AMC Entertainment Enters Into Agreement to Sell Its Baltic Theater Locations

AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to sell its nine theaters in the Baltic region—Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—to UP Invest, owner of the Baltic Apollo Group cinema group. 

Said AMC CEO Adam Aron in a statement, the sale of AMC’s Baltic cinemas “marks yet another bold and decisive action taken, on the heels of our capital raising in April and debt restructuring and capital raising in July, to bolster our liquidity and strengthen our balance sheet at a transaction multiple that underscores the inherent value of our theatre portfolio and resilience of our business,” going on to cite  a resurgence of moviegoing at theaters both in Europe and the U.S. 

Adds Aron: “Growing consumer confidence in our cleaning and safety protocols continues to generate increased attendance and food and beverage spend, and we look forward to offering a full slate of new and entertaining film product to further drive attendance over the remainder of 2020.”

AMC came to own the nine Baltic theaters, which operate under the brand Forum Cinemas, as part of its 2017 acquisition of the Nordic Cinema Group. With this sale—for an amount of €65 million, or approximately $77 million—the chain will operate in 12 countries across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

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Nolan’s Tenet Draws Strong $53M International Opening from 41 Markets

After a long anticipated release, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet has generated an estimated $53 million in its global debut through Sunday, topping most expectations ahead of its debut.

Warner Bros. reported the first official projections this morning following the film’s international rollout that began on Wednesday. The film is currently playing in 41 markets, including Canada, on more than 20,000 screens.

The 32 markets comprising Europe, the Middle East, and Africa grossed $37 million the current estimate across 13,146 screens. Tenet has opened in first place at the box office in every market where it’s screening thus far.

“We are off to a fantastic start internationally and couldn’t be more pleased,” said Toby Emmerich, Chairman, Warner Bros. Pictures Group. “Christopher Nolan has once again delivered an event worthy motion picture that demands to be seen on the big screen, and we are thrilled that audiences across the globe are getting the opportunity to see Tenet. Thank you to our exhibition partners for their tireless efforts in reopening their cinemas in a safe and socially-distanced way. Given the unprecedented circumstances of this global release we know we’re running a marathon, not a sprint, and look forward to long playability for this film globally for many weeks to come.”

Notable Statistics

Tenet‘s top markets so far include the United Kingdom ($7.1 million), France ($6.7 million), Korea ($5.1 million, and Germany ($4.2 million).

In the U.K., the studio notes that IMAX represents a strong 12 percent share — on par with Nolan’s previous releases. The company reports that the film is also over-indexing in France, Korea, and Germany despite seating capacities.

More notes from the studio include:

• Biggest ever industry opening in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with $1.47 million from 131 screens and a 64 percent market share
  
  
• Second biggest Hollywood film opening ever in Estonia, where the film was partially shot, with $340K for the weekend
  
  
• Very strong market shares for Tenet in all key markets including 74 percent in the UK, 59 percent in Germany, 67 percent in Italy,  52 percent in Spain, and 78 percent in Korea
  
  
• Excellent results from IMAX and other Premium formats where despite social distancing capacity restrictions premium formats accounted for over a quarter of box office in some markets. Nearly 250 IMAX screens on release in 38 countries this weekend grossed $5 million for a per screen average in excess of $20K, representing 9.4 percent of the overall gross.

The film also earned the biggest ever debut for a Nolan film in nine countries, including Holland, Ukraine, and Hungary.

Tenet releases next weekend in another six international markets, including Russia on September 3 and China on September 4. Those debuts will follow the United States launch with previews on August 31, followed by the nationwide release on open markets on September 3.

IMAX Breakdowns

Worldwide, Tenet generated $5 million from 248 IMAX screens in 38 markets. Average capacity restrictions are hovering around 50 percent (and some markets are limited to 50 seats per screening). Despite those disadvantages, Tenet is over-performing in the format with a per-screen average of $20K.

The $5 million figure represents 9.4 percent of the overall weekend result, representing the biggest late August box office from international markets in IMAX history. That share is comparable to the 12.6 percent share of Dunkirk and 9.6 percent share of Interstellar. The company notes that 11 markets opened higher on Tenet than both of those films, including key markets like France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

IMAX is also reporting hundreds of “sold out” shows (again, factoring in seating capacities).

Tenet‘s top grossing IMAX market this weekend is the U.K. where it’s earned an estimated $900K from 48 screens, averaging nearly $19K per. That gross is only 25 percent behind Interstellar‘s U.K. opening weekend for IMAX. Tenet also boasts the second biggest U.K. IMAX debut in August history, trailing only Suicide Squad.

