by Conan Simmons – June 1, 2021 – 4:18 pm
After more than a year movie theaters are finally getting back to normal. Some are allowing full capacity and easing of mask regulations. As more people get vaccinated the future of theaters look less grim. The surest sign yet that things are getting back to normal is the 626% increase of the Weekend Box Office Top 5.
With two major releases over the holiday weekend, ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ and ‘Cruella’ naturally took the top two spots on the Weekend Box Office Top 5. The weekend total for ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ shows not only that audiences like an enjoyable horror film but that streaming a movie day-and-date (as with ‘Cruella’ being made available on Disney+ for an additional $30 fee) does in fact eat into the box office receipts.
I fully believe had ‘Cruella’ not been available for streaming this weekend it would have been a much closer race for the top spot, and possibly have nudged the sci-fi horror film by a million or two. However, with Disney like so many others keeping their streaming numbers secret there is no real way to know how well ‘Cruella’ may have done. I’m sure Disney is just hours from announcing what a tremendously successful weekend the film had while not providing any verifiably concrete numbers.
Having stated that, it should be interesting to see how the box office plays out next weekend with the day-and-date release of ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’. The third ‘Conjuring’ film, and the eighth film overall in the popular horror franchise, it should do well but will it be enough to take the top spot from rival horror film ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ which is only available to see in theaters?
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (May 28-31, 2021 – Memorial Day Weekend)
- ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ – $57 million – horror (debut)
- ‘Cruella’ – $26.5 million – family (debut)
- ‘Spiral’ – $2.7 million – horror (drop $1.9 million, 41% decline)
- ‘Wrath of Man’ – $2.7 million – action (drop $300k, 10% decline)
- ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ – $2.7 million – animated (gain $1 million, 59% increase)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $91.6 million. It is an increase of $79 million over last weekends total of $12.6 million for a huge 626% gain.
The animated hit ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’, which some critics tried to write off as a bomb in its debut weekend, has now remained in the Weekend Box Office Top 5 for 13 consecutive weekends. It is gaining on the current record holder and also an animated hit, ‘The Croods: A New Age’ which held in the Top 5 for 17 consecutive weekends.
With animation being such a popular genre and horror being an equally popular genre, how long before an animated horror film tops the Weekend Box Office Top 5?