Knock on Wood

Welcome to Week 2 of the Knock on Wood Movie Fantasy League dispatch. Every week (more or less), we’ll bring you a recap of the past weekend’s box office, alongside an overview of the new release films and an updated leaderboard, complete with full teams and points!

This weekend, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary (which, being a March release, was not eligible for the League) continued to reign supreme. Mario brought the lucky (and strategic) folks who chose it a windfall of points, not just for its multiple weeks at the Number One spot, but also its impressive box office haul – now up to $307 million domestic. The Drama, which last week netted a small cluster of points after a modest opening, has held strong at its Number Three spot with an additional $8.7 million, for a domestic total of $30.9 million. A Great Awakening, last week’s third and final new release, gained another $1.3 million.

Notably, this is the first week in which we are taking into account the critical scores, including from aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Letterboxd, and IMDb. The Drama was the big winner in that department this week, gaining 65 critical points across all sites, while A Great Awakening got 45 and Mario got only 10. You win some, you lose some! As a reminder, critical scores will only be taken once, after two box office weekends.

In terms of new releases, nothing big wants to touch the Mario juggernaut; studios are holding any major releases for a few more weeks. However, we did get some smaller releases, some of which have unbalanced the leaderboard and created a more interesting points distribution!

The first is You, Me & Tuscany, a rom-com starring Halle Bailey (The Little Mermaid) and Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton), in which Bailey plays a cook who squats in an abandoned Tuscan villa, and charts the romance that ensues with the owner’s cousin (Page). It debuted to a respectable $7.8 million, and garnered 12 points.

Also in the top ten is Daniel Goldhaber’s pseudo-remake of Faces of Death, which features Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) as a ruthless serial killer staging real murders based on the 1978 original film of the same name, and Barbie Ferreira (Euphoria) as a social media content moderator who tries to take him down. It does everything a great horror movie should: make you cringe, laugh, and hide behind your hands, sometimes all within the same scene…plus a two-scene appearance from Charli XCX for some reason. It is yet another sign that 2026 has been, and will continue to be, an indelible year for horror. The film garnered a little over $1 million domestic, but also gained 5 points for its spot in the top ten.

Other, even smaller releases this week include Mermaid, Beast, The Yeti, Newborn, Bunnylovr, and Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers. All made under $1 million, so unfortunately, none gained any box office points this week, but some will almost certainly get on the board with critical reception next week. Of the ones I’ve seen, The Christophers was by far my favorite; an understated but quite energetic talky drama about what makes art unique and personal, starring Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings) and Michaela Coel (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). It’s only in a few theaters nationwide, but if you can catch it, it’s very much worth a trip to the theater. (It’s also a personal pick for me – I picked it for last fall’s Vulture Fantasy League, but it was delayed to 2026, and I was able to pick it again!)

Also debuting this week (though sadly not eligible) is Exit 8, a marvelous Japanese adaptation of an indie video game which follows a man as he attempts to escape from a hellish maze disguising itself as a never-ending metro station. It’s an incredibly inventive, vibes-based narrative that is as visually impressive as it is (surprisingly) emotionally resonant.

We are still working on displaying the Leaderboard on this page, but you can still find it here. The two-way tie at the top remains, but there is far more point diversity across the board. And this is only the beginning.

Another note before we wrap for the week: Animal Friends and Air Bud Returns, two family films previously set for a late summer release, have both been pushed to January 22, 2027. As laid out in the initial rules, both films are now ineligible, and cannot be replaced on any teams in which they appear. My apologies to those who picked them, but that’s part of the fun! The film industry is a fickle beast.

Remember, for the most up-to-date scoring on each movie, check out this spreadsheet. Additionally, I’ve made a Letterboxd list of every film chosen by our players for the Fantasy League. You can view that anytime here.

Next week, the blockbusters begin to crawl out of the woodworks once again as Irish director Lee Cronin’s brand-new The Mummy hits theaters (I’ve seen it – more on that next week), alongside David Lowery’s psychosexual music thriller Mother Mary and Bob Odenkirk action vehicle Normal.

Finally, submissions for the MFL will close at the end of the month, so anyone who hasn’t yet signed up, be sure to submit by then! You won’t be able to choose anything that has already been released, but that still leaves a healthy amount of options over the next five months.

Please let us know if you have any feedback, and don’t forget to come back here next week for a recap and the updated leaderboard!