Fall Movies Fantasy League Week 3 Results: Antebellum Is a Dud

Antebellum is the most critically panned movie of the fall. Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Lionsgate

In Vulture’s Fall Movies Fantasy League, contestants stake their pride, and the respect of their peers, on their ability to predict the tumultuous next few months of cinematic releases. You can play the league open to all readers.

If you’ve been reading Vulture.com this week, you’ve probably gathered that we are not huge fans of the new social thriller Antebellum, “a noxious tour of historic violence against Black folks in service of a story that has nothing novel to say,� in the words of our critic Angelica Jade Bastién. She’s not alone — Antebellum bears the distinction of being the most critically panned movie of the fall so far, and its RottenTomatoes score of 27 is low enough for the film to earn the season’s first anti-bonus. (And before you accuse Angelica of purposefully tanking the movie’s Tomatometer score to gain an advantage in this game, rest assured that she is not playing.) The movie did top the VOD charts, but you don’t get points for that in FMFL, so Antebellum debuts with a whopping two points, our lowest total for any movie that’s actually been released. Sorry to this An.

In the weekend’s other releases, we got a look at the new normal for nonevent movies: The Noomi Rapace Romani revenge flick The Secrets We Keep (a popular budget pick in the league) and the Jude Law domestic drama The Nest opened in over 300 theaters each. On the weekend box-office chart they landed at No. 11 and No. 13, respectively, with per-theater averages hovering around the $200 mark. But at least The Nest has great reviews, with our own Alison Wilmore calling it “virtuosic.�

We’ll close out this update by talking about two very different Robert Pattinson movies. The Devil All the Time, which sees the English actor play a West Virginia preacher with a mouth full of molasses, hit Netflix last week, and its mediocre reviews earned it a perfectly mediocre five points. And in Tenet box-office watch, Christopher Nolan’s film inched past the $250 million mark, putting it halfway to earning the max bonus. Will the film’s slow-and-steady approach pay off for the owners who paid so high a price for it?

Here is the update for the staff league:

Week 3 Results

Rachel Handler
The Secrets We Keep: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 6 points

Total: 6 points

Katy Brooks
The Secrets We Keep: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 6 points

Total: 6 points

Alison Wilmore
The Secrets We Keep: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 6 points

Total: 6 points

Justin Curto
Antebellum: September VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score below 30 (-2) = 2 points
The Devil All the Time: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points

Total: 7 points

Neil Janowitz
The Nest: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 8 points

Current Standings

1. Katy Brooks: 34 points (5 movies)
2. Rachel Handler: 32 points (4 movies)
3. Tolly Wright: 17 points (3 movies)
4. Jackson McHenry: 13 points (2 movies)
5. Alison Wilmore: 10 points (2 movies)
6. Neil Janowitz: 8 points (2 movies)
7. Justin Curto: 7 points (3 movies)
t-8. Chris Murphy: 6 points (1 movie); Jen Chaney: 6 points (2 movies)
10. Hunter Harris: 0 points (0 movies)

Vulture’s Fall Movies Fantasy League is open to all readers. Enter and you can look forward to an exciting autumn of endlessly refreshing Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes and quibbling over the precise definition of wide release.