Box Office Discussion: Will Large Crowds "Go" Back Anytime Soon?

 

As theaters continue to suffer, Kevin Costner gets his first #1 movie as a leading man in over two decades.

The first weekend of November has been the kickoff weekend for the holiday movie season for roughly a quarter-century now.  Before the pandemic hit, the MCU movie Eternals was supposed to be the weekend's big attraction.  After the summer movie season got wiped out, Disney shifted Black Widow, originally scheduled for May, to this date.  But now, both movies are opening next year, one year after their original date, and the weekend's big attraction was a Kevin Costner western.  No, it's not 1990.

Let Him Go, which co-stars Diane Lane, had an imprssive-for-2020 opening of $4 million, topping the openings of Come Play and The War With Grandpa, but trailing the opening of Honest Thief by a bit.  Of course, this is the type of movie that likely wouldn't have even sniffed the top of the chart under normal circumstances, and this is also a movie that could end up having some decent legs, especially given that November's calendar is now fairly empty, particularly of adult-aimed movies.  This is Costner's first #1 movie as a lead since Message in a Bottle topped its first weekend in 1999.

Last week's champ, Come Play, predictably sank after Halloween, but still earned $1.8 million in its second weekend.  The horror flick's ten-day total is $5.7 million.  The War With Grandpa had a rare uptick in business from last weekend (probably having to do with not having to compete against Halloween), bringing in $1.5 million.  It's gross stands at $13.4 million.  Honest Thief was the only other movie to top $1 million for the weekend, grossing $1.1 million, for a total of $11.2 million.  Tenet also rose a bit from last week, coming in at $0.9 million and bringing its total for a pandemic blockbuster total of $55.1 million.

With the Halloween re-releases apparently all out of theaters now (which makes sense--who wants to watch Hocus Pocus in November?), Disney's one old movie on the chart this week was the 25th anniversary release of Toy Story.  The original adventures of Buzz and Woody brought in $0.5 million on its opening weekend.

After long-shelved horror flick The Empty Man once again played to houses just full enough for a 7th place finish, urban thriller True to the Game 2 opened in 8th with $0.3 million.  Rounding out the top 10 are two VOD titles, the holdover horror movie Spell and prison drama The Informer.

Scheduled to go wide this weekend is horror-comedy Freaky, about a teenage girl who, Freaky Friday style, switches bodies with a serial killer, and has to figure out how to stop him, as her, from slaughtering her classmates.  Will it be freaky enough to knock Let Him Go off the top spot, or will Costner and Lane get to ride off into the sunset with two weeks at #1?  We'll find out next week.