2020 Preview: January

January 1, 2020

It’s the year 2020, the year where we find out how many times you can say, “Well, hindsight is 20/20.” before you get punched. On the positive side, while December wasn’t a great month, it was good enough to help 2019 end on a positive note, a positive note that should continue into January. There are no real potential monster hits coming out this month, but there are three films that have a real shot at $100 million domestically. These are, in alphabetical order, 1917, which will rely on Awards Season to get to the century mark. Bad Boys for Life will have a much, much easier time getting to $100 million, assuming people still care about the franchise 17 years later. Finally, Dolittle is looking like a disaster with a really troubled production; however, a $100 million run isn’t out of the question and if it can get there, it will at least save face. As for last January, Glass was the biggest hit of the month in terms of raw dollars, but The Upside was more impressive, as it is one the biggest hits in STX Entertainment’s history. We need two of the three potential $100 million hits to reach that mark to keep pace with last year, but we also have one more weekend to get there.

Weekend of January 3^rd, 2020

The first weekend in January has become the home for low budget horror films. For example, this weekend last year saw the opening of Escape Room. The year before that it was Insidious: The Last Key. The Grudge isn’t expected to do as well as either of those two films did, but the holdovers this year are a lot better and that should help 2020 get off to a winning start.

The Grudge

Trailer: Click to Play
Official Site: TheGrudge.movie
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Release Date: January 3rd, 2020
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing violence and bloody images, terror and some language.
Source: Based on Movie
Genre: Horror
Keywords: Haunted House, Hauntings, Reboot, Delayed Sequel
Directed By: Nicolas Pesce
Written By: Nicolas Pesce, Nicolas Pesce, Jeff Buhler, Takashi Shimizu
Starring: Andrea Riseborough
Production Budget: Unknown - Estimated at $10 million
Box Office Potential: $35 million

Do enough people care about the franchise anymore? The first film was a big hit, but it was riding a fad of J-horror remakes and once that fad ended, so did this franchise’s cultural impact. That said, the latest film, also called The Grudge, has an impressive amount of talent on both sides of the camera and combined they have an impressive track record when it comes to low-budget horror movies. I don’t think this will be among the best movies for this time of year, but it should do well enough to break even relatively early in its home market run.

Weekend of January 10^th, 2020

The second weekend of January is much busier than the first, with two films opening wide and two more expanding wide. None of these films are expected to be $100 million hits, not unless 1917’s Oscar buzz really starts to explode. Just Mercy is also an Oscar-bait movie and its box office potential depends heavily on improving on its Awards Season performance so far. As for the two wide releases, both Like a Boss and Underwater look like typical January dumps. They are films that probably looked good on paper, but something likely went wrong and now the studios have no faith in these films. Underwater is in even more trouble, as it is not even being released by its original studio. Also coming out this week is The Informer, but it appears to be coming out semi-wide and not truly wide, so it won’t be featured here. Meanwhile, this weekend last year, The Upside had an unassuming $20 million opening. It had really long legs. 1917 should be able to top that helping 2020 continue its winning ways.

1917

Trailer: Click to Play
Official Site: 1917.movie
Distributor: Universal
Release Date: December 25th, 2019 (Limited Release)
Release Date: January 10th, 2020 (Expands Wide)
MPAA Rating: R for violence, some disturbing images, and language.
Source: Original Screenplay
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Keywords: World War I, 1910s, Behind Enemy Lines, Ambush, France, Death of a Sibling
Directed By: Sam Mendes
Written By: Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Starring: Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay
Production Budget: Reported at $100 million
Box Office Potential: $75 million

This is a World War I movie about two soldiers, who have to cross behind enemy lines to get a message to a battalion in order to prevent a devastating ambush. The film’s reviews are 90% positive, it got off to a fantastic start in limited release, and it has already earned some Awards Season success. However, making the leap from limited release to wide release is rarely easy, so I think it is best to be cautious here. I think it will be the biggest hit of the week and if it can win some Oscars, then it will have a real shot at $100 million.

Just Mercy

Trailer: Click to Play
Official Site: JustMercyFilm.net
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: December 25th, 2019 (Limited Release)
Release Date: January 10th, 2020 (Expands Wide)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic content including some racial epithets.
Source: Original Screenplay
Genre: Drama
Keywords: Wrongfully Convicted, Courtroom Drama, Death Row, Lawyers, Civil Rights Movement, Prologue, Bigotry, 1980s
Directed By: Destin Daniel Cretton
Written By: Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham, Bryan Stevenson
Starring: Michael B. Jordan
Production Budget: Unknown - Estimated at $20 million
Box Office Potential: $45 million

I fear this film will be seen as busted Oscar-bait. Its reviews are great, for a wide release, but they are not award-worthy. It could pick up additional nominations and keep it in the Awards Season discussion. If that happens, then it has a chance of doing really well in its wide expansion. Or it could collapse the first weekend of January and never expand truly wide. The above box office potential is a weighted average of those two extremes.

