Refresh for more analysis, chart, etc. Even in a normal, healthy economy, the major studios are typically skittish about opening big movies before Christmas with many busy with holiday activities, so it comes as no surprise during a pandemic where just north of 40% of all 5,500 domestic movie theaters are open that there wouldn’t be any new wide openings this weekend. This has put Universal’s DreamWorks Animation’s Croods: A New Age at the top of the weekend box office for a third weekend in a row with $3M, -32% for a running total of $24.M. Industry analysts believe the movie could hit $35M.
Stateside, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group titles have topped the domestic box office for seven straight weeks.
No doubt, in the home entertainment holiday sphere, Croods: New Age will encounter competition later this month against HBO Max’s Wonder Woman 1994 and Disney+/Pixar’s Soul, both of which come free to each service’s monthly subscribers. Croods: New Age will be charging around $20 for PVOD viewing, the only upside by going at the holiday is that people during the pandemic will run out of shows and movies to watch.
Worldwide Croods 2 is up to $76.3M. Croods 2 in China –where moviegoing remains alive in a COVID-19 laden world–now counts a running total of $46M (RMB 300M), has outstripped Disney’s Mulan (RMB 278M) to become the second-biggest MPA title of the year, only behind Tenet ($66.6M).
By the way, next weekend is when the Christmas drumroll (if we can call it that) starts with Sony/Screen Gems opening their videogame feature adaptation Monster Hunter and Lionsgate making a go with Deon Taylor’s thriller Fatale. Then Christmas Day brings Wonder Woman 1984, Focus Features’ Promising Young Woman, Universal’s News of the World and Roadside Attraction’s Pinocchio.