Refresh for updates: Solstice Studios braved the continuing pandemic and assisted the major exhibition circuits to reopen this weekend with their Russell Crowe road rage action movie Unhinged this weekend in the U.S. in what was a $1.4M Friday including some Thursday previews at 1,823 theaters. The projected weekend is expected to be $4.2M, and the movie has already clocked $1M from its first week in Canada. By the end of this weekend the running cume for the Derrick Borte action thriller will stand at $5.2M and Solstice is seeing a complete running total by this coming Thursday at $8M.
Solstice Studios boss Mark Gill told Deadline this morning, that he’s “relived. Nobody had any certainty that people would go back to the movies at all, and the results we’re seeing here aren’t dissimilar to what we’ve seen in Europe, Canada in Australia. It’s slow and steady.”
While Cineplex Odeon has their full circuit up and operating this weekend in Canada, the following states’ hard-top cinemas remain closed in the U.S.: New York, California, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, North Carolina and Arizona. AMC has about 20% of its 661-multiplex count in the U.S. open right now, Regal has 37% of its 539 cinemas reopened with Cinemark counting 70% of its 525 locations having lights on. The mainstream press has created this do-or-die mentality about this weekend’s box office, that if results aren’t back up to their usual pre-pandemic norms, that exhibition is just done, and we should embrace a life of streaming. That’s absolute hogwash. We’re dealing with marketplace that isn’t operating at its full potential, with auditoriums at capped capacities, and many major markets closed. NY and LA alone account for 8-10% of a pic’s weekend. The vibrancy of box office numbers in regards to what they were will take some time, and that will depend on who’s open, and the type of mega tentpole IP in the marketplace. It may not necessarily be out of the gate with Warner Bros. Tenet, which is expected to be a slow burn, but perhaps it rolls around in the latter part of the fall with Wonder Woman 1984, No Time to Die, Soul, etc. Solstice should be commended here for being the first wide release to get movie theaters reopened, and believe me, there are small exhibitors who are grateful. Any time they here that a movie is going to PVOD, even an arthouse-like film like Judd Apatow’s King of Staten Island, their hearts truly break. And that’s not a hasty generalization.
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