“As exhibitors sought to add more showtimes to feed audience demand seen during pre-release ticket sales, the film has also shown positive signs of a lengthy theatrical run with strong pre-sales spread out well beyond the usual “opening weekend,” said Craig Dehmel, Head of Global Distribution for IMAX Entertainment, in an email. “We expect Tenet to experience stronger than normal midweek grosses and shallower week-to-week drops, as audience moviegoing habits adapt to the current capacity limitations in most markets.”

The coming week will see Tenet release in an additional 900 IMAX screens across the United States (September 3), Russia (September 3), and China (September 4).

More updates as they come in.

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GLOBAL REPORT: Tenet Opens to $53M Overseas, New Mutants Takes $7M in Domestic Debut

The overseas box office roared back into action with the highly-anticipated release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. The Warner Bros. title earned over $53 million from 20 thousand screens across 41 markets, setting the stage for next weekend’s scheduled expansion in the United States. 

The United Kingdom leads all markets with a $7.1 million haul from 3,114 screens, followed by France ($6.7M, 1,070 screens), South Korea ($5.1M, 2,228 screens), and Germany ($4.2M, 1,955 screens). The film registered the biggest debut for a Nolan title in 9 countries (including Hungary, Netherlands, and Ukraine). Tenet also set an industry record for the biggest Hollywood launch in Saudi Arabia, where it earned $1.47 million from 131 screens. Click here for a detailed box office report of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet

“We are off to a fantastic start internationally and couldn’t be more pleased,” said Toby Emmerich, Chairman, Warner Bros. Pictures Group, in a press release. “Christopher Nolan has once again delivered an event worthy motion picture that demands to be seen on the big screen, and we are thrilled that audiences across the globe are getting the opportunity to see Tenet. Thank you to our exhibition partners for their tireless efforts in reopening their cinemas in a safe and socially-distanced way. Given the unprecedented circumstances of this global release we know we’re running a marathon, not a sprint, and look forward to long playability for this film globally for many weeks to come.”

Nolan’s Tenet Draws Strong $53M International Opening from 41 Markets

Meanwhile, in North America, the domestic box office continued to show optimistic progress as Disney’s long-delayed The New Mutants opened to $7 million from 2,412 screens.

The domestic result is 58 percent below Boxoffice PRO’s final pre-pandemic forecast for the title, which was expected to open at $17 million prior to Covid-19. The current context for theatrical distribution is markedly different, however, given that 62 percent of the domestic market (in terms of grossing potential) is currently available to distributors. Several states have yet to reopen in the U.S., including parts of Arizona, California, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and North Carolina. Major metropolitan markets outside of the states––such as Miami, Philadelphia, Portland, and Seattle––are also awaiting permission to reopen. This led our publication to revise expectations for this weekend’s opening frame to $7.5 million.

“It’s an encouraging start and another step on the way to a return of moviegoing here in the U.S.,” says Cathleen Taff, Executive Vice President of theatrical distribution, franchise management and business & audience insights at Disney.

Demographic data provided by Disney shows New Mutants skewed 66 percent male in its domestic debut, with moviegoers ages 18-24 (27%) and 25-34 (34%) leading admissions. 

Taff characterizes the opening result as positive given the current market conditions. “We need to recalibrate all of our expectations given the competitive landscape we find ourselves in,” she says. “With markets still down and consumers just starting to see moviegoing as an option, we’re hoping to see it play out in a longer run than we would normally see.”

The film simultaneously opened in 10 material territories overseas––including France, Spain, and previews in the U.K.––adding another $2.9 million to the global haul for a $9.9 million worldwide cume. It finished fourth in France after taking in $1.5 million since opening on Wednesday. Over 90 percent of the French market is currently open and operating at restricted admissions capacity. New Mutants also earned $500k in a third place finish in Spain, where it also opened on Wednesday. Disney cites an 80 percent market capacity in the country, which is also operating at a reduced admissions capacity. 

Originally scheduled for theatrical release in April 2018 by 20th Century Fox, New Mutants was shelved after Disney’s acquisition of Fox––only to see a global pandemic push it even further down the schedule. The film will expand to 20 additional overseas territories next weekend, including Australia, Italy, Mexico, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

Finishing second in the domestic box office, Unhinged brought in $2.6 million from its third frame in North America and second weekend in the United States. The thriller now holds a domestic cume of $8.8 million as it heads into a Labor Day weekend expansion that could potentially include select locations in California.

While New Mutants and Unhinged welcomed audiences back to the multiplex, The Personal History of David Copperfield led the return of specialty titles to the big screen with a $520 thousand launch from 1,360 screens. 

