Lionsgate Films is hoping American Assassin successfully targets action fans when it debuts next weekend. The pic features Maze Runner star Dylan O’Brien as a CIA recruit teamed with a Cold War vet played by Michael Keaton. Sanaa Lathan and Taylor Kitsch costar in this effort from director Michael Cuesta (who last made the Jeremy Renner thriller Kill the Messenger).
The biggest draw here should be Keaton, who’s experienced a genuine career resurgence that began with back to back Best Picture winners Birdman and Spotlight in 2014 and 2015 and continued this summer with his well-received villainous turn in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Assassin also has the benefit of being the only straight up action pic geared towards a male audience. That said, there is still competition with It‘s second weekend and mother!‘s first.
Reviews (not out at press time) could cause a revision here, but I’ll project Assassin ends up hitting low to possibly mid teens.
American Assassin opening weekend prediction: $13.3 million
Darren Aronofsky’s mother! received quite the splashy debut at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend and stateside audiences will render their verdict on September 15th. Oscar winners Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem headline the psychological horror thriller with a supporting cast including Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kristin Wiig, and Domhnall Gleeson.
Critical reaction from mother! has been something to witness, with some reviews labeling it a masterwork from the Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan auteur. Other notices haven’t gone that far, but all seem to agree it will push the audience’s buttons with its out there approach. The pic stands at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes currently.
Here are the pluses as I see them when it comes to potential box office performance. First, it’s headlined by Jennifer Lawrence and that should be a draw for some. Second, the buzz surrounding it could create a “you have to witness this thing” for yourself type of vibe.
One minus is a considerable one. The It factor. The Stephen King adaptation is riding its own higher decibel wave of chatter and should still be garnering big grosses in its sophomore weekend. It could easily divert some moviegoers away from this.
I’ll predict mother! begins with a low to mid teens output and it’ll be fascinating to see how it progresses or regresses from there (its Cinemascore rating could be an interesting indicator).
The Big Sick is a pleasing combination of a romantic comedy that feels one part wholly original as it comes from the real life experiences of stand-up Kumail Nanjiani, essentially playing himself. The other part is not without imperfections and that could be called the Judd Apatow part, who produced it. Like Apatow’s best work, there’s plenty of heart, laughs, and observations about the comedy scene. Like even in his best work (and certainly his most middling pictures), it’s a bit too long and occasionally veers into semi-stale territory.
That said, Nanjiani’s creation takes you out of typical genre territory for most of its two-hour running time. Sick was written by its star and wife Emily V. Gordon and it takes a page out of their true life experiences. Pakistani comic Kumail Nanjiani portrays Pakistani comic Kumail Nanjiani, who’s struggling to make ends meet doing night gigs in Chicago while also driving an Uber. One night he’s pleasantly heckled on stage by Emily (Zoe Kazan) and the two hit it off post show. A one-night stand that transpires over several nights occurs – in the sense that they keep saying it’s the last one-night stand. She’s busy in grad school, he’s doing his career thing. Before they know it, they realize they’re in some sort of feeling resembling love yet they dare not say it.
Kumail can’t tell his family of his new whatever he and Emily call it. His background demands that he enter an arranged marriage with a girl of Pakistani ethnicity and his parents (especially Mom) bring a slew of such women to the dinner table every time Kumail comes to dinner. It’s this complication that soon ends the relationship.
The title comes into play when Emily is rushed to the hospital and put into a medically induced coma. Kumail is informed and he soon meets Emily’s folks (Ray Romano and Holly Hunter). Their knowledge of their daughter’s former relationship is the opposite of Kumail’s parents. They know everything and aren’t exactly warm to the idea of Kumail hanging around the ICU.
The Big Sick, more often than not, avoids many typical rom com cliches. Some of this is due to one of the leads not being available for a solid portion of the proceedings. This allows Kumail and Emily’s parents to develop a fascinating dynamic. Veteran performers Hunter and Romano make the best of their parts and their marriage is an interesting one in itself. The screenplay is refreshingly honest in a way that few in the genre manage to be. Kumail is far from perfect in how he handles situations, but not in an overly broad silly way. He’s trying and it’s not easy to balance his cultural leanings and his feelings for Emily. Kazan is charming and vulnerable as Emily, as she slowly realizes the difficulties involved with dating Kumail.
