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Darren Aronofsky directs this 90s-set crime drama about the NYC underworld starring Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz. The film looks to be a rare dip into audience-friendly fare for Aronofsky, whose last two theatrical features -- 2022's The Whale and 2017's Mother! -- each topped out at under $20M ($17.4M and $17.8M, respectively). In broad strokes -- a crime-driven ensemble starring Austin Butler -- Caught Stealing bears similarities to 2024's Jeff Nichols-directed The Bikeriders, which opened to $9.6M en route to a $21.7M domestic haul. Based on marketing, Caught Stealing looks to have a more comedic, action-oriented tone than The Bikeriders -- and, indeed, than all previous Aronofsky films -- which drives our forecasting predictions upwards.
Other recent ensemble August/September releases blending action, crime, and comedy components include last year's Blink Twice ($7.3M domestic opening, $23M domestic total) and 2022's Bullet Train ($30M domestic opening, $103.3M domestic total) -- the latter of which, like Caught Stealing, is a Sony release featuring the über-popular singer-turned-actor Bad Bunny among its ensemble cast.
Searchlight will target adult audiences with this retake on The War of the Roses, but we see little opportunity on the schedule for a breakout hit. The Roses is the first 2025 release from Searchlight, which since its 2019 acquisition by Disney has garnered awards season attention with platform releases like Poor Things, The Banshees of Inisherin, and A Real Pain, as well as last year's wide Christmas release A Complete Unknown ($11.6M domestic opening, $75M domestic total).
As a comedy/drama from Searchlight getting a wide release, The Roses finds itself alongside 2022's The Menu ($9M domestic opening, $38.5M domestic total), 2023's Next Goal Wins ($2.5M domestic opening, $6.7M domestic total) and 2022's See How They Run ($3M domestic opening, $9.5M domestic total); our forecasting panel puts The Roses' debut more in line with the latter two films. With the exception of See How They Run, all the aforementioned non-The Roses Searchlight releases have come out in Q4, reflecting the substantial role awards season plays in the company's overall distribution strategy. Prior to The Roses, the only other Disney-era Searchlight August releases have been 2021's The Night House ($2.8M domestic opening, $7.1M domestic total) and 2020's The Personal History of David Copperfield, which debuted during to $475,800 on 1,360 screens during the height of the pandemic.
Peter Dinklage stars in this remake of the '80s Troma cult classic The Toxic Avenger, about a janitor who becomes a mutant vigilante after exposure to toxic waste gives him special powers. Cineverse has proved it can make the most of films in this genre, and this iteration of Toxie will further test the distributor's mettle. Cineverse's most notable horror success to-date has been with Terrifier 3 ($18.9M domestic opening, $53.9M domestic opening), which pulled off a shock upset at the box office last October. The stars aligned perfectly: Anticipation among horror fans was high coming off 2022's Terrifier 2, which earned $10.9M across its eight-week run despite playing on only 1,500 screens at its peak. A strong grassroots marketing campaign, paired with the return of Terrifier and Terrifier 2 to theaters in a limited engagement, further drove audience demand. And, finally, Terrifier 3 came out one week after Joker: Folie à Deux, which massively underperformed in its first week and dropped over 80 percent in its second, leaving Terrifier 3 with an open runway to the number one spot.
Though the Toxic Avenger remake doesn't have all that going for it, Cineverse does have material to work with. The film was well-received on the genre festival circuit in 2023, and subsequent reports that it had trouble finding a distributor due to excessive amounts of gore and a silly tone -- par for the course for Troma-went a long way to to pique interest among the diehard horror fans who made Terrifier 3 a hit. Strong word of mouth after its late August debut could keep The Toxic Avenger mopping up the dough well into September, typically a strong month for horror films.