Weekend Predictions: Unhinged Hopes to Unite Moviegoers

August 20, 2020

Unhinged

Last weekend, the domestic box office started its long road to recovery with two wide releases in Canada. While The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run failed to meet expectations, Unhinged got off to a surprisingly strong start. This weekend, the Russell Crowe thriller expands into the United States, and how well it does there will give us a sense of the overall box office’s health going forward.

Unhinged managed $601,000 in 299 theaters in Canada last weekend and this weekend it debuts in about 2,000 stateside. If we do some simple math, we should expect the film to earn about $4 million during its American debut. On the positive side, the film doesn’t have any competition, as Antebellum has been pulled from the schedule. On the negative side, the number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States is ten times what they are in Canada, on a per capita basis. If the film can even come halfway to $4 million, then it is a sign that American moviegoers are less cautious when it comes to COVID-19. If the film doesn’t earn at least $1.2 million over the weekend, then it will have a weaker opening than it had in the United Kingdom at the end of July, given the size of the two markets. Normally, I would put those figures as the high and low end of expectations. However, to say we are in unprecedented times is a massive understatement. Unhinged could do anything from under $1 million to over $6 million and I won’t be surprised. The model we developed to analyze recovery at the box office predicts a weekend between $1 million and $1.5 million. Anything above that will be a hopeful sign for box office business.

Whatever does happen will be important in figuring out future predictions, especially for The New Mutants’ opening next weekend.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, Unhinged, Russell Crowe