We get a little bit of exploring the stand-up comedy scene as Kumail is trying to land a sought after spot at the Montreal Comedy Festival. There’s nothing terribly new about that aspect of the script (Apatow covered it well in Funny People), but Nanjiani is certainly familiar with it. And that’s what really puts The Big Sick in satisfying territory. Nanjiani and his spouse write what they know – each other. And you root for them to work it all out.
The fall box office officially is underway this weekend and it can’t come soon enough after a truly lackluster end to the summer season. This season is looking to kick off in record breaking fashion with the release of Stephen King adapted horror pic It as well as the Reese Witherspoon rom com Home Again. You can read my detailed prediction posts on each of them here:
Riding a wave of solid buzz coupled with its eerie TV spots and trailers, It is shaping up to be an event film. My estimate easily makes it the highest September debut of all time and biggest horror opening in history.
Home Again should easily be #2 considering the extreme lack of competition, but the question is how effective it will be as counter programming for female audiences. I have it just under a teens debut as it hopes to leg out in subsequent weekends.
The rest of the top five will be filled with holdovers. The Hitman’s Bodyguard three week reign on top will be over. Last weekend’s #2 Annabelle: Creation may suffer the largest decline because of the It factor.
And with that, my top 5 predictions for the weekend:
1. It
Predicted Gross: $65.4 million
2. Home Again
Predicted Gross: $11.3 million
3. TheHitman’sBodyguard
Predicted Gross: $5.4 million (representing a drop of 48%)
4. WindRiver
Predicted Gross: $3.6 million (representing a drop of 43%)
5. Annabelle: Creation
Predicted Gross: $3.5 million (representing a drop of 54%)
Box Office Results (September 1-4)
As anticipated, the summer movie season closed with a whimper. That said, most of the holdovers help up better than my estimates while two newcomers couldn’t manage to find an audience. Even though my forecasts were low, this was still the weakest Labor Day frame in 17 years.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard placed first for the third weekend in a row with $13.2 million, managing to easily surpass my $8.9M projection. It ends its run in first place with $57 million total.
Annballe: Creation was second with $9.1 million – topping my meager $5.7M estimate for a tally of $90 million.
WindRiver continued a laudible run, climbing to third with $7.8 million (I was under with $5.1M). It’s made $20 million thus far.
Animated Leap! was fourth with $6.2 million (I said $5.4M) to see its total jump to $12 million.
Dunkirk rounded out the top five with $5.5 million, ahead of my $4.2M prediction. The Oscar hopeful has amassed $180 million.
Aforementioned newbies both bombed. Latin comedy HazloComoHombre earned a measly $1.4 million (I went higher with $3.5M). Long delayed Alicia Vikander period piece TulipFever fared even worse at $1.3 million (I predicted $1.9M). Those debuts were good for 22nd and 24th place, respectively. Ouch.
And here we are! After my first round of predictions covering the acting categories and Best Director, we arrive at Best Picture. The Telluride and Venice Film Festivals have shed light on some potentials heavyweights (Darkest Hour, Battle of the Sexes, The Shape of Water, MAYBE Downsizing) while others (Suburbicon, Victoria and Abdul, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool) have mostly fallen by the wayside. Obviously there’s many pictures left to screen, but here’s my first blush round of Best Picture nominees.
As you may know, the number of nominated movies can be anywhere from 5-10, but nine has seemed to be the magic number in most years so we’ll go with that. On Thursday, I’ll post my first weekly column where potential nominees in Picture, Director, all four acting races, and both screenplay categories are ranked as to possibility of nomination in this blogger’s mind.
The Telluride Film Festival over the weekend has showcased yet another Best Actress hopeful. This time it’s Lady Bird with Saoirse Ronan and the buzz is loud enough that she looks like a real contender for her third nomination.
The coming-of-age drama marks the directorial debut of actress Greta Gerwig. Reviews from Telluride suggest it’s a winner. If Ronan can emerge from an increasingly crowded field in Best Actress, it would come a decade after her first nod for Supporting Actress in Atonement and two years following her lead nomination in Brooklyn. Critics were also quick to praise the supporting work of veteran performer Laurie Metcalf, who could find herself in the Supporting Actress derby. Gerwig also wrote the screenplay and may have a better shot at Original Screenplay recognition over her direction.
If Lady Bird‘s distributor A24 mounts a major campaign, it could even be a long shot player for a Picture nom. One thing seems certain, though. Ronan is once again in the mix for three nominations at just the age of 23.
Continuing on with my earliest Oscar predictions, we are at Best Director before my initial Best Picture estimates. At this juncture, it’s safe to assume that the five directors I’ve selected will all see their movies on my list for Picture when that’s posted.
