Babylon - The Christmas Sleeper Hit?
There is no under under the illusion that any movie other than Avatar: The Way of The Water will dominate this Christmas movie-going season. But is there another movie that everyone is sleeping on that could wow audiences?
It’s happened before. Back in 2017, when audiences were all into Star Wars: The Last Jedi, there was a small movie that didn’t even gross $10 million opening weekend and most movie analysts had left this movie for dead. Yet audiences who did see this movie couldn’t get enough of it. They were infected by its catch songs and felt the tremendous amount of heart that the movie had. This movie ended up becoming the number three highest grossing movie musical of all time with nearly a half a billion at the global box office. That movie was none other than Hugh Jackman’s The Greatest Showman.
While that was an amazing accomplishment, people often forget that there was another movie released that same Christmas season that opened to a meager $15 million on opening weekend, and should have done somewhere around $50-60 million. Instead this movie with an top-notch voice cast of John Cena, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Cannavale, Peyton Manning, Anthony Anderson, and more ended up grossing close to $300 million at the box office.
So does 2022 have the same possibility of producing one let alone two sleeper hits that fly under the radar during this holiday movie season.
The first candidate would be I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Don’t underestimate the amount of love and public support that Whitney Houston has. Her music catalogue is one of the very best out there. This musical biopic could mirror the type of success that Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman had on the big screen bringing in hundreds of millions of dollar in box office gross.
The second candidate is a familiar face, Puss in Boots. Dreamworks has decided to bring back Antonio Banderas to helm back our favorite feline character from the Shrek saga in the land of Far Far Away.
The wild card of this season is a movie about Hollywood. This movie could really bomb or it could really attract audiences. This movie has an all-star cast led by Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, Tobey Diego Calva, Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, and more.
The movie takes place in the golden era of 1920’s Hollywood. Glitz. Glamour. Excess. For a world that might be looking to for a little escapism, this might be it. Or audiences may want to see something a little more current that isn’t so over the top. The truth is we will see.
If things go wrong, it will just another star studded movie that under performed. If things go right, this movie could track similar to Damien Chazelle’s last masterpiece, La La Land, with the box office gross and the awards to prove it.