Let's take a brief look at the three weeks left in the month, shall we? This coming weekend has only two new wide releases, but they should perform decently. Dolphin Tale 2 has a good chance at finally topping Guardians of The Galaxy, thanks to a dearth of family films in the marketplace. Competing film No Good Deed looks generic, but it has two well known actors in its lead roles that could generate interest. The Drop is also opening this weekend in about 500 theaters, a slightly larger than expected opening that suggests the film could have some major financial ambitions.
The third weekend of September brings out four new releases, including The Maze Runner, the latest Young-Adult book adaptation that hopes to start a major franchise. It doesn't have the brand recognition and/or compelling characters that boosted film adaptations of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Divergent to successful heights, but it's action packed ads do leave an impression. Meanwhile, Liam Neeson has another action/thriller coming out this weekend, A Walk Among The Tombstones. Neeson is actually pretty reliable in his leading man roles, with all but one movie starring him opening to $20 million (the lone exception, The Grey, missed that mark by just under 400 thousand dollars), so if the marketing is successful, this one should continue Neesons trend of success at the box office.
Jason Bateman and Tina Fey lead a large cast in the third release of the weekend, which looks extremely generic in ads and won't likely drum up interest despite some big names in the case. I suspect Tusk will have the smallest theater count of the new releases, but this Kevin Smith film should still find some success due to it's extremely unique premise, and if early word-of-mouth is any indication, fantastic reviews.
The final weekend of September only brings two new releases, but each could break out in a big way. Denzel Washingtons latest action flick is the most likely of the two to become huge, and that isn't too surprising. Like Neeson, Washington is pretty reliable in his action roles, with this one smartly mimicking past hits like Safe House in its ads by highlighting plenty of R-rated mayhem, as well as some humorous moments. Toss in some excellent early reviews and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this become only the ninth movie in history to open to $30 million in September.
We haven't had an animated feature since July's Planes: Fire and Rescue, so The Boxtrolls would normally be in great condition in its late September release, a date where past family films like Hotel Transylvania have found great success. However, despite being sold as a comedy, the humorous bits aren't as memorable as past hit family movies marketing campaigns (there's no Olaf or Minions here). This one should get a bit above the opening weekend of LAIKA animations previous feature, Paranorman, but it's hard to see this one exceeding $20 million
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