After prolonged closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, movie theaters in the United States and other parts of the world are slowly starting to turn on the lights again, welcome patrons and hear their box office re-registration.
In modern times, the opening of ticket sales weekend has been the benchmark of success for any particular film. But in a post-pandemic era, that metric will be less relevant. For one, the sheer number of cinemas that reopened limited capacity to guarantee social distance, putting a cap on the number of tickets that could be sold over a weekend. But beyond that, studios and exhibitors will have to focus more on word-of-mouth – and not just on the films themselves. They will rely on customers telling others that they feel safe watching a movie in theaters at a time when coronavirus is still spreading rapidly in many areas of the US
For these reasons, distributors do not expect new releases to start with a hit. Although office reporting has recently begun to quietly pick up again, this weekend is perhaps the most important even since cinemas closed for the first time in March. Two new films – “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” by Paramount and Russell Crowe’s “Unhinged” by Solstice Studios – opened in Canada. Both got off to a slow start, screening in just a few hundred theaters across the country, but plan to expand to more locations in the coming weeks.
‘SpongeBob,’ the third feature film based on everyone’s favorite absorbing free cook, raised $ 900,000 from 300 theaters in Canada. The animated children’s film kicks off in theaters in the US, where it will launch on premium video-on-demand before landing on CBS All Access, the streaming service owned by the studio’s parent company, ViacomCBS.
“Unhinged” also debuted in about 300 theaters and generated $ 582,000 – almost half of what “SpongeBob” made. Solstice Studios’ head of U.S. distribution Shari Hardison said locations for downtown and suburbs have shifted ticket sales. “It’s a bit underpinned by a traditional release,” she pointed out.
Mark Gill, president and CEO of Solstice Studios, said opening weekend numbers for “Unhinged” represented a “good, solid start.” He is aware that releasing a new film in the midst of massive uncertainty poses a bold risk. But he is confident that “slowly and steadily the race will win” during a pandemic, and feels strongly that the public will continue to draw as it expands to the US next weekend.
“Canadians can be too nice to go to ‘Unhinged,'” Gill said. He is optimistic that the film, centered on a young woman being harassed by an unstable stranger after a change of temper-rage, will have a stronger appeal in the US. world. “
Trade union experts know that the atypical landscape makes it difficult to measure the success or failure of a new film immediately. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Comscore, says the film industry needs to take a different approach when it comes to assessing facts and figures in the age of coronavirus.
“For now, most of the traditionally recognized metrics of a movie’s performance – weekend gross opening, year numbers and year-over-year comparison – should take a backseat,” Dergarabedian said. “We need to interpret the reported data through the lens of this unusual and indeed unusual marketplace.”
While it is unusual for a new movie to premiere in Canada before it hits theaters, studios have only thrown away the conventional playbook given the unconventional times. Indoor theaters in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Jersey – among the largest movie markets in the country – are still closed without a specific date to reopen. AMC, Cinemark and Regal, the largest cinema chains in the world, have not yet opened most of their locations, but hope to be almost fully operational by the end of August. Currently, 1,386 of the 6,021 locations in the country are open, according to Comscore, 316 of which are drive-ins.
Since cinemas were forced to close earlier in the year, drive-ins have become a reward for the exhibition community, and served as one of the few ways for cinephiles (like those who just leave their homes) to secure a movie on a big screen to see. Pre-pandemic films such as Disney and Pixar’s fantasy adventure “Onward” and Universal’s thriller “The Invisible Man”, as well as fresh offers from smaller studios such as IFC’s “The Wretched” and David Ayer’s “The Tax Collector” with Shia LaBeouf, from RLJE Films dominated the few screens that could remain open.
Although a handful of independent distributors went on holiday reporting across offices during the pandemic, large studios stopped releasing all information about ticket sales. Universal’s “Trolls World Tour” and Andy Samberg’s romantic comedy “Palm Springs,” from Neon and Hulu, were screened at drive-ins and dropped simultaneously on premium rental services. But those studios did not report any gross.
That left those still reporting numbers with legitimate rights to claim to have launched the No. 1 film in America, a tricky metric to be determined by traditional standards, given the expensive reporting of studios. Typically, summer fields are most of the highest grossing films of the year. But because studios have kicked in or delayed plans to discover blockbuster hopefuls and others have come up with new offers, the union has entered an area of incomprehensibility. In any case, it has been an unexpected way for smaller films to get their moment of box-gloss.
IFC Films is one of the independent studios that launches new movies and reports tracks, and has found tremendous success at outdoor locations. Horror movies, such as “The Wretched” and “The Rental,” have topped the charts in recent weeks.
IFC opened this sci-fi thriller “Sputnik” in 31 locations this weekend, generating $ 12,000 in ticket sales. But that was not the studio’s biggest title of the last three days. ‘The Rental’, Dave Franco’s directorial debut, grossed $ 78,000 from 144 screens. That movie has been a big hit by pandemic standards, and has raised $ 1.3 million so far. Also from IFC, the Liam Neeson-leading romantic comedy “Made in Italy,” this weekend drew $ 21,000 from 101 locations, bringing its total pull to $ 73,332.
For the rest of August and into September, studios will continue to test their appetite for filming. On Sept. 3. It is expected that Christopher Nolan’s often delayed sci-fi epic “Tenet” will diminish in select cities in the US, even without theaters open in New York City or Los Angeles. The Disney and Fox superhero thriller “The New Mutants” will air a week earlier, on August 28th. The reception for those films could in 2020 pave the way for other major films.
“Are moviegoers ready to go back to theaters? That’s the end line, ”said Jeff Bock, an office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “It’s going to be the biggest weekend we’ve seen all summer in terms of how movies will be presented in 2020.”
