Strength in numbers? Movie theater operators are hoping the adage proves true as four new movies aim to bolster the October box office.
Paramount’s video game adaptation “Street Fighter” will lead over fellow newcomers, with opening weekend estimates of $25 million to $35 million from 3,500 North American theaters. Disney’s survival thriller “Whalefall” should secure second place with $10 million to $12 million from 3,065 venues. Meanwhile A24’s much-hyped Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything” is aiming for a strong $7 million to $8 million from just 800 locations, and the Focus Features remake of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” is targeting $5 million to $8 million from 2,436 screens.
Although “Street Fighter” is projected to claim the No. 1 spot, the PG-13 action-adventure carries the biggest budget among the quartet and will need to stick around in theaters to justify its price tag. Legendary and video game developer Capcom co-financed the film for $82 million, with Paramount only on the hook for distribution. The long-gestating “Street Fighter” was originally set at Sony as part of Legendary’s pact with the studio and moved to Paramount once the initial deal expired. Overseas, “Street Fighter” is projected to earn roughly $35 million from 65 markets.
“Street Fighter” is the third movie based on the Capcom video game series. The first live-action film, released in 1994 and starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, was a commercial hit with $100 million, not adjusted for inflation. The second, 2009’s “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li,” was a major misfire for 20th Century, earning just $12.8 million against a $50 million budget. This reboot, directed by Kitao Sakurai and starring Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji, takes place in 1993 as two estranged fighters are recruited to enter a tournament that forces them to face off against each other.
“Whalefall” cost $60 million and also requires substantial staying power, since theater owners keep about half of ticket sales. Directed by Brian Duffield, “Whalefall” follows a scuba diver (Austin Abrams) who is swallowed by a sperm whale and has only one hour of oxygen left in his tank as he figures out how to escape. Reviews have been mostly positive, with one critic calling the film “amusing genre pulp.”
“You Can See Everything” cost around $7 million to produce, and exhibitors believe the movie could become the rare breakout documentary. Earlier this year, Amazon MGM’s “Melania,” a $40-million-budgeted glimpse at first lady Melania Trump, landed the biggest opening for a non-music or concert doc in over a decade with $7.1 million from 1,778 theaters. Most non-fiction films, however, would be lucky these days to earn that much by the end of their box office runs.
Hype for “You Can See Everything” has been high since A24 unveiled the top-secret project at Telluride Film Festival in early September. Comedian Nathan Fielder and “Primetime” filmmaker Lance Oppenheim quietly worked for more than three years on the movie, which offers an unhinged look at the Theranos founder’s life a month before she began an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors. The doc will benefit from stellar reviews and positive word-of-mouth; it holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, with Variety’s Owen Gleiberman describing the unconventional story as a “one-of-a-kind [ …] circus.”
“Sense and Sensibility,” which carries a $25 million budget, hopes to serve as counterprogramming against the male-skewing “Street Fighter” and “Whalefall.” Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles star in the latest adaptation of the Jane Austen classic as sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, who navigate love, loss and financial uncertainty as they are forced to leave their family estate in Sussex.
“Sense and Sensibility” has been reworked for the screen a number of times, most notably with director Ang Lee’s 1995 film starring Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood and Kate Winslet as Marianne. That film was a critical and commercial smash, earning seven Oscar nominations and generating $135 million at the box office, not adjusted for inflation. Focus Features over the years has backed two prior remakes of Austen’s work, including the 2005 version of “Pride and Prejudice” with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen as well as 2020’s “Emma,” which starred Anya-Taylor Joy. The well-reviewed “Emma” was released digitally while theaters were closed due to the pandemic.
So far, the October box office has been uneven. Tom Cruise’s dark comedy “Digger” and Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook drama “The Social Reckoning” flopped, while Colleen Hoover adaptation “Verity” and “Other Mommy” with Jessica Chastain are shaping up to be modest wins. Luckily, it won’t take much to improve upon last October, which hit a three-decade low amid a pileup of disasters including Dwayne Johnson’s MMA drama “The Smashing Machine” and Disney’s sci-fi sequel “Tron: Ares.”