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, which is open to all readers. (This is a special double edition, as I was on vacation last week.)
Tenet may have underperformed at the American box office, but over here in the Fall Movies Fantasy League, it’s the closest thing we have to a juggernaut. With most other would-be blockbusters fleeing to 2021 — most recently, Dune — Christopher Nolan’s timey-wimey head-scratcher is one of only a few films to open wide in the U.S. since Labor Day — and the only one in the competition that has managed to gross over $100 million worldwide. And, until this past weekend, it had a stranglehold on the No. 1 spot in the weekend charts that would have made Lil Nas X proud.
Don’t look now, but it appears we may have our first serious challengers to Tenet’s hegemony. No, not the gigantic four-quadrant tentpoles everyone assumed would follow in Nolan’s wake — it’s vehicles for grizzled male stars! Superheroes and James Bond may have been wiped from the schedule, but the world’s dads are still doing their part to save theatrical moviegoing. To wit: This weekend, the critically savaged Robert de Niro family comedy The War With Grandpa — a Weinstein company holdover shot all the way back in 2017 — became the first film to knock Tenet off its perch, grossing $3.6 million domestically and becoming the second-highest-scoring entry in the FMFL so far. (It did this despite its TomatoMeter score of 28, which earned it a place alongside Ava in the Antebellum Memorial Wing of the FMFL Hall of Shame.) And more cavalry has appeared on the horizon. Next week brings the Liam Neeson thriller Honest Thief, which will open on a whopping 2,400 screens. And though the Gerard Butler–versus–asteroid movie Greenland will open on VOD in these United States, it’s already pulled in $45 million internationally, putting it nearly halfway to joining Tenet in the $100 million club. (Also on the watchlist: Mulan, which we’ve covered, and, weirdly, the romance sequel After We Collided, which opens in the U.S. later this month.)
Of course, this is almost entirely moot for the purposes of this update, since — besides Mulan — none of these movies have been drafted by Vulture staff!
Instead, my colleagues turned their attention to streaming films that looked likely to garner a lot of critical love. A painfully pragmatic approach, sure. But this time around it basically worked out for everyone. The Broadway adaptation The Boys in the Band, the Sundance fave The 40-Year-Old Version, and the father-daughter doc The Death of Dick Johnson all hit the coveted 80 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes. So did the limited releases, including the prison documentary Time and a pair of films from second-generation filmmakers: Brandon Cronenberg’s sci-fi film Possessor, and Sofia Coppola’s comedy On the Rocks — the latter to the dismay of that Soho florist. (On the Rocks also becomes our first movie not to receive the bonus point for opening on its scheduled release date, as it was undated at the time of the draft.) Even the Maggie Q–Luke Hemsworth VOD drama Death of Me, which was priced so low that it showed up in six of the ten teams, escaped being hit with a penalty for its terrible reviews — because it didn’t receive enough of them to get an official score.
Let’s end with by giving a hand to Vulture’s own Rachel Handler, whose front-loaded team meant she became the first contestant to have all eight of their films open. Thanks to Tenet, and the fact that zero of her movies blanked, she’s currently got a commanding lead over the rest of the field. She’ll be hoping that Mulan’s got legs, and for some love from the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review for films like Dick Johnson and Kajillionaire. But so far, her total of 58 points is the high-water mark for the FMFL. Can anyone else catch up?
Weeks 5 and 6 Results
Jackson McHenry
Death of Me: October VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 4 points
Rachel Handler
Dick Johnson Is Dead: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Death of Me: October VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 11 points
Tolly Wright
The Boys in the Band: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Death of Me: October VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 11 points
Katy Brooks
Dick Johnson Is Dead: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
On the Rocks: October limited release (5) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Total: 14 points
Hunter Harris
Time: October limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 8 points
The Glorias: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points
The 40-Year-Old Version: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
The Boys in the Band: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Total: 27 points
Alison Wilmore
Dune: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
Total: 0 points
Chris Murphy
The Boys in the Band: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Death of Me: October VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 11 points
Justin Curto:
The 40-Year-Old Version: October streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Death of Me: October VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 11 points
Neil Janowitz
On the Rocks: October limited release (5) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Total: 7 points
Jen Chaney
Death of Me: October VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 4 points
Current Standings
Rachel Handler: 58 points (8 movies)
Katy Brooks: 48 points (7 movies)
Tolly Wright, Neil Janowitz: 32 points (6 movies each)
Hunter Harris: 27 points (5 movies)
Jen Chaney: 25 points (5 movies); Justin Curto: 25 points (6 movies)
Chris Murphy: 21 points (5 movies)
Jackson McHenry: 17 points (4 movies)
Alison Wilmore: 14 points (6 movies)
More From This Series
- Nomadland and Soul Score Big on the AFI and NBR Lists
- Fall Movies Fantasy League: The End of the Regular Season
- Here Comes Wonder Woman 1984 to Shake Up the Winter Box Office