PREY FOR THE DEVIL opening | TILL opening | Awards season movies | October 28 to 30, 2022 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: October 28 to 30, 2022
1) Prey for the Devil opening
- This is an average opening for an original horror film, with an estimated $7m for the weekend. Reviews are poor. Horror movies continue to score at the domestic box office — four of the top-10 movies this weekend are horror films:
- Terrifier 2 expanded to 1,550 screens this weekend and ranks #8, with over $7.5m in total through four weekends. Business is growing. The story is about Art the Clown, a lunatic bozo who terrorizes an American suburb on Halloween, butchering the locals in the most grotesque ways possible. It cost $250,000 to make, has an 87 score on Rotten Tomatoes, and Art the Clown has 13,000 followers on Facebook.
- The filmmaker, Damien Leone, was introduced to classic horror movies by his mother. When she watched this movie, “She was beyond repulsed, just screaming at me, cursing me out like a truck driver,” he said. But by the end of the movie “she was very proud. It was a badge of honor.” This is homegrown filmmaking, and audiences like it. The full story is here in the NY Times.
2) Till opening and year-end dramas
- This is a weak opening for a year-end drama. Reviews are sensational. While these movies do not open huge, they can take hold and go on long runs, generating very good domestic multiples, particularly if they start landing on best-10 lists and accumulating awards, which this film seems destined to do:
- With Till going wide this weekend, we're at the start of a run of well-reviewed, awards-contending dramas — it's that time of year. See the list below.
3) Awards season movies
- At this point, the line-up of awards-contenders appears to be leaning theatrical, as opposed to streaming, and many of the films are going to get wide releases. It's still early and there will be late-comers and surprises, just as CODA was a late-comer last year. Add to these titles the big movies with awards-potential that are already released, or upcoming, and this year is going to be a high-profile, audience-friendly awards season. Good for moviegoing, good for production, good for the Academy:
Armageddon Time (James Gray, Focus, Nov 4, 84 Rotten Tomatoes)
Babylon (Damien Chazelle, Paramount, Dec 23, RT na)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, Searchlight, Nov 4, 98 RT)
Bardo (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Netflix, no release date, 50 RT)
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, Universal, Nov 23, 93 RT)
She Said (Maria Schrader, Universal, Nov 18, 80 RT)
The Son (Florian Zeller, Sony Classics, Nov 25, 45 RT)
Tár (Todd Field, Focus, Oct 28, 93 RT)
Till (Chinonye Chukwu, UA, Oct 28, 98 RT)
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund, Neon, Oct 7, 73 RT)
The Whale (Darren Aronofsky, A24, Dec 9, 71 RT)
White Noise (Noah Baumbach, Netflix, Nov 25, 80 RT)
Women Talking (Sarah Polley, UA, Dec 2, 88 RT)
et al.
- Plus the big, awards-potential movies:
Avatar 2 (James Cameron, Disney, Dec 16, Avatar 1 received 9 Acad nominations, including best pic and director)
Black Panther 2 (Ryan Coogler, Disney, Nov 11, Disney, Black Panther 1 received 7 Acad nominations, including best pic)
Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, Warner Bros., $286m BO ww, 77 RT)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, A24, $101m BO ww, 95 RT)
Glass Onion (Rian Johnson, Netflix, Knives Out made $311.6m ww, 91 RT)
Top Gun 2 (Joseph Kosinski, Paramount, $1,485m BO ww, 96 RT)