EXCLUSIVE: From what we’ve been able to pull together, Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour continues to reign with $300K in its ninth weekend at the domestic box office from a theatrical marketplace that remains largely shut down coast to coast.
Our sources believe that the sequel has made slightly more than $3M from theatrical ticket sales since Easter weekend outside of the $100M-plus from the pic’s PVOD release.
Deadline exclusively heard some hopeful news Monday, with sources telling us that June 12 is being eyed as the big reopening date for cinemas in California. The state’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to reveal plans soon.
Of the 5,500 theaters in the U.S., various sources have provided different figures to us as to exactly how many have reopened. Seven hundred cinemas is about the average we hear, with drive-ins repping 43% of that figure. In regard to the most theaters open by territory, they are Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, the Great Lakes and the Plains.
As exhibitors have emphasized, it’s all older 2020 titles that are still on the marquee and catalog faves such as The Goonies and Grease (about $90K for the weekend, outside the top 10).
However, indie genre titles remain potent for the dilapidated theatrical marketplace.
In its 6th weekend, IFC”s The Wretched flew past $1.1M, all of that collected during the COVID-19 lockdown with the pic still at its widest point of release at 99 venues. “It’s amazing because that movie, which generally would have been a midnight movie for art houses in a normal marketplace, has played to 3x its potential. And that’s from likely being the second movie in a drive-in’s double feature,” praised one indie exhibition source. The Wretched is $200K shy from overtaking IFC’s Kristen Stewart spooky thriller Personal Shopper ($1.3M) and has already bested the $964K domestic total of IFC’s 2014 horror movie The Babadook.
Quiver, the new distribution entity launched by Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman, had the Cary Murnion- and Jonathan Milott-directed horror action pic Becky this weekend, which opened to $178,2K. The pic starring Lulu Wilson, Kevin James, Amanda Brugel, Robert Maillet and Joel McHale was selected as one of the 2020 titles for the Tribeca Film Festival. It follows a teenager and her father as they come against a group of convicts at their lake house. The title was available on PVOD.
To give you an idea — even a microcosm — of how consumer habits are trending, Saturday business for Becky was up 32% over Friday, $83,7K to $63,4K. The Wretched also saw a similar Friday-to-Saturday surge of 36% with Friday grossing $59,6K and Saturday seeing $81,3K.
Below is the top 10 at the box office for the weekend of June 5-7 from industry sources; IFC and Quiver reported grosses in full this weekend:
- Trolls World Tour (Uni) 197 (+21) theaters 3-day: $302K (-11), cume: $3.06M/Wk 9
- The Invisible Man (Uni//Blumhouse) 121 (+19) theaters, 3-day: $279K (-13%), cume $67.1M/Wk 15
- Sonic (Par), 107 (+18) theaters, 3-day: $200K (+17%), cume $148.1M/Wk 16
- The Wretched (IFC), 99 theaters (+24), 3-day: $196,8K (+12%), cume: $1.1M/Wk 6
- The Hunt (Uni) 64 theaters, 3-day: $189K (-13%), cume: $7.7M/Wk 13
- Becky (Quiver) 42 theaters, 3-day: $178,2K/wk 1
- Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony), 68 theaters (+12), 3-day: $169K (-10%), cume: $322.8M/Wk 26
- The Goonies (WB) 66 theaters (-) 3-day: $111K, lifetime cume: $62.5M
- Bad Boys for Life (Sony), 39 theaters (-13), 3-day: $96K (-24%), cume: $207.5M/Wk 21
- Onward (Dis) 33 theaters, 3-day: $92K (-10%), cume: $61.8M/Wk 14