Searchlight Pictures stands out as one of the few specialty distributors to not have shifted any titles to PVOD during the pandemic, a strategy that head of distribution Frank Rodriguez cites as being central to the company’s identity. “We are a theatrical company and happy to be back in theaters,” he tells Boxoffice PRO. “It’s so meaningful for us to help get theaters open.”

Rodriguez credits that patience for what resulted to be an increased screen count for David Copperfield, “Cinemark, AMC, Marcus, Regal…they all asked for a maybe a few more runs than they normally would because they want to help get their theaters open,” he says. “We saw some pretty good results: we did well in cities like Nashville, Knoxville, Orlando, and Dallas. It’s a small measure of success, let’s be honest, because you’re only allowed to have maybe 25 to 30 people in a lot of these auditoriums, but a $400 per-screen average shows there’s some light as we head into next week’s expansion.” Searchlight Pictures is expecting to add 75 to 100 additional locations for Labor Day weekend.

What the Dickens: The Personal History of David Copperfield Heads to the Big Screen

READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD DIRECTOR ARMANDO IANNUCCI

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Movie Theaters in Select California Counties Allowed to Open Starting August 31

California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy plan, announced by Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday, August 28, will allow movie theaters in select counties to open starting Monday, August 31.

The plan organizes California’s counties into four tiers based on their rate of new Covid-19 cases and rate of positive testing. The tiers are labelled purple (widespread), red (substantial), orange (moderate), and yellow (minimal). Starting August 31, indoor movie theaters in counties in the red tier may reopen with limited capacity of 25 percent or 100 people, whichever number is smaller. Theaters within orange counties are limited to 50 percent or 200 people, whichever is smaller. The capacity goes up to 50 percent for theaters in yellow, or minimal, counties.

Purple counties are defined as those with more than seven daily new cases per 100,000 and a positive test rate of more than eight percent. Los Angeles County, as of Saturday the 29th, stands at 12.7 daily new cases per 100,000 and a positive test rate of 5 percent.

As of Saturday, August 29, the majority of the state’s counties, including Los Angeles county, are in the purple, or widespread, stage. Nine California counties—including San Francisco and San Diego—are labelled “red” and are thus allowed to open indoor theaters at 25 percent capacity as early as the 31st.

Tiers are updated on Tuesdays, and a county’s rate of new cases and rate of positive tests must align with the next less-restrictive tier for two consecutive weeks before officially moving to that tier. Counties can also be moved back to a more restrictive tier if numbers worsen for two consecutive weeks. A map of counties and their statuses is available on the official Blueprint for a Safer Economy website.

Masks are legally required to be worn by staff of any business, including cinemas, when interacting in-person with the public or “in any space visited by members of the public, regardless of whether anyone from the public is present at the time.” Additional requirements laid out for theaters include a “thorough cleaning” of high traffic-areas, taking temperatures and/or performing a symptoms check for all staff at the beginning of each shift, and enacting social distancing protocols. The state’s guidelines coincide with the health and safety protocols adopted by over 300 US exhibitors in the nationwide CinemaSafe program. Detailed information on California’s requirements for theaters and family entertainment centers to open can be found here.

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Long Range Box Office Forecast: Christopher Nolan’s Tenet

When last this column was published on a regular basis, we had the unfortunate distinction of reporting delayed release dates for major films in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a much happier turn of events for the industry and movie lovers everywhere, though, theaters are resuming operations and we’re back with the first long range forecast in over five months.

The Long and Winding Road… to Tenet

Regular readers likely remember this column would typically focus major wide releases eight weeks out on the calendar, as well as updated forecasts and tracking for other major titles throughout that window. For reasons which seem fairly obvious, but ones this report will break down a bit more, the structure of the column will be temporarily different until we reach a point on the calendar where at least one major wide release is slated on any given weekend.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll also be narrowing the inclusion of films in this public forecast to those scheduled roughly one month out as forecasting models continue to adapt during exhibition’s reopening phases. This week, we’re focusing on the imminent launch of the movie seemingly everyone has speculated and opined about all summer long.

That film, of course, is Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

His latest original blockbuster is just beginning its international release as we speak, and will soon hit domestic theaters with special sneak previews on August 31, September 1, and September 2 before going into wide release on September 3 in markets deemed safe. We’ll have full daily and weekly coverage and reports on earnings when they are confirmed by the studio and/or reliable sources.

The State of the Market

That phrase “deemed safe” is an important element to factor into any forecast for Tenet and films slated for release in the near future. Entering the weekend of August 28, approximately 62 percent of theaters in the total grossing market are open domestically, and that excludes major states like California and New York alongside New Jersey, parts of Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Maryland, and New Mexico. Metro area theaters like Seattle, Miami, Portland, and Philadelphia also remain closed.

