New Movies January 1: Hateful Eight Goes It Alone

The past couple of weeks have been eventful ones at the box office. Two weeks ago, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens took the world by storm, and last week, an unusually large number of new releases jumped into the fray. For this New Year's holiday weekend, though, the trend doesn't continue. Only one new wide release enters theaters, and even that one has already been in limited release for a week.

The new wide release is The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino's latest Western bloodfest. This one offers all of the stuff that fans of Tarantino movies expect -- cartoonishly extreme violence, weird characters endlessly spouting clever-ish dialogue and a glowering Samuel L. Jackson -- so there's no reason to think that it won't be as successful as Django Unchained or Inglourious Basterds. It also helps that it won't face any fresh competition.

The real question is whether or not this is the weekend that Star Wars begins to fade. The film has already sold more than $600 million worth of tickets, and at some point, everyone who wants to see it will have already seen it. Theaters are full of other options that moviegoers could find attractive -- Daddy's Home, Sisters, Joy, Concussion, etc. -- once their attention is no longer being drawn to Han Solo and Kylo Ren. Don't expect Star Wars to give up its top spot this weekend, though, and definitely don't expect The Hateful Eight to be the movie that dethrones it.