\n\tSo far, the September box office has been propelled by sleeper hits. After the back-to-back surprise successes of \u201cThe Conjuring: Last Rites\u201d and \u201cDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle,\u201d will this weekend\u2019s newcomers continue the trend?<\/p>\n
\n\tAt least heading into the weekend, \u201cHim<\/a>\u201d and \u201cA Big Bold Beautiful Journey<\/a>\u201d appear to be targeting modest debuts. Universal\u2019s \u201cHim,\u201d an R-rated sports thriller produced by Jordan Peele, is aiming for $15 million to $18 million from 3,100 North American venues in its first weekend of release. Meanwhile, Sony\u2019s romantic drama \u201cA Big Bold Beautiful Journey,\u201d starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, is looking to collect $8 million to $10 million from 3,200 theaters to start.<\/p>\n \n\tDespite the two new nationwide releases, last weekend\u2019s champ \u201cDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle\u201d is expected to reign again at the domestic box office. The Sony-owned Crunchyroll action adventure shattered expectations with $70 million in its opening, marking the biggest domestic debut ever for an anime film. It more than doubled the benchmark previously set by \u201cPok\u00e9mon: The First Movie,\u201d which launched with $31 million in 1999. Even with a huge drop in ticket sales, \u201cDemon Slayer\u201d is expected to bring in significant revenue with projections of $21 million to $25 million in its second weekend in theaters.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHim\u201d cost $27 million, so the film won\u2019t require a ton to turn a theatrical profit. Justin Tipping directed the mind-bender, which stars Marlon Wayans as an aging, nearly retired quarterback who trains a young up-and coming football player (Tyriq Withers). The film has been marketed as a psychological thriller, however, so expect that mentor-mentee relationship to have bone-chilling consequences. Reviews are under embargo.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cA Big Bold Beautiful Journey,\u201d which hopes to serve as counter-programming against the smattering of scary movies on marquees, carries a $45 million price tag. In the R-rated film, Robbie and Farrell play two single strangers who meet at a wedding and get to relive important moments from their respective pasts, illustrating how they got to the present. Kogonada (\u201cPachinko,\u201d \u201cAfter Yang\u201d) directed \u201cA Big Bold Beautiful Journey\u201d from a script by \u201cThe Menu\u201d screenwriter Seth Reiss. Reviews might not help in terms of word-of-mouth; the film currently holds a 52% rotten average on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Variety\u2019s critic Tomris Laffly<\/a> described \u201cA Big Bold Beautiful Journey\u201d as \u201can unfortunate bore\u201d and a\u00a0\u201clove story that feels cold and distant.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt this point in the year, the domestic box office is 4.4% above 2024 but 22.4% behind the pre-pandemic days of 2019, according to Comscore. Upcoming fall releases, such as Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Disney\u2019s sci-fi sequel \u201cTron: Ares,\u201d video game adaptation \u201cMortal Kombat II\u201d as well as Thanksgiving offerings of \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d and \u201cZootopia 2\u201d will attempt to draw audiences en masse and boost ticket sales to something resembling its pre-COVID stature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So far, the September box office has been propelled by sleeper hits. After the back-to-back surprise successes of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[48483,18,117,48484,19,17,327],"class_list":{"0":"post-69965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-a-big-bold-beautiful-journey","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-him","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-movies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}