New Mutants Lands at the Top of the Weekend Box Office!
The box office is back! Well, kinda. Even though a majority of theaters still haven’t opened, a handful of releases earned a semi-respectable amount of cash in limited release. Taking the top spot was Disney/20th Century Studios’ The New Mutants, which hauled in $7 million in its first weekend. Keep in mind that, according to Deadline, only 62% of theaters are open and auditorium capacity restrictions allow for only 25%-50% occupancy. Even so, the $3.1 million opening day gross won’t knock anyone’s socks off, neither will the $2.45 million the flick grossed on Saturday, even if it marks the highest gross for a film since mid-March. When combined with overseas numbers, the long-delayed Josh Boone thriller only managed to pull in $10 million, which just goes to show we’re still a long way off from normalcy.
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Initially planned to release in 2018, New Mutants was delayed due to a number of factors and was ultimately lost in the shuffle during Disney’s acquisition of Fox. Despite rumors of reshoots and multiple cuts of the film, Disney opted to release Boone’s original version and neither critics nor audiences were impressed. Currently, the film holds a 32% on RottenTomates from 38 critics and a 53% audience rating. Ouch.
Landing in second place was the Russell Crowe thriller Unhinged, which collected $2.6 million (-35%) from 2,331 theaters for a $8.8 million total. The thriller scored a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but has amassed a 76% audience rating out of 1,068 reviews.
The anticipated threequel Bill & Ted Face the Music grossed $1.06 million overall from 1,007 theaters which may not sound like much for a blockbuster film, but consider that the flick was also released on PVOD where it landed at No. 1 on iTunes with the franchise bundle trailing at No. 2. We’re still waiting on the PVOD numbers to determine just how big (or small) of a hit the Keanu Reeves/Alex Winter flick will be.
Up next was The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run with $604,000 (+9.8%) from 314 theaters for a total haul of $2,019,824 after three weeks of release.
The Personal History of David Copperfield made its debut with $520,000 from 1,360 theaters, while Words on Bathroom Walls rounded out the top six with $453,360 (+4.7%) from 1,356 theaters in its second week of release.
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As for Tenet, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Christopher Nolan’s latest mind bender grossed more than $53 million internationally in 41 markets. The U.K. led with $7.1 million while France and Germany chipped in $5.7 million and $4.2 million, respectively. The film cost $200 million to produce and much more to market, so this looks like a huge win for WB. The pic collected $5 million from 248 Imax theaters, which is akin to Nolan’s Dunkirk and Interstellar. The film is expected to make a decent-sized splash when it hits the U.S. this week.
