This is a box office report unlike any that I’ve written in my 2+ years regularly doing this for The Playlist. Normally, the discussion would center on the new movies that were released, how they did in terms of money earned, and their outlook moving forward. Pretty typical stuff. But folks, due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, what’s going on in theaters around the world is anything but typical. So, this is likely going to be a bit shorter than previous weeks as there’s really only one story worth talking about.
With that in mind, the only real number to think about this weekend is $55.3 million. That’s the total box office of the films in North American theaters this weekend. You’d have to go back 22 years, to 1998, to find a weekend that scored such a low total. (If you’re curious, the weekend in question is the debut frame of John Carpenter’s “Vampires.” Yep, we’re going back pretty damn far.)
Even with the terrible total, this weekend actually saw three major debuts, “Bloodshot,” “I Still Believe,” and “The Hunt.” Keep that in mind as we move into the weeks to come, as there’s not another scheduled major release until April 10, when A24’s “Saint Maud” and “Trolls: World Tour” are released. That’s damn near a month of no new releases in theaters, combined with what people are expecting to be even more cases of coronavirus, and we could be looking at some grim weeks ahead for Hollywood. Obviously, we are about to approach uncharted territory.
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But as mentioned, there were three new releases and yes, they were all affected by the lack of attendance at cinemas. “I Still Believe” led all the new releases with a $9.5 million frame, followed closely by Vin Diesel’s superhero film, “Bloodshot,” which earned $9.3 million. Blumhouse’s controversial action-thriller, “The Hunt,” waited all this time to finally hit theaters, only to make $5.3 million in its debut. Normally, I’d talk about how each film has a “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes and how the CinemaScores for each film might predict audience enjoyment, but there’s really no point. You see, after this weekend, with more and more theaters closing and others reducing capacity to 50%, there’s no way of knowing how next weekend will shake out. It’s just going to be bad.
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If you want to see how terrible the weekend was overall, you just need to look at the fall week-to-week that hit Pixar’s “Onward.” Last weekend, I discussed how, in the Pixar scheme of things, “Onward” was a disappointing debut and not as beloved as the vast majority of animated films released by the studio. That being said, no one predicted that “Onward” would drop -73% in its second weekend and only earn $10.5 million. That’s just astonishing. But that’s the trend for the rest of the releases, with each returning film in the top 10 dropping between -60% and -73%. It’s just showing that people decided to take heed of the CDC recommendations of self-isolation and social distancing.
Taking the studios out of this for a minute, it’s important to talk about a part of the box office that isn’t normally discussed—the theater workers. As we’ve seen in various industries (particularly service industries) over the last week, coronavirus is impacting numbers everywhere. No one is going to the bars, restaurants are closing or not filling to capacity, and generally, many folks have decided to just stay home. This puts the theaters in a tough position, as we will probably see more and more close their doors for the next three or four weeks (at least). What does that mean? All those people that work at the theaters (many making barely enough to pay their bills, as it is) will be out of work for possibly a month. That’s more than 8% of their annual income. Can only reading this survive if they’re salaries were cut by 8% or perhaps more? Hopefully, theaters will do their best to give their employees compensation and health coverage for this time. And hopefully, the US government (as well as the rest of the world) will make sure people don’t get financially destroyed by this pandemic that no one has control over.
If you think this is a bit of an exaggeration, take a look at this tweet that has been making the rounds this weekend:
If you’re interested in the full top 10 for the domestic releases this weekend, you can find that below. Also, as far as next weekend goes, I’ll post some sort of box office update, but I’d be foolish even attempt to guess what that’s going to look like. Stay safe, everyone.
- Onward – $10.5M ($60M Overall)
- I Still Believe – $9.5M (Debut)
- Bloodshot – $9.3M (Debut)
- The Invisible Man – $6M ($64M)
- The Hunt – $5.3M (Debut)
- Sonic the Hedgehog – $2.6M ($146M)
- The Way Back – $2.4M ($13.4M)
- The Call of the Wild – $2.2M ($62M)
- Emma – $1.4M ($10M)
- Bad Boys for Life – $1.1M ($204M)
