April has done a pretty decent job bringing the theatrical box office back to somewhere akin to where it was before the pandemic, although it was greatly helped by “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” and a few surprise hits like “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” We’ve gotten past the midway point of the month, as well as various religious holidays and school spring breaks across the country, which brings us to one of the odder and more varied April weekends in recent memory.

First off, we have the latest animated comedy from DreamWorks Animation, “The Bad Guys,” based on the illustrated children’s book series by Aaron Blabey. It plays on the idea of “bad animals,” wanton criminals led by Wolf, voiced by Oscar winner Sam Rockwell, who are constantly trying to pull off heist jobs until they decide one day to go good. Other animals are voiced by the likes of Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson and Anthony Ramos, with more voices provided by Alex Borstein, Zazie Beetz and Richard Ayoade.

SEE Grab the popcorn and sound off in our movie forums

DreamWorks Animation has a pretty decent track record at the box office, but maybe not so much with non-sequels, since it’s been five years since 2017’s “The Boss Baby,” DWA’s last non-sequel to open with more than $50 million. Starting with the 2019 three-quel “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” the animation house has been distributed by Universal, and that movie opened with $55 million, but again, that was a pre-COVID sequel. “The Bad Guys” won’t benefit as well as “Sonic 2” and “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” as there is now competition for family audiences in theaters, but it only really needs $20 to $25 million to pull ahead of those movies to be this week’s #1 movie either.

Nicholas Cage has slowly been rebuilding his fan base by countering mostly straight-to-VOD genre fare with stronger and quirkier films like the ones he used to make when he’s star in a movie like “Adaptation.” Cage’s notable turn in films like “Pig” and “Mandy” have helped him find a younger audience to give “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Cage’s first straight comedy in years, the perfect amount of meta laughs to appeal to this new fan base. Throw in the likes of Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Neil Patrick Harris and Ike Barinholtz, and filmmaker Tom Gormican‘s “Massive Talent” seems like it can offer the kind of laughs moviegoers are ready to embrace once again. It’s just hard to see Cage bringing in the same level of business Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum have with their high-concept adventure-comedy “The Lost City.” What “Massive Talent” really has going for it are stellar reviews ever since it debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

SEE Box office: All time domestic top-grossing movies

On a very different path from “Massive Talent” is “The Northman,” the latest genre epic from “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” director Robert Eggers. This one is all about vikings, and it’s a revenge flick starring Alexander Skarsgård, Danish actor Claes Bang, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and in a rare film role, Icelandic pop star Bjork. Eggers obviously has the talent and cred to bring together such a distinguished cast, and he’s provided Focus Features with a suitably visual smorgasbord that’s led to some solid trailers. The only thing really going against the movie is that it’s far less mainstream and maybe more art-house than the easier-to-sell and more mainstream “Massive Talent.” Focus is giving Eggers’ latest a hearty release into over 3,000 theaters this weekend. “The Northman” seems very much like the type of movie that could benefit from premiering at one of the fall film festivals, so giving it an April release without that seems a little odd.

Competing for a similar audience with their respective R-ratings, it may be tough for those last two movies to surpass “Fantastic Beasts” and “Sonic 2” in their second and third weekends, respectively. Therefore, they’ll probably be vying for fourth and fifth places, though which of them will take which? That is likely to make a big difference for those who play Gold Derby’s box office prediction game weekly. Personally, I’ve been going back and forth on which might come ahead, since I like both of them for different reasons. We could have a legitimate battle for that fourth place this weekend. I’ll give a slight advantage to “Massive Talent” for reasons mentioned above.

If you read Gold Derby’s April preview a few weeks back, you might remember that I predicted “The Bad Guys” would open with $30 to $35 million, while the other two movies would make in the $10 million range. I’ve lowered my prediction for the former, and with both of the other two movies getting a much wider release than expected, either or both could do better than I previously predicted.