Weekend Wrap-Up: Dinosaurs Dominate the Box Office

June 23, 2020

Jurassic Park

According to reports by Deadline, Jurassic Park led the way on the weekend box office chart, just ahead of Jaws at $517,600 to $516,300. In fact, much of the top ten were catalog titles. A few more recent releases did generate some business though.

The biggest release of the 21st century was The Invisible Man at $201,300, lifting its running tally to $68.4 million. The top five were rounded out by Trolls World Tour ($160,000 over the weekend for a total of $3.9 million so far) and The Hunt ($136,700 over the weekend and $8.4 million in total). What do all five of these films have in common? They are all released by Universal. In fact, the sixth place film is also a Universal release, Back to the Future, at $131,600.

As for films we have official box office numbers, Followed led the way with $153,000 in 44 theaters. This put it well ahead of last week’s winner, Becky, which earned $84,000 over the weekend for a two-week total of $657,000. Becky did have a 57% drop-off from its opening weekend, which is troubling. The other new release that had a positive opening was Quarantine Cat Film Fest, which earned $20,000 during its virtual release. If all virtual releases did this well, then I would be a lot more optimistic about our present situation. On the negative side, Babyteeth bombed with just $2,487 in 12 theaters. This is a film that likely would have done really well in art house theaters, had those theaters not been closed due to the pandemic.

One last note, the pandemic causes delays in reporting, which brings us to Infamous. The film had the best opening last weekend with $160,000 in 58 theaters. This is a strong opening, given the state of the industry. It’s not surprising that it did as well as it did, as teensploitation films have a history of doing well in drive-ins, and drive-in fair has had the best luck during the lockdown.

- Weekend Box Office Chart

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Infamous, Babyteeth, Becky, Quarantine Cat Film Fest, Followed