With that in mind, early pre-sales trends for Tenet have been very encouraging since they began last week. Viewed alongside the positive trends from overseas markets, domestic audience demand for a big new release in cinemas is driving hope for Nolan’s film to wash over the market in a very unique way.

For months, the common expectation has been that moviegoers will return to theaters in waves. Those most eager to return will show up within the opening days and weeks, while others more cautious (or those simply not near an open theater yet) will wait out the initial reopening and come back sometime further down the line.

That has been the throughline and the reasoning behind Tenet‘s constant status as the linchpin for exhibition’s reboot. Theaters need new product to bring audiences back, and as delays mounted throughout the summer, so did the wait for Nolan and Warner Bros.’ highly anticipated release.

As the restart has shown a slow-and-steady return of patrons during the first week so far, it’s clear that there are a number of scenarios we could see play out when Tenet hits.

Nolan’s Box Office History

Earlier this summer, we looked back at the track record of the filmmaker and his impact on popular cinema. Now, we can finally dive into the numbers a bit more and — hopefully — glean some meaning for Tenet‘s prospects.

Under normal circumstances, it’s likely the film would be readying for a traditional weekend release that would register north of $50 million domestically. The average debut weekend of Nolan’s last three original films (Inception, Interstellar, and Dunkirk) is $53.6 million. At $62.8 million, the former of that trio is the highest — and probably the most relevant comparison to Tenet given the global scale and action/espionage genre commonalities.

These aren’t normal circumstances, though. With some major markets yet to turn the lights back on, seating capacities limited by social distancing, a mid-week release strategy, and the variable element of how quickly consumers will return to theaters, we cannot expect the kind of opening this film would have ordinarily had — and we certainly will not be able to judge the success of its debut on opening weekend alone.

Staying Power: Before and During COVID-19

In fact, it may be weeks or months before we can fully contextualize whatever Tenet achieves at the box office. Nolan’s films are historically leggy to begin with, despite his own fan following that tend to show up in the early days, achieving an average domestic multiplier of 4.13x from opening weekend earnings.

That figure is well above the average of most tentpoles (especially franchise films), and is probably just a base line for how long Tenet‘s runway ends up being. The film is locked in to IMAX and premium screens for at least a month before Wonder Woman 1984 is scheduled to open in early October, and even then, only a handful of films are slated for wide release between Tenet‘s September 3 nationwide roll-out and the November 6 launch of Disney / Marvel’s Black Widow. That’s two months of wide open market space.

Already, theater owners are booking Tenet on as many screen as necessary to accommodate social distancing and demand for the movie itself. Sell-outs (particularly in IMAX and premium formats) are being reported for the film’s preview shows as fans scoop up tickets for the sneak previews and beyond.

Our parent company’s Showtimes Dashboard reports that Tenet accounts for 41 percent of booked films between Monday, August 31 and Sunday, September 6 — Tenet‘s first full week domestically. That’s more than the next four films — The New Mutants (19 percent), Unhinged (10 percent), The Personal History of David Copperfield (7 percent), and Words on Bathroom Walls (4 percent) — combined.

Clearly, and understandably, theater owners are prepared in case Tenet over-indexes as the first tentpole release in over seven months and draws significantly higher attendance than conservative models predict may be the case at first. Capacity in larger theaters shouldn’t be an issue (even with social distancing), and nor will be the need for the film to keep those screens and showtimes if a more staggered return is adopted by moviegoers throughout the fall.

Essentially, the advantage here is that Tenet doesn’t need to bow at anything resembling traditional blockbuster numbers. Slow and steady wins the race, and Warner Bros. has worked closely with theaters to ensure the film has every chance — and as much time as it needs — to succeed.

Opening Week Scenarios

Based on continuously adaptive models that strive to account for market availability and fluid consumer sentiment, we’re currently forecasting Tenet will exceed $25 million by the end of its first domestic weekend (September 6). With unconfirmed reports that Canada’s results from the August 28 weekend will be rolled into the United States numbers at some point next week, it’s likely that figure could go even higher.

Factoring in the non-traditional Thursday wide release, the above target would likely translate to a Friday-Sunday weekend between $15 million and $20 million. More bullish modelling and active pre-sales observations, however, suggest the overall seven-day figure (Monday through Sunday) could approach $35 million. That would include a projected three-day weekend around $25 million. (We’ll be revisiting these projections with next week’s Weekend Forecast column.)

