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 is open to all readers.
This week in the Fall Movies Fantasy League, all hell broke loose.
The culprit was Disney, which looked at the fall box-office landscape and uttered a big ol’ “Nope.” So the studio decided to pull a pair of its end-of-the-year heavyweights from the 2020 calendar: Black Widow is now set to come out next May, nearly two years after the release of the last MCU entry, while Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story will skip back exactly 12 months to December 2021, in the thick of next year’s Oscar season, if there is a next year. Both had seemed like savvy pickups for budget-conscious competitors who didn’t want to pay up for Tenet, and it just goes to show that you get what you pay for. (It also goes to show that I should have made Tenet much more expensive.)
But the studio was not done. Disney also pushed Death on the Nile from October back to December of this year, where it joins Wonder Woman 1984 and Dune in the “Sure, Jan” category of major studio releases. And, to ensure that we could all enjoy 11 more months of pap walks, Disney also delayed the Ben Affleck–Ana de Armas erotic thriller Deep Water — a movie that multiple Vulture staffers seem to have drafted for the laughs — to next August. Deep Water, West Side Story, and Black Widow all score zero points. Let us take a moment to remember them.
But it’s not all doom and gloom! A few savvy drafters set their sights on Miranda July’s Kajillionaire and the Millie Bobby Brown vehicle Enola Holmes as budget picks that could offer tasty per-dollar returns, and they were proven right. Each debuted to outstanding reviews — our own Bilge Ebiri called the former July’s “best film yet” and hailed Brown’s performance in the latter as “delightful” — powering their owners up the standings. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Jessica Chastain assassin thriller Ava, whose dreadful reviews in limited release earned it entry into the Antebellum Memorial Wing of the Fall Movies Fantasy League Hall of Shame.
Finally, I want to close by shouting-out my boss, Neil Janowitz, who, for reasons no human tongue can tell, decided to draft both the Disney+ tween movie Secret Society of Second-Born Royals and the Bella Thorne schlockfest The Babysitter: Killer Queen. I am merely noting for posterity that, despite all evidence to the contrary, both of those movies do in fact exist.
Here is the update for the staff league:
Week 4 ResultsJackson McHenry
West Side Story: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
Total: 0 points
Rachel Handler
Kajillionaire: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 8 points
Enola Holmes: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Total: 15 points
Tolly Wright
Black Widow: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
Kajillionaire: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 8 points
Total: 8 points
Hunter Harris
Deep Water: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
Total: 0 points
Alison Willmore
West Side Story: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
Deep Water: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
The Artist’s Wife: September VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 4 points
Chris Murphy
West Side Story: Pushed to 2021 = 0 points
The Artist’s Wife: September VOD release (3) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 4 points
Total: 4 points
Justin Curto
Enola Holmes: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Total: 7 points
Neil Janowitz
Enola Holmes: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Secret Society of Second-Born Royals: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points
The Babysitter: Killer Queen: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) = 5 points
Total: 17 points
Jen Chaney
Kajillionaire: September limited release (5) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 8 points
Enola Holmes: September streaming release (4) + Hitting scheduled release date (1) + RT score above 80 (2) = 7 points
Total: 15 points
Current Standings
1. Rachel Handler: 47 points (6 movies)
2. Katy Brooks: 34 points (5 movies)
t-3. Neil Janowitz, Tolly Wright: 25 points (5 movies each)
5. Jen Chaney: 21 points (4 movies)
t-6. Justin Curto: 14 points (4 movies); Alison Willmore: 14 points (5 movies)
8. Jackson McHenry: 13 points (3 movies)
9. Chris Murphy: 10 points (3 movies)
10. Hunter Harris: 0 points (1 movie)
Staff fantasy-league teams are listed in full here.
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.
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