In a bizarre twist, September is like five times more interesting than August box office-wise this year, and this is definitely one of the more interesting September releases to watch out for. Original scheduled for October with nary any marketing, Paramount suddenly moved it up to September, and is only now releasing a trailer, just over a month away from opening.

The whole project seems like a unique sell, with one of the biggest stars working today starring in what looks like a pretty nasty horror flick with some recognizable veteran actors (including Michelle Pfeiffer's first role in four years!), from a director that's had two $100+ million grossers in a row but is also known for directing some hard sits (his only Cinemascored films, The Fountain and Noah, got C/C- scores). It opens the weekend after, uh, It, which seems like pretty direct competition.

But it is getting a big festival push (playing Toronto and Venice), which means reviews could be strong, and possibly an awards push for Lawrence. I'm currently guessing a strong opening followed by weak legs (mixed WOM plus strong competition), but with a small budget (only $13 million!) its bar for success is pretty low.

Opening: $22.5 million
Total: $52.2 million (2.32)

Because Darren Aronofsky is such an obscure name.

I think you're way off in your box office and awards expectations. I see mother! as this year's Stoker, albeit a higher profile version due to the director and Lawrence.

This approach is interesting having the advertising push be just a month in advance. I guess we'll see if pushing the film up will work pretty soon.

I think the trailer is really effective though, I guess how well it does will depend on if the film is more obscure than mainstream friendly.

It will do well, though it will be hurt by coming right after It.

23/60

Trailer is up to 1.2 million views in just 15 hours. #3 trending on YouTube too.

The pushed up release date and late trailer may actually help it as it can feed off the immediate buzz. That said opening 1 week after IT isn't a great idea. I'm thinking $15m/$40m at this point.

Well it was just released. Trailers always spike then. And it stars Jennifer fucking Lawrence. These views are in no way an indication of its box office potential.

Looks great but I am not sure of its BO yet. The $40m-$50m range others are predicting seems right for this.

Unless it does end up in the awards conversation it would probably go higher than my total prediction, but who knows. I'm not really expecting it to be.

13/32


Could maybe do higher teens OW too but I think it will drop hard. From what I hear this will not be even close to what audiences are expecting from the trailer.

Read this on atrl.net ( https://atrl.net/forums/topic/38725-mot ... nt-3752741 ) which was posted on Awards Daily. Could be off, but sounds fairly accurate and definitely nuts.

Would have liked for this to open up on Labor Day weekend. See what would have happened...

30/140

Solid opening, slightly muted by It, buoyed by Jennifer Lawrence's star power and what should be a clever, mysterious, eerie ad campaign. Mediocre-to-bad legs because September is a crowded month + presumed general-audience alienation due to Aronofsky oddness.

24/55

I used to post on ATrL in the mid 2000. Britney or Xtina?

I have no idea what to really predict for this, but the interest seems to be there. Online buzz is one thing, but they also have to convince general audiences to show up which won't be easy since it will be coming out in the wake of It.

I'll be conservative for now and say 16/40