'Honest Thief' Enjoys Second Week Atop American Box Office
Despite punishing reviews, the Liam Neeson-fronted action-thriller Honest Thief is once again the winner when it comes to the American box office.
Variety reports that Honest Thief was able to earn $2.4 million at the box office over the weekend, enough to ensure it kept its top post on the box office for the second week in a row. The film was being shown in 2,502 locations, with some locations added after theaters in New York state were allowed to reopen.
Honest Thief is a production by the company Open Road, and its CEO Tom Ortenberg said they were confident of the film’s chances. According to Ortenberg, Honest Thief is a “crowd-pleaser” of a film that would generate good word-of-mouth that would enable it to succeed over multiple weeks.
Despite its good performance, Deadline notes that Honest Thief is on top of a box office that is “in purgatory.” While the government of New York has allowed movie theaters to reopen elsewhere in the state, those in New York City remain closed.
The publication also points out that theaters in Los Angeles also remain closed, with theaters in Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Francisco counties only reopening this week. While 85 percent of the American marketplace is already open, New York and Los Angeles represent the biggest audiences.
The rest of the box office includes The War With Grandpa, which made an additional $1.88 million. Tenet, the one-time savior of the box office, came in at third with a weekend take of $1.3 million. Re-releases The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus came in at a fifth and sixth place, respectively.
Last week, Honest Thief debuted on top with a take of $3.7 million. Combined with the results on its second weekend, the film has now made a total of $7.5 million. The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus, which also performed well last week, have now made $52.2 million and $45.1 million in total, respectively.
Whether the American box office ever gets out of purgatory will rely heavily on the state of the global coronavirus pandemic. As of the Oct. 25 update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 8,553,827 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States. Deaths in the United States are now at 224,221 people.
As for the rest of the world, the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard for Oct. 25 pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 42,512,186 people. Deaths caused by COVID-19 are now at 1,147,301 worldwide.