Obviously we are early in the Oscar predictin’ game, but here goes with the directors!
Here’s my quick tale – the Telluride and Venice Festivals over the weekend increased the chances for several directors, including Joe Wright (Darkest Hour), Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Battle of the Sexes), and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water). Same goes for Alexander Payne in Downsizing, but the reaction for it has been slightly more split.
I’m reserving a predicted spot for Steven Spielberg for his Nixon era tale The Post (formerly known as The Papers). The rest of my predicted nominees are from films already out or screened. As always, lots could change but here goes for now!
TODD’S EARLY OSCAR PREDICTIONS – BEST DIRECTOR
Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Dee Rees, Mudbound
Steven Spielberg, The Post
Joe Wright, Darkest Hour
Other Possibilities:
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Darren Aronofsky, mother!
Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Battle of the Sexes
One of the more eagerly awaited titles has screened at the Venice Film Festival as Darren Aronofsky’s mother! has seen its first reactions. The psychological horror pic debuts stateside next weekend and early word-of-mouth indicates it’s quite a head trip.
One could see from the effective trailers that mother! looks bizarre and pretty out there. It’s a tale of a couple (Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem) whose remote home is visited by various strangers, including Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. The Venice reaction was reportedly all over the map – a mix of wild cheering and boos. This could indicate how audiences may feel about it. mother! is said to be in the vein of the director’s earlier Black Swan (which received multiple nominations and a Best Actress win for Natalie Portman) and Rosemary’s Baby.
While mother! currently stands at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, its apparent divisiveness could stand as a hindrance for a Best Picture or Director nomination. That said, it could also benefit from some voters ranking it as their #1 or #2 picture on the ballot.
As for the performers, Jennifer Lawrence would be gunning for her fifth nomination. She won in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook, got lead nominations for Winter’s Bone (2010) and Joy (2015), and was nominated for Supporting Actress for American Hustle (2013). It’s been discussed a lot on this blog recently, but the Actress category is looking very strong right now and her inclusion could be a long shot. The best chance at recognition could belong to Michelle Pfeiffer, a three-time nominees whose last nod came 25 years ago. It should depend on the strength of that category, which is yet undetermined.
Bottom line: mother! has rather unsurprisingly garnered acclaim, but how it plays with audiences remains to be seen. We shall know soon enough and that may be a determining factor as to its Oscar viability.
Annette Bening is an actress that some might be surprised to find has never won an Oscar. She’s been nominated for four – as Supporting Actress in 1990’s TheGrifters and in the lead race for 1999’s AmericanBeauty, 2004’s BeingJulia, and 2010’s TheKidsAreAllRight. In 1999 and 2004, she was considered a front runner for much of the season and was defeated by Hilary Swank both years.
Ms. Bening will not be “swanked” in 2017, but she may have trouble getting into the mix altogether. Paul McGuigan’s FilmStarsDon’tDieinLiverpool premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. The May-December romance casts its lead as old school Hollywood actress Gloria Grahame and focuses on her relationship with a younger man portrayed by Jamie Bell.
Much like another festival screening this weekend – ThreeBillboardsOutsideEbbing, Missouri – the early awards chatter focused solely on the female lead. With Ebbing, the new buzz has also centered on costar Sam Rockwell. With Liverpool, some reviews have singled out Bell as the real revelation and a possibility for Supporting Actor.
Critical reaction has been mixed and even with Best Actress looking extremely competitive, Bening could still manage to get in. However, that looks less likely now than it did before the long weekend began. And despite the Bell praise, I don’t envision him getting in if his counterpart doesn’t.
Another day, another entry in the Best Actress derby as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has premiered at the Venice Film Festival. This time it’s Frances McDormand, starring in Martin McDonagh’s pic about a mother going to great lengths to find her daughter’s killers.
Early reviews suggest a strong and nuanced performance from McDormand, who won Best Actress 21 years ago for Fargo. She’s also been nominated three other times in Supporting for 1988’s Mississippi Burning, 2000’s Almost Famous, and 2005’s North Country. While Missouri could feasibly nab McDormand her fifth nod, it’s no slam dunk and that’s due to competition that has been discussed on the blog all weekend.
An interesting nugget from the Venice buzz surrounds Sam Rockwell, whose performance seems to be generating more word-of-mouth than Woody Harrelson’s in Supporting Actor. If Rockwell manages to land a nomination, it would be his first and looked at as long overdue by many.
