'Unhinged' Shows Promise As US Theaters Reopen
The film and entertainment industry is slowly dipping its toes back in the water as it begins reopening theaters and releasing new films in the midst of the still ongoing global coronavirus pandemic. Over the weekend, new film Unhinged opened in limited theaters in the United States to promising returns.
Variety reports that the weekend saw the Russell Crowe-led film open in 1,823 venues in North America and takes in $4 million in the box office. The number of theaters showing Unhinged makes it the widest release since the pandemic began, and the box office take is impressive considering the small number of opened theaters.
According to Variety, drive-in theaters in Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles accounted for most of the ticket sales, alongside theaters in Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas. Solstice Studio, the outfit behind Unhinged, plans to release the film in an additional 2,300 cinemas.
Forbes notes that currently, Unhinged is the biggest summer movie by default as a number of movies have already moved their release dates to later on in the year. Previous performers on the box office before the corona-induced movie theater closures include Bloodshot, I Still Believe, and The Hunt.
Bloodshot and I Still Believe both earned $9 million before movie theater closures, while The Hunt managed to earn $5.3 million.
Before its release in the United States, Unhinged was the second best-earning movie in Canada, following the third Spongebob movie, Sponge On The Run. Unhinged earned $582,000. Meanwhile, Sponge On The Run earned $900,000.
Other markets have been open for longer now, with Chinese movie theaters already a month into reopening. The latest film to top the Chinese box office is a re-release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which was screened in IMAX theaters and earned $13.4 million over the previous weekend.
Another successful film that opened in markets outside of the United States is the Train to Busan sequel Peninsula. The film topped the South Korean box office over two weekends, bringing in an accumulated $21 million.
Malaysia and Taiwan also screen Peninsula, bringing in $4.1 million and $4.7 million respectively.
Whether movie theaters will continue to reopen and new movies continue to get released will depend on how the global coronavirus pandemic turns out. Currently, the pandemic is still very much a concern, with the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard placing the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide as of Aug. 23 at 23,057,288 people. Deaths caused by COVID-19 are now at 800,906 people.