
That’s not all because TIFF also names a first and second runner-up. And those picks are frequent indicators of what will play down the road. Over the previous decade, nine of the 20 runner-ups have gotten BP nods. This includes victorious ones like Argo, Spotlight, and Parasite and nominees such as Call Me by Your Name, Roma, and The Power of the Dog.
Sarah Polley’s Women Talking is first runner-up for 2022. It played to mostly raves at TIFF and I have it ranked 4th currently in the BP derby. Second runner-up was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The top 3 placement is something predecessor Knives Out didn’t manage 3 years ago. My estimates two days back put Onion on the outside looking in at 14th (though I did project for it for an Adapted Screenplay nod). My hesitation to put it in is this: just how many sequels could that Academy include in their group of 10? I’ve got Top Gun: Maverick already there (at 6th) and we still need to see Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (whose predecessors were both BP hopefuls). However, at this point, Netflix may choose to go all in on Onion being their most likely contender.
There are a couple films in particular that could’ve benefited from a top 3 showing today. I think immediately of Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin. I still anticipate both to be in the hunt (I’ve got them ranked 5th and 7th respectively).
Bottom line: The Fabelmans had itself a meaningful premiere in Toronto that currently puts Spielberg’s latest in the Oscar driver’s seat.
Peter Farrelly’s Green Book scored an upset Best Picture victory over Roma in 2018 and that’s still stuck in the craw of many cinephiles. While I actually found it to be pretty good overall, I get it. It is one of the weaker BP winners in recent times.
His follow-up is The Greatest Beer Run Ever starring Zac Efron in the stranger than fiction true story of a merchant seaman bringing some suds to his buds serving in ‘Nam. Russell Crowe and Bill Murray costar.
Like Green Book, it has debuted in Toronto before its simultaneous theatrical and Apple TV streaming debut on September 30th. Unlike Green Book, don’t expect this to attract any awards talk. The Rotten Tomatoes score is a skunky 42%. I saw it up north and would be shocked if it contended for any category. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Henry Selick burst onto the stop-motion big screen animation scene nearly 30 years ago with The Nightmare Before Christmas and continued on with James and the Giant Peach and Coraline (which received a Best Animated Feature). Note that the category didn’t exist when Christmas and Peach came out. His first feature in 13 years is Wendell & Wild, which premiered at Toronto and hits Netflix on October 28th (with an awards qualifying run a week prior).
A familiar comedic duo, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, voice the demon sibling title characters. Other performers behind the mic include Lyric Ross, Angela Bassett, James Hong, and Ving Rhames. The Canadian debut yielded a 92% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Most reviews are not overwhelming raves and I don’t see this winning the top prize. Netflix’s biggest contender could be the forthcoming Pinocchio from Guillermo del Toro. I also wouldn’t discount their acclaimed The Sea Beast from earlier this year. Wild could easily make the top five when the dust settles though I wouldn’t say it’s a slam dunk. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
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