LOS ANGELES - After months-long cinema closures, the US box office has opened to the most significant degree since pre-pandemic times.
“All things considered, this is a subdued opening,” said David A. Gross, who runs movie consultancy FranchiseRe. He gives Solstice credit for taking a bold move in being the first new movie to open. On one hand, it doesn’t have much competition among ticket buyers. But on the other, studios and exhibitors have yet to determine how eager audiences will be to return to the movies.
Given the sparse amount of movie theatres currently in operation and the potential that audiences could still feel uneasy being indoors , film distributors aren’t expecting their films to have splashy opening weekends. Instead, they are counting on any given film to have a lengthier run on the big screen than it might normally have.
In the US, a number of indie films continued to populate drive-in theatres. This weekend, IFC Films launched Tesla, a biographical drama starring Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla and Kyle McLaughlin as Thomas Edison. It generated $42,000 from 108 theatres, averaging out to $389 per location.