House Party 6/8
Plane 8/10
A Man Called Otto 16/20

Avatar -33%
M3gan- -40%

I think a Man Called Otto will overperform to high teens due to its popular source material, which is on par with Where the Crawdads Sing, and Tom Hanks, as well as similar film The Upside having done well in 2019.

I do think The Upside had wider appeal with Kevin Hart. But that's the best comparison for Otto. Both films already had foreign language films released. I feel like a lot of the die-hard fans of the book would have watched that movie. I don't know if those people will be desperate to watch another adaptation. But there will be plenty that haven't seen that one and Hanks has drawing power with the older demographic the film is going after. It's certainly possible for it to go as high as you're predicting. The other openers won't be a threat at all and it's expanding very wide.

I'm thinking 11-13 Million over the 3-Day.

We'll know better once we get its limited expansion numbers from this weekend. All the showtimes around me are pretty full, not sold out or anything, but don't communicate a big bomb.

I highly doubt a lot of American fans of the book know there is a foreign film version of it, nor would they be interested in watching the foreign version.

Also both Hart and Hanks were moderate draws before the pandemic, both could get films to at least 20m OW, I think with the notable exception of Bridge of Spies in the years leading up to theater closure. Though Bridge of Spies still eked out a nice gross.

Plane from the plot synopsis, trailer and creative team, sounds like it could be decent, though obviously no reviews isn't a good sign.

Great movie titles in history:

Back to the Future
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Plane

But with Hart you were able to pull in a black audience too so the appeal was wider.

I worked at a video store when the foreign language one was out and it rented pretty well. That was how I first heard of the book because I swear everyone renting it told me they loved the book. Generally readers can handle subtitles. I know it was a relatively small film but I'm sure many have seen it since then. If someone searched for the book on Amazon the movie would also pop up. It did get two Oscar nominations too. I know there will be plenty of people who haven't seen it that will go see Otto but it is one small drawback.

Feels like audiences have been rejecting these type of movies. I guess Hanks being a grumpy old man could draw in some people though.

If this wasn't based on a popular book I'd think Otto would be a flop. Even then idk if it'll open over $15m.

Is Tom just following Clint's path (Gran Torino)?

Grumpy old man becoming friends with neighbors despite their gruff exterior?

Gran Torino opening to $37M is another one of those 'that would never happen today' box office runs. Clint would get like $70M+ to put it on netflix or apple as one of their oscar contenders.

Less older people have been going to the movies now so that doesn't help. Summer was different. There's more illnesses going around this time of year. Hell in the summer I feel this could have legged out to 70+. But I'm not really feeling it doing much now.

Gran Torino 180 adjusted is a wtf. True Grit 200 adjusted is another that feels like a different time. The Mule even made 100 in 2018.

The problem here, for me, is not buying Hanks as a grumpy old man. And it doesn't have to do with his acting, he's a good actor, it's just Hanks himself.

Yeah. He's very believable in the 'turns nice' half of the movie.

The problem is we generally can't see Tom Hanks as a bad guy in a movie. He's built a career around that with audiences. That's sort of why his character was hard to take as seriously in Elvis.

No matter how hard he tries, it's still Forrest Gump dealing with new neighbors.

Hanks just played a POS in Elvis so he could have pulled it off, I think they just wanted to be blatant about the moms people are going to this with liking him the whole time, they even wrote "fall in love with the grumpiest man in the world" on the poster. With that said I think if it starred Bill Murray it would have looked better to me.

He’s played a prick more than a few times, he just doesn’t have the 100+ potential he used to. Elvis has to be one of his worse performances of all time, so that doesn’t help. Otto always kind of felt like a St Vincent type film. Road to perdition today, might not make 40

January is actually looking to be quite solid considering the releases and marketplace.

Avatar, M3GAN and Puss will make coin this long weekend and Otto looks to expand very well.

Plane may not be a total disaster either - perhaps double-digit millions.

This weekend M3Gan was the focus but next weekend all eyes are on Otto.

After watching it, it's definitely giving the vibes of a WOM blockbuster in the making. It's PTA hold from 4 to 637 theaters losing only a little more than 1/2 was incredibly impressive.

Think Otto could get $15M+ next weekend and really going to be around for a while.

Plane has preview screening on Wednesday around me, which makes me think it might be an ok film.

I'm not sure anymore. Sometimes I see them do two days of previews since they can give the Friday # higher. It doesn't look horrible though!

I'm hearing James Cameron being referred to as "daddy Cameron"

haha gave me a chuckle.

Babylon and I Wanna Dance With Somebody should lose the most theatres this week. Violent Night also isn't going to have much left after Thursday.

AVATAR2 30/34
M3GAN 18/22
Plane 10/12
A Man Called Otto 9/11
House Party 6/8

Plane has solid reviews. I feel its doing double digits now and I could see it match Den of Thieves.

House Party looks to be the big loser this weekend, it's had like no marketing and a generic looking premise with no names in the cast. I thought it could do 6m off the fans of the original (do they exist though?) and maybe some black audiences being interested, but now I'm seeing a monumental flop.