Weekend Wrap-Up: Unhinged Begins to Pry Open the Box Office

August 25, 2020

Unhinged

For the first time in what feels like years, a film earned more than $1 million at the box office over the weekend. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run had a shot last weekend, but we had to wait for Unhinged’s American debut for this milestone to be surpassed. The film made $4 million in 1,823 theaters for a two-week total of $5 million, including its run in Canada.

It’s impossible to say for sure what this means for the box office as a whole, as we are truly in uncharted territories. It matched the purely arithmetic-based portion of our predictions, and was well ahead of what our model predicted. The model is based on the box office performance in international territories as they have reopened, so a better performance in the United States suggests that moviegoers here are more comfortable with going to see films in theaters relative to other countries.

Solstice Studios has to be at least a little happy with this result, while other studios will be waiting for The New Mutants before deciding how much resources they should pump into promoting wide releases. We at least have a new benchmark, and a opening over $4 million for The New Mutants would be a good sign for continued growth of the market.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run fell 36% to an estimated $550,000 over the weekend for a total of $1.42 million after two. This is disappointing, and this early test for family films might make it more likely that other family films will go the PVOD route in the near future.

The biggest truly new release was Words on Bathroom Walls, which earned a mere $419,000 in just over 900 theaters. Even taking into account limited seating due to the pandemic, this film’s theater average is poor, at $454 per theater, compared to $2,195 for Unhinged. There is still a chance it can break even, if its theatrical run is merely advertising for its home market run.

Cut Throat City opened in fourth place with $243,000 in 389 theaters for a total of $246,000 so far. Its theater average was marginally better than Words on Bathroom Walls’, at $626.

Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula rounded out the top five films reporting with $213,000 in 151 theaters for a total of $549,000, including two weeks in Canada. This isn’t a bad start in the States, but it won’t live up to its predecessor.

The total box office for all films reporting was $5.9 million, making this the best weekend since March 13. The comparison is stark: total reported box office was $53.5 million that weekend, and $101 million the weekend before. So we’re still 95% below normal. The recovery has to start somewhere.

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, The New Mutants, Words on Bathroom Walls, Cut Throat City, Unhinged, Ban-do