Universal Continues To Dominate Paltry Pandemic Post-Thanksgiving B.O. As Town Reels From Warner-HBO Max Windows Bombshell
Universal remains the only major studio pumping out wide releases to those remaining movie theaters which aren’t being smashed down by lockdowns (like in California — God knows when we’ll be able to go to the movies again). This weekend, Universal’s DreamWorks Animated title The Croods: A New Age in weekend 2 continued to see the best numbers in the current COVID-19 America with $4.4M, -55%, crossing $20.3M in its 12th day in release. Uni also released the romantic drama All My Life in 970 locations for a $350K result in 4th place while Focus Features’ had the Luke Greenfield-directed Mexican comedy Half Brothers at 1,369 locations, earning $720K in 2nd place. By those two latter results, it’s clear that Uni invested more in P&A on Croods 2 than those two niche titles. Uni had the top 4 titles this past weekend with Blumhouse’s Freaky in 3rd with $460K, -42%, and a $7.7M total in weekend 4. Overall, with Focus’ Come Play and Let Him Go, Uni had six spots in this past weekend’s top 10 chart.
If there’s one weekend at the box office that studios and exhibitors typically have had no thanks for, it’s the post Thanksgiving period, typically the first weekend in December, when business drops by as much as 50%.
RelishMix noticed overall mixed-to-negative chatter for Half Brothers on social media reporting, “Fans are discussing not only outcome of the road-trip, but on a distribution note, where and when it will stream as windows are sliding erratically, and each of the studios are debating how and when to point fans to the eventual stream when it’s not day/date. Plus, questions about weather the movie is cut as a Spanish Version or combo Spanglish subtitled version. Mixed sentiment leans negative on Facebook and on YouTube with shout-outs to the cool music track in the trailer originating from Jukebox The Ghost. Covid chatter this week is very light and understated.”
All My Life, again, another title no one was yearning to go out of their way and wear a mask for this weekend in droves with a 57% Rotten, B+ CinemaScore, 72% PostTrak, and 51% recommend. Females, natch, showed up at 53%, 61% over 25 and about the same between 18-34. Diversity demos were 54% White, 21% Hispanic, 14% Asian-Other and 11% African American. Southwest was the only notable market for this Marc Meyers directed movie about a couple’s wedding plans which are thrown off course when the groom is diagnosed with liver cancer (who wants to see this in a pandemic or even at Christmas?). RelishMix noticed that even though Universal social channels have a reach of 55.4M, this pic is getting boxed out by Croods 2 and Freaky in its push with only one trailer on YouTube reaching 4.6M views for 26 videos before opening, plus 7.5M views on Facebook. “Decidated social channels for the film are light but could build momentum as the next two weekends of new release are slim,” says RelishMix.