Like a Boss

Trailer: Click to Play
Official Site: Facebook.com/LikeABossMov
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: January 10th, 2020
MPAA Rating: R for language, crude sexual material, and drug use.
Source: Original Screenplay
Genre: Comedy
Keywords: Corporate Life, Corporate Malfeasance, Professional Rivalry, Beauty Industry, Boss From Hell
Directed By: Miguel Arteta
Written By: Sam Pitman, Adam Cole-Kelly
Starring: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek
Production Budget: Unknown - Estimated at $20 million
Box Office Potential: $50 million

Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne star as two best friends, who co-run a beauty company. They are different personalities, but work well together, at least they did until their new investor, Salma Hayek, manipulates the two into turning on each other. The film is being released by Paramount, who haven’t released a $100 million since Bumblebee and that movie came out more than a year ago. They’ve had more misses than hits for the past eight years. They are on such a long slump that the box office potential for any morvie they release is reduced just by being associated with the studio.

Underwater

Trailer: Click to Play
Official Site: FoxMovies.com/Movies/Underwater
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: January 10th, 2020
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi action and terror, and brief strong language.
Source: Original Screenplay
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Keywords: Underwater, Field Scientists, Research Scientist, Scientific Expedition, Disaster
Directed By: William Eubank
Written By: Brian Duffield, Adam Cozad, Brian Duffield
Starring: Kristen Stewart
Production Budget: Reported at $65 million
Box Office Potential: $20 million

Kristen Stewart is an amazing actress and I wouldn’t be shocked if she won an Oscar by the end of this decade. That said, her box office drawing power hasn’t been good recently. Furthermore, this is one of the last films produced by Fox before their merger with Disney and I don’t think Disney has any faith in the film, nor do I think they will care if it bombs.

Weekend of January 17^th, 2020

This weekend is Martin Luther King, Jr. long weekend, the first holiday of the year. (I don’t consider New Year’s Day to be the first holiday of the year, but rather a day to recover from the last holiday of the year before.) There are two films opening wide this week, both of which have a real shot at $100 million. Bad Boys For Life should become the biggest hit of the month, potentially by a very wide margin. Dolittle had a very troubled production, so expectations are low, but it could still save face and reach $100 million. The Last Full Measure is also opening this week, but it appears to be opening semi-wide, not truly wide and it will not appear on this list. This weekend last year, Glass opened with just over $40 million. Bad Boys For Life could top that; it should, at the very least, come close. However, last year, no other film even came close to $20 million over the weekend, while this year Dolittle should supply enough support to give 2020 its third win in a row.

The first installment in the Bad Boys franchise came out in 1995 and earned $140 million worldwide on just a $23 million budget. It comes as no surprise that it earned a sequel. However, it took eight years for that film to come out and in the end, while it earned nearly double worldwide, it cost nearly five times more to make. It likely broke even, eventually, but the long gap between installments is understandable after that result. Now Bad Boys For Life is hoping to bounce back financially, but I’m not sure it will. We’ve seen a large number of nostalgia projects released in the past couple of years, and many more in various stages of development, and the box office results have been mixed. That said, it is a holiday weekend and I think this will be the biggest hit of the week. In my opinion, the film should cross $100 million domestically, on the low end. It has a real shot at becoming the biggest hit in the franchise, while costing substantially less than the previous film.

This is not the first time this character has been brought to the big screen; in fact, it is not even the second time. Unfortunately, this version seems to have a lot in common with the 1967 version, Doctor Dolittle, which was a notorious train wreck going through production hell before bombing in theaters. That film starred Rex Harrison, who could generously be described as a functioning alcoholic. He was also an abusive bigot that made life miserable for his co-stars. Amazingly, he wasn’t one of the main reasons the 1967 film’s production was such hell, because there were so many other problems to deal with. This time around, the star, Robert Downey, Jr., hasn’t been a problem at all. Unfortunately, every other aspect of the movie’s production has been hell. I read somewhere that someone on set asked where the CG animals were going to be and the director said they would figure it out in post. ... You can’t do that. You need to know where they are going to be to know what needs to be shot, so the actors can maintain eyelines with the animals, etc. Unsurprisingly given that attitude, the film had poor test screenings, massive reshoots, new material added, and it is on its third release date. At this point, I think Universal will be happy if the film isn’t one of the biggest financial flops of the year.

Guy Ritchie returns to his preferred genre, crime stories in which an ensemble cast trades loyalties repeatedly. The film’s early reviews are positive, but not overwhelmingly so. Because of that, I think it will only be a midlevel hit at best.

Mackenzie Davis stars as a nanny hired to look after two orphans, but she soon suspects there’s more to these children then she first thought. The film is a low-budget horror film, so it is not expected to be a major factor at the box office. That said, if its reviews are mixed or better, it should do well enough to break even early in its home market run.

The United Artists label relaunched in 2019 and they had, to be polite, limited success. They released six films in 2019 and only one of them was an unqualified hit. Hopefully 2019 is a better year for them and if this low-budget horror film does well, then that could be a positive sign. It is a female lead horror film, which is good counter-programming for the Super Bowl. I’m cautiously optimistic.

This film is being released by Paramount, which hasn’t had a $100 million hit in over a year. That streak isn’t going to end this month. Blake Lively stars as a woman whose family dies in a plane crash. She then learns it wasn’t an accident, but an act of terrorism, so she gets revenge. That’s not a bad premise and the film does have some star power, but it is a weak release date and I’ve seen very little promotion for this film. I don’t think Paramount has any faith in its box office chances and are just letting it die in theaters.