Box Office Discussion: Going to the Movies is Kind of "Unhinged" Right Now.

Russell Crowe's action potboiler made about as much as it might have made on a normal weekend, which is...a triumph, I guess?

The Covid-19 pandemic is far from being over, at least in the United States, even though numbers have been dropping.  But a least some Americans seem bound and determined to pretend like everything is back to normal, including heading out to see a movie.  And to fulfill that goal (and to get some necessary cash flow, which for most chains has been lacking since March), theaters are reopening all over the country.  Not everywhere, of course.  Theaters remain closed for the foreseeable future in California and New York state, which of course includes the nation's two largest cities (and the headquarters of most of the nation's entertainment producers).  But most other places, it's now possible to go see a movie, and not have to sit in your car to do so.  And the movie to welcome back the nation's moviegoers is...a low-budgeted, poorly-reviewed thriller starring a faded star.

For some reason, Unhinged always wanted to be the first film out of the gate, dutifully scheduling itself a week or two before Tenet, and then when that movie was inevitably moved, moving with it.  It opened last weekend in Canada, along with The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, and this weekend became the first film to play on more than a thousand screens since the mass closing.

The results were reasonably encouraging.  The film made just over $4 million to easily lead the box office this weekend.  Had this been a normal late-August weekend, this film would have likely fit right in with the other new releases, and would have likely made around $4 million, give or take couple of million.  Of course, in that weekend, the film would likely have come in 7th or 8th, not 1st.

Nothing else in the Top 10 came close to the million-dollar mark.  SpongeBob, still restricted to Canada, came in second with $550,000.  Opening in third was the unfortunately-titled Words on Bathroom Walls, about a mentally-ill teenager who is trying his best to fit in.  Unlike the highly publicized Unhinged, this one had almost no advance hype, so the fact that it took in $419,000 is pretty good.  The re-release of The Goonies came in 4th with $260,000, and opening in 5th was the heist thriller Cut Throat City, which like Words on Bathroom Walls, suffered from a lack of pre-opening publicity.  It still took in $243,000.  

This weekend's biggest new release is the long-delayed The New Mutants, which has blown through 4 previous release dates dating back to April 2018.  How good it is might remain a mystery for a while, as Disney is not having press screenings, and indeed, not making the movie available to critics in any form other than buying a ticket and seeing it at the theater, which several online and print publications (including The AV Club) refuse to do at this point.  Also opening is Bill and Ted Face the Music, which will also be available on VOD, and The Personal History of David Copperfield.  We'll see if any of them can top $5 million next weekend.