This weekend’s new releases are hoping to replicate the success that ”M3GAN“ and ”A Man Called Otto“ had last month
While not at pre-pandemic levels, the January box office saw significant improvements over last year thanks in part to a diverse release slate that appealed to various moviegoing tastes. The hope is that it will continue in February with Universal’s “Knock at the Cabin” and Paramount’s “80 for Brady.”
Momentum is key for the box office. If a film does well, it can set the stage for another film that appeals to similar core demographics to bring those audiences back. In January, “M3GAN” became the latest low-budget horror film to win over fright fans without a pre-existing franchise attached. It pulled in a running domestic total of $82 million, while the dramedy “A Man Called Otto” has garnered a respectable turnout from moviegoers over 50 with a running $45 million total.
Now, it’s up to these new films to post similar numbers and carve out a niche as counter-programming to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” later this month. Currently, “Knock at the Cabin” is projected to end the No. 1 reign of “Avatar: The Way of Water” with an opening weekend of around $20 million, slightly higher than the $16.8 million opening made by director M. Night Shyamalan’s last film, “Old,” in July 2021. “80 for Brady” is tracking for a $10 million-$12 million opening, just under the $12.8 million wide opening of “A Man Called Otto.”
While these new films will be courting the audiences of “M3GAN” and “Otto,” it’s important to keep in mind that they don’t make for exact comparisons. “Knock at the Cabin,” the latest Shyamalan film, is an adaptation of Paul G. Tremblay’s horror novel “The Cabin at the End of the World” and has a much bleaker tone than the self-aware, darkly humorous “M3GAN.”
“Cabin” will likely look to build audience word-of-mouth around the lead performance of Dave Bautista, who plays the leader of a cult that demands that a member of a family vacationing in a forest cabin willingly sacrifice themselves to avert the apocalypse.
“80 for Brady,” which is hitting theaters the weekend before the Super Bowl, will try to draw fans of both NFL legend Tom Brady as well as older, mostly female moviegoers interested in seeing Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno and Sally Field play a group of elderly hardcore New England Patriots fans going on a road trip to see Brady play in the Super Bowl. It is a much broader comedy than “A Man Called Otto” and will seek to replicate the run of “Book Club,” another older-skewing comedy starring Fonda that opened to $13.5 million in May 2018 and grossed $68.5 million in North America.
If it can do that, “80 for Brady” will add to the already overwhelming evidence that older moviegoers, who were slow to come back to theaters in 2021, have returned in force over the past year and will continue to do so for the right movie. According to data from AARP and Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, attendance of moviegoers over the age of 45 in 2022 was 5% above 2019’s levels.
This was driven particularly by Best Picture Oscar nominees “Top Gun: Maverick,” which got 40% of its audience from the over-45 demo, and “Elvis,” where that same demo was the strongest performing age group. Universal’s “Ticket to Paradise” also performed well with a $68.2 million domestic total and a 48% over-45 demo share last fall.
“Film and television content that demonstrated great storytelling on topics that resonate with older audiences — found in movies like ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and ‘Elvis’ — are bringing this generation back to movie theaters,” said Heather Nawrocki, VP of AARP’s Movies for Grownups program. “Older audiences also know the theatrical experience cannot be replicated, which means they will continue to see movies in theaters and support filmmakers and studios that connect directly with their interests.”
The January box office, while still below pre-pandemic years, improved 40% over 2022 to finish the month with an estimated $583 million. With “Quantumania” providing the box office with a strong early-year blockbuster, that momentum should continue in February.
But how far this pre-spring box office improvement is able to continue in the month ahead will depend on films like “Knock at the Cabin” and “80 for Brady” providing additional support. If those films can match or exceed the totals of “M3GAN” and “Otto,” the February box office has a chance of matching the $624 million overall domestic total earned in 2019.
Ironically, that total was seen at the time as a very sluggish start to what ended up being a very strong year at the box office. Now, a $600 million-plus February will be a major sign of improvement.
Jeremy Fuster
Box Office Reporter • jeremy.fuster@thewrap.com • Twitter: @jeremyfuster