Box office preview: ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ and 3 other films hope to save November
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After two disastrous weekends kicking off November, there’s new hope with four new releases hitting theaters across the country. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.
All three sequels to 2012’s “The Hunger Games,” based on Suzanne Collins‘ series of young adult novels, opened in mid-November following the first movie opening in March and grossing over $400 million. 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” did just as well, as each successive sequel opened with over $100 million – the “Mockingjay” finale in 2015 just barely.
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Along comes “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” an adaptation of Collins’ prequel novel, telling the story of the Capitol’s President Coriolanus Snow, played by Donald Sutherland in the original movies and by Tom Blyth (“Billy the Kid”) in this prequel. In fact, the only person returning from the original four movies is director Francis Lawrence, who directed the three sequels.
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Coriolanus’ love interest in this prequel is Rachel Zegler‘s Lucy Gray Baird, a singing competitor in the violent games from District 12 who Coriolanus falls for and tries to help stay alive. Zegler is very much being pushed as the film’s main star to target younger audiences, although she’s only appeared in two movies, Steven Spielberg‘s “West Side Story” in 2021 and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” earlier this year, neither which did very well. The cast is rounded out by Oscar winner Viola Davis and Emmy champ Peter Dinklage as two of the key Capital players behind the games. It also stars Hunter Schafer from HBO’s “Euphoria” and Jason Schwartzman as Lucky Flickerman, a relative of Stanley Tucci‘s Hunger Games MC from the previous movies.
Collins’ books are still popular, and while one presumes there having been eight years since the last movie, maybe some of the franchise’s fans have moved on, but the movie received surprisingly favorable reviews, currently at 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. Lionsgate will release it into over 3,700 theaters on Friday with ticket sales being brisk to the point where it could end up opening higher than last weekend’s “The Marvels” with $53 million plus.
The first animated family movie this month is the DreamWorks Animation sequel, “Trolls Band Together,” the third movie in a franchise that began in 2016 with the original “Trolls,” which opened with $46.6 million earlier in November that year. It grossed $153.7 million domestic and $343.2 million globally. Its 2020 sequel “Trolls: World Tour” ended up being an early movie to be dumped to the Peacock streamer in the midst of the pandemic, although it did make $48.9 million overseas. “Trolls Band Together” has already made over $60.7 million overseas, opening earlier in international markets.
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The voice cast once again features Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick as trolls, the story for the new movie involving their characters reuniting with relatives and people from their fast, in the case of Timberlake’s Branch, a former boy troll group, voiced by Daveed Diggs, Kid Cuddy and his NSYNC band mate, Joey Fatone. The popularity of these movies tend to come down to the songs, and this one even has a brand new NSYNC song that should get their older fans excited, but the song-filled “Trolls” movies are like cat nip for younger kids
Universal is releasing “Trolls Band Together” into over 3,800 theaters with mixed reviews so far, at only 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, but this should still do very well this weekend with somewhere in the mid-$30 millions. We’ll then have to see how it holds up over Thanksgiving week against a new song-filled Disney animated movie.
Then there’s a rare November horror movie in Eli Roth‘s well-timed “Thanksgiving,” co-starring recently-named “Sexiest Man Alive” Patrick Dempsey, as well as social media influencer Addison Rae and others. The movie’s origins began with the 2007 Quentin Tarantino–Robert Rodriguez “Grindhouse,” a tribute to the 70s genre movies, in which Roth had a fake trailer for a Thanksgiving-based slasher film.
That proof of concept slasher has now become a full-blown feature as a killer dressed as pilgrim John Carver begins murdering the people of Plymouth, Massachusetts for their involvement in a murderous Black Friday stampede a year earlier. “Thanksgiving” will open in 2,600 theaters, and it could end up acting as counter-programming for older teen and 20-something males who might not be interested in the other movies. That should be enough for it to bring in somewhere between $10 to 12 million over the weekend, and we’ll have to see how it fares with critics and audiences to see if it can actually continue that business over Thanksgiving week.
Next, there’s the new movie from Oscar winner Taika Waititi, the sports comedy “Next Goal Wins,” starring Michael Fassbender as a football (soccer) coach assigned to help the American Samoa team get better, after a crushing defeat in World Cup trials, losing 31 to 0. It’s definitely a departure for Waititi, who sandwiched his Oscar-winning “Jojo Rabbit” in between two “Thor” movies for Marvel Studios, and this is more of a crowd-pleasing comedy than something that might vie for Oscars.
“Next Goal Wins” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and it received fairly mixed to poor reviews with just 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes one wonder if many will check it out. Opening more moderately in 2,000 theaters, it also might be a tougher sell for American audiences, even as soccer continues to become more popular in this country. It can probably just break into the top five with between $5 and 6 million, but it will struggle against stronger fare.
And then there’s “The Marvels” and how drastically it might get hit by all these new movies after such a weak opening weekend. It’s probably still good for third place, probably in the $20 million range.
Another prominent new release is “Saltburn,” the new movie from Oscar-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), which will get a platform release ahead of its wide release next weekend.
Check back on Sunday to see how the above movies do, but bear in mind that next week is Thanksgiving, so many of the new movies above should be able to bring in business even as two new wide releases open.
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