Pandemic Box Office Slump Continues As ‘Freaky’ Tops With Disappointing $3.7M Weekend

The last two months of wide releases are playing to those who just want to see a movie, any movie, in theaters and essentially no one else.

Despite good reviews, solid buzz and a (comparatively) aggressive marketing campaign, Universal and Blumhouse’s Freaky didn’t open any better than the last two months’ worth of small-scale theatrical releases. The R-rated body swap horror comedy, starring Katherine Newton as a shy teenager and Vince Vaughn as a hulkish serial murderer, topped the domestic box office this weekend with just $3.71 million. That’s a mediocre 2.56x multiplier from a $1.45 million Friday. We can chalk that up to horror films often being frontloaded over the weekend and the film’s B- CinemaScore grade. That’s a little surprising considering the generally positive reviews (85% fresh and 6.9/10 on Rotten Tomatoes), but I digress. It’s right between the $3.1 million debut of Focus Features’ Come Play and the $4.1 million debut of Focus’ Let Him Go.

Save for next weekend when Jackie Chan’s Vanguard (which has earned a disappointing $49.5 million in China) opens on 1,500 screens courtesy of Gravitas Ventures, the next couple of months is mostly going to be Comcast’s
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Universal, Comcast’s Focus Features and Comcast’s DreamWorks Animation (which they bought in early 2016) competing with themselves. That’s especially true if Warner Bros. doesn’t keep Wonder Woman 1984 on its current Christmas Day release. Universal and Focus have nearly a dozen movies big and (mostly) small opening in wide or limited theatrical release between October 30, 2020 and February 19, 2021. The idea is for these films to A) help theaters keep the lights on until the pandemic subsides or a vaccine and/or a treatment becomes available and B) exist as lab rats for the deal Universal cut with AMC.

That deal allows new theatrical releases to debut on PVOD in as little as 17 days after its theatrical opening day. Freaky will arrive on PVOD on December 3, so folks who want to see it but don’t feel safe going to a multiplex (and don’t live near a drive-in) won’t be left out for very long. Moreover, since we’re talking about a $5 million movie that earned around $5.6 million worldwide over the weekend, it’s entirely possible (give or take marketing expenses) that the film will eventually make money once it becomes a “$20 for a 48-hour rental” option. Alas, the film would work best in a packed theater screening or even an “invite your friends over to watch on the HDTV” party flick, neither of which are likely to occur in the near future.

As I noted yesterday, we’ll know that theatrical moviegoing is “back” not just when movie theaters are fully open and operational, nor even when Hollywood starts releasing their big movies on the regular. No, we’ll know that “movies are back” when I can do a box office report like this and discuss the results, be they good or bad, exclusively in terms of what went right or wrong with the movie itself as opposed to the current madness. While I had hoped that the well-reviewed and higher-profile horror comedy might break out (comparatively) from the post-Tenet pack, that obviously didn’t happen. Blame a new wave of Coronavirus infections and folks understandably not wanting to go to a theater to see a pulpy little B-movie horror comedy that’ll be available on PVOD at the end of the month.

The $3-$5 million debuts of the likes of Freaky, Let Him Go, The War With Grandpa, Honest Thief and Come Play represents a current normal whereby these new releases are snagging the folks who are going to a movie just to go to a movie and essentially nobody else. Honest Thief opened with 1/3 the normal domestic debut for a Liam Neeson actioner, while Freaky likely would have earned $15-$20 million (or maybe as much as the $26 million debut of Happy Death Day) in normal circumstances. That the openers are all so consistent implies a current ceiling for theatrical moviegoing. One bit of good news is that, entirely by default, Blumhouse is the only brand in 2020 to officially have two chart-topping opening weekends. We’ll see if DC Films can tie with Wonder Woman 1984 at Christmas.

In other domestic news, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner’s terrific Let Him Go earned $1.8 million (-55%) in its second weekend for a $6.9 million ten-day cume. Alas, this is playing closer to Honest Thief (around $780,000 in weekend six for a $12.3692 million running cume) than Unhinged ($20 million total). I’m slightly disappointed, but I’d imagine the Focus Features flick will be a prime attraction when it comes to Peacock located at “If you liked all three seasons of Yellowstone.” The War With Grandpa earned another $1.32 million (-12%) in its sixth-weekend gross for a $15.22 million domestic cume. The Robert De Niro-starring family comedy is (thus far) the closest thing we’ve had to a real hit since theaters reopened in late August. It has earned 4.11x its $3.7 million debut weekend.

Focus’ Come Play earned $1.1 million (-39%) in weekend three and $7.3 million 17-day total. Honest Thief earned $810,000 (-29%) over the weekend for a $12.4 million cume. That’s usually what lower-end Liam Neeson actioners earn on their opening weekends. Fatman (starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus and Walton Goggins as the assassin hired to murder him) will earn around $100,000 in 250 theaters in advance of its VOD debut later this month. It contains a few good ideas but frankly doesn’t have the budget to deliver on its promises and barely holds together as a functional feature narrative. Gibson is fine (as he usually is, off-screen behavior notwithstanding), and Goggins gives it everything he’s got. Meanwhile, Goggins’ terrific sitcom The Unicorn had a delightful second-season premiere this past Thursday.

Neon’s Ammonite, a romantic melodrama starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, debuted in 280 theaters this weekend in advance of its VOD debut on December 4. The would-be Oscar contender earned $85,000 over its opening weekend. More so than usual this season, most of the big Oscar contenders (Nomadland, The Father, Minari, etc.) are going to be more talked about and blogged about than seen by consumers. The higher-profile Netflix
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offerings (Mank, Da 5 Bloods, Hillbilly Elegy, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, etc.) could be the exceptions. Even Paul Greengrass and Tom Hanks’ News of the World will play overseas on Netflix alongside a domestic theatrical release. If Comcast will be mostly competing with itself at the box office, the Netflix is mostly competing with itself at the Oscars. God, what a weird year.

Oh, and finally, Tenet earned another $1.7 million worldwide, including $735,000 (-21%) domestic, for a new $56.3 million domestic and $353.5 million worldwide cume. Chris Nolan’s sci-fi thriller will arrive on Digital HD, DVD, Blu and 4K (with subtitles!!) on December 15, and I have to think that the post-theatrical business will be a little higher than usual considering the circumstances of its theatrical release. Nonetheless, a question worth pondering in this new normal is whether Tenet will be the last big movie to actually get a full theatrical window (at least 90 days only in theaters) as we once knew it. Or, optimistically, it’ll just be the last such movie until Raya and the Last Dragon in March or No Time to Die in April of next year.