Weekend Releases-5/15/26

Welcome to The Oscar Project’s weekly movie preview. Subscribe to have these previews emailed directly to your inbox!

It’s a little bit of a slower weekend at the box office as we are coming off of three strong weeks with Michael, The Devil Wears Prada 2, and Mortal Kombat II and will be getting the new Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, next weekend. None of these new releases may be able to challenge for the top spot among those strong performers from earlier this month and last month, but they just need to offer some new fare before everyone’s favorite little green alien arrives next weekend.

Driver’s Ed

I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve seen one of these teen comedies in the vein of the old American Pie films, but it might just be time that they start coming back.¹ Molly Shannon and Kumail Nanjiani are the big names in this film, but as you can see from the poster, they don’t appear to be a major part of the film. What are your memories of Driver’s Education?

In the Grey

There has been a pretty good string of Guy Ritchie films in the last several years. Going back to The Gentlemen in 2019 and continuing on through Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, these films are providing a great option for action films with a dash of Ritchie’s signature comedy mixed in. This one promises more of the same and returns Henry Cavill and Eiza González from Ungentlemanly Warfare and Jake Gyllenhaal from The Covenant.

Is God Is

At first I thought this was going to be a horror film based on the poster, but it’s listed as a thriller and the concept has me interested. The story is that two sisters are instructed by their mother to kill their abusive father who gave them their scars. The cast is stacked with Vivica A. Fox playing the mother, Sterling K. Brown as the father, and Janelle Monáe as the fathers new wife. Kara Young and Mallori Johnson are the sister and the film is based on a play of the same name written by director Aleshea Harris.

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe

One of the first places I go when putting these previews together is to Wikipedia to get basic information about these films and I’m always astounded by how much is involved in these anime titles from Japan. This one is no exception and when I went to the Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway page on Wikipedia, I was greeted with a 9861 word article with over 300 citations referenced about the series.² These shows and movies are still not my jam, but I’m so glad they have found an audience in this country and theaters are committed to showing them on a regular basis.

Obsession

This film has had some of the most interesting marketing I’ve seen lately and as such, it might end up being a sleeper kit akin to last year’s Weapons. This is only director Curry Barker’s second feature film, but with Jason Blum backing the film after it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, it sounds has a good chance to do well, especially in a slightly slow weekend of the calendar before a certain little green alien takes over next weekend.

Shrek 25th Anniversary Re-release

I don’t always include things like this re-release in these posts, but felt like I had to with this one. It’s hard to believe that the original Shrek film is 25 years old this year, but it did release on May 18th, 2001. That means that Shrek came to us in a world that didn’t know what 9/11 was, hadn’t seen an African American President of the United States, still only had two Toy Story films, and had no idea what a streaming service was. If you’ve never seen the film on the big screen, now is your chance to check it out and perhaps introduce your youngsters to one of the classics of the early days of 3D animated films.

Limited Releases

I’m trying something new this week.³ These films are listed as limited releases which officially means more than 600 theaters, but can mean as little as it is playing in one single theater in North America. Please let me know if this information is helpful and I’ll continue to include it in these posts.

• Being Towards Death

• Decorado

• Diamonds

• Forge

• LifeHACK

• Magic Hour

• Vanishing Point

• The Wizard of the Kremlin

• Frida Kahlo (May 19 re-release)

• The Blood Moon Feast 8 (May 21)

• Stolen Kingdom (May 21)

1. American Pie is 27 years old this year if you want to feel super old like me.

2. Yes, I had to copy and paste it into Word to get that figure.

3. Technically not new as I used to do this on my previous website before coming to Substack, but new for this platform.