'Honest Thief' Rules Over American Box Office
It looks like Tenet will not be regaining the top box office crown any time soon as yet another film has emerged the winner over the weekend. The Honest Thief, starring Liam Neeson, was the top movie this weekend, with Tenet having to settle for third place.
Variety reports that action-thriller Honest Thief has debuted with $3.7 million, enough to push it to first place for the weekend of Oct. 16-18. In comparison, Tenet was only able to come up with $1.6 million this weekend.
As the publication points out, Honest Thief topped an American box office that has been underperforming overall. The number two movie of the weekend, The War With Grandpa, collected $2.5 million to bring its two-week total to $7.2 million.
Tenet, now on its seventh weekend, has managed to earn $50.6 million in the United States.
Deadline also took note of the other performers in the box office, which were mostly Disney re-releases of films that perfectly fit the upcoming Halloween holiday. Aside from Hocus Pocus, which is now on its third weekend, Disney also re-released the Tim Burton classic The Nightmare Before Christmas in theaters.
Over the weekend, The Nightmare Before Christmas is expected to rake in $1.3 million. Hocus Pocus, which is now on its third weekend, is set to add another $756,000 to its total box office.
While the box office over the weekend has been weak, Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian says that there is still some hope to be had, as the numbers could be considered solid considering only 49 percent of theaters in America are open and most of them are not operating at full capacity.
Last weekend, it was The War With Grandpa that ruled the American box office. It earned $3.36 million on its first weekend, vaulting over the $2.1 million weekend take of Tenet. Audiences who saw the movie also brought positive news with them, as 90 percent of them shared that they felt safe watching a movie in a theater.
Whether the film and entertainment industry can go back to the blockbuster numbers of pre-pandemic times relies heavily on the state of the global coronavirus pandemic. As of the Oct. 18 update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 8,081489 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States. Deaths are now at 218,511 people.
Globally, the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard for Oct. 18 pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 39,596,858 people. Deaths caused by COVID-19 are now at 1,107,374 worldwide.