Box Office: A Poor $4M Debut For ‘Honest Thief’ Justifies Delaying ‘Black Widow’ And ‘No Time To Die’

That Honest Thief opened with 1/3 the normal domestic debut for a Liam Neeson action movie means Hollywood had no choice but to move its biggest blockbusters to next year.

For the second weekend in a row, and for the third time since mid-August, a new movie has topped the domestic box office with a Fri-Sun frame just over/under $4 million. Russell Crowe’s Unhinged opened with $4 million in its American debut on the weekend of August 21, $5 million if you count its Canadian debut the week prior. The top movie for October 12 was Robert De Niro’s The War With Grandpa, which earned just $3.7 million in weekend one for the lowest chart-topping debut since Sigourney Weaver’s Guerillas in the Mist ($3.6 million) way back in October of 1988. And this weekend saw Liam Neeson’s Honest Thief open at number one, entirely by default, with $3.7 million or $4.1 million if you count its week-prior Canadian debut.

The Russell Crowe road-rage thriller, released by Solstice Studios specifically to be the first new wide release out of the gate as theaters reopened, is arguably playing on a level equal to an original adult-skewing Russell Crowe star vehicle in modern times. Heck, with $20 million domestic in two months, it’s about tied with the $21 million domestic cume (from a $6.7 million debut) of The Next Three Days in 2010. Likewise, Robert De Niro has always been more of an acting powerhouse/added-value element than a butts-in-the-seats draw, so a $7.3 million ten-day cume for 101 Studios’ The War With Grandpa wouldn’t be that surprising even in better circumstances. But Open Road’s Honest Thief opened with 1/3 of what is otherwise expected from Liam Neeson action thrillers.

You can blame some of that on poor reviews. With a 38% “rotten” score from Rotten Tomatoes, the film had the worst overall reviews yet for a post-Taken Liam Neeson actioner outside of Taken 2 (22% in 2012) and Taken 3 (13% in 2015). Even his unapologetic genre flicks (Cold Pursuit, The Commuter, Run All Night, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Non-Stop, Unknown) scored between 54% and 69% from 2009 to 2019. The Grey was almost an arthouse indie survival melodrama disguised as a “Liam Neeson fights wolves” actioner, hence its comparatively high 79% score. And you can blame some of that on Open Road being a smaller distributer compared to the likes of Warner Bros., Fox, Universal and Lionsgate. And yes, you can blame the pandemic.

That may seem to be an obvious conclusion, what with New York currently closed (until this Friday) and much of California only beginning to reopen. But considering Unhinged and The War With Grandpa opened in line with what I’d expect in entirely conventional circumstances, I was very curious to see how Honest Thief would play. Simply put, had it opened closer to the $11 million-$13.7 million debuts posted by A Walk Among the Tombstones, Run All Night, The Commuter and Cold Pursuit, then there was a case to be made that the films opening at the moment were merely performing as well as otherwise expected and that the downturn only applied to blockbusters and/or specifically Tenet. Now we have our answer.

Nobody was expecting the $19-$22 million debuts of Unknown and The Grey, the $30 million launch of Non-Stop or the $39-$49 million debuts of Taken 3 in 2015 and Taken 2 in 2012. However, Honest Thief, again not counting out poor reviews, a smaller distributor and a far more grounded/less (comparatively) over-the-top storyline, opened with 2/3 less than what has become status quo for Liam Neeson potboilers. This means Disney and Universal/MGM made the right call to delay Black Widow to May 2021 and No Time to Die to April of 2021. While Chris Nolan’s Tenet had issues (mixed-positive reviews, lack of star power, a cryptic marketing campaign, etc.), even a more crowd-pleasing final product would have suffered in North America under the current status quo.

We’ll see if Christmas is different for Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman 1984, but now is sadly not the time to drop big Hollywood blockbusters. I wouldn’t be shocked if After We Collided “overperformed” this weekend, as the “What if Fifty Shades of Grey co-starred Harry Styles?” fan-fiction sequel has already earned $45 million overseas. But that Honest Thief opened with $4.1 million despite previous Liam Neeson actioners opening with over/under $12 million means that the biggest problem with Tenet wasn’t that it was Tenet, and that even a more conventional tentpole would have to live with massively depressed domestic earnings. Monster Hunter (opening December 30) can take it, but Soul, Black Widow, No Time to Die and Wonder Woman 1984 could not.

Speak Your Mind

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Get in Touch

350FansLike
100FollowersFollow
281FollowersFollow
150FollowersFollow

Recommend for You

Oh hi there 👋
It’s nice to meet you.

Subscribe and receive our weekly newsletter packed with awesome articles that really matters to you!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

You might also like

Stocks in focus on September 4, 2020

New Delhi: Markets ended lower on Thursday led by losses in banking and financials. Despite...

The Man Behind America’s Spiffy New Spacesuit: How Elon...

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - MAY 27: NASA astronauts Bob...

Yankees Expect Gleyber Torres Will Rebound From 2020 Struggles...

CLEVELAND, OH - JUNE 08: New York Yankees infielder...

Pelosi believes coronavirus relief deal still possible as Democrats...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Sept....