In all cases above, a strong Sunday performance is accounted for given Labor Day will land on Monday, September 7. From Thursday, September 3 onward, we are projecting at least 2,400 domestic theaters will screen the film. It’s possible that estimate will increase as major chains aim for a third wave of re-openings in time for Tenet‘s holiday weekend showcase.

Long-Term Perspectives

If opening week and weekend are challenging to forecast in the era of COVID-19, the picture becomes even less transparent when discussing Tenet‘s long term playability.

First and foremost, word of mouth will be a key factor — for the film itself, and the experience of moviegoers as they visit cinemas for the first time. The industry has adopted and enforced a number of health and safety protocols, and it will be important for early returnees to spread the good word about feeling safe in theaters to their friends and family.

As for the movie itself, critics’ reviews are generally in line with some of Nolan’s most popular films, so the safe assumption is that Tenet will be another in his library of films which draws repeat viewings and, hopefully, interest from those who aren’t frequent moviegoers.

From there, and with the earlier notes in mind regarding minimal competition and Nolan’s staying power, we can start to see how Tenet can open well (in relative terms) and still end up playing like the super leggy blockbusters of old. It may not be a year-long run like those of Star Wars or Back to the Future… but never say never, these days.

Even with Wonder Woman 1984 and Black Widow in mind for October and November, it’s a safe bet that Tenet will still be playing in theaters come the final two months of the year. That would give it 17 weeks by the end of December, and that’s still considering No Time to Die and Dune will target similar audiences with their respective holiday corridor releases should they stick (as well as Pixar’s Soul, which will further target available premium screens).

For perspective, the shortest run by any of Nolan’s three original films post-Dark Knight was Dunkirk at 18 weeks. Interstellar ran for 20, while Inception was king of the crop with 25 weeks during its original 2010 run. Non-Nolan comparison points here should also include fall prestige titles like The Martian (24 weeks) and Gravity (31 weeks). In fact, given Tenet‘s newfound home in September, it’s arguably more of a fall tentpole the likes of those latter two films than a summer one as was originally intended.

So long as the industry doesn’t experience more significant setbacks due to the virus, we can somewhat safely presume a theatrical tail of at least 20 weeks for Tenet — perhaps closer to Gravity‘s 31 weeks if the film draws a high rate of repeat viewings and/or significant award season buzz, which will extend further into 2021 than usual. And while we hope for the best and no more major titles leave 2020, any delay of a major film in October, November, or even December would extend Tenet‘s box office life span to some extent as well.

Not to be forgotten in all of the math: those markets which have yet to open. New York and California, especially, could provide measurable boosts to theatrical — and Tenet‘s, by extension — attendance at some point in the coming weeks.

Week-to-Week Scenarios

From there, we can look at how similar films have performed week to week. Through its first seven weeks, Inception dropped an average of just 36 percent with every seven-day period. As fall and early winter releases boosted by award seasons and holidays, Gravity (32 percent), Interstellar (29 percent), and The Martian (29 percent) fared even better.

When expanding out to a full 25 weeks, the outlook is even stronger. Adjusting for theater expansions and other variables, the average drop of those four films over the course of 25 weeks was just 27 percent. And again, those were all during times of normal movie-going patterns and the nature of front-loaded performance trends.

Given the nature of films to experience stronger holds the later they are into their runs, that means Tenet could get ahead of the curve for the first few weeks if it meets the expectation of not opening to the same kinds of upfront numbers as those other hit films. With all of the reasoning mentioned here, that seems more than achievable.

With that said, if the film can reach our current forecasts for the opening seven days in North America, even an average week-to-week drop of 20 percent through the end of December would still get the film pretty close to Dunkirk and Interstellar‘s original runs of $188 million each. A five percent improvement to an average 15 percent weekly drop would push Tenet north of $210 million stateside.

A multitude of scenarios exist, and this only covers the domestic market for a film that indisputably should be (and is) viewed as global player. 64 percent of Dunkirk‘s global gross in 2017 was earned overseas, versus 66 percent for Inception a full decade ago. With China a much more significant player now, it’s conceivable that close to 70 percent of Tenet‘s earnings will come from outside North America. This is why the international market was so crucial in the studio’s decision to launch the film when overseas theatrical markets were operating and ready for new product before the United States was.

Based on similar modeling leading the film to a potential $200 million-plus domestic gross, that would translate to at least $700 million globally — a figure that may seem to hard to fathom after months of human tragedy, economic turmoil, quarantine and general doom and gloom. But, perhaps for those very reasons, it is an achievable goal as the first major film to welcome audiences back .

These forecasts are volatile by nature, and it’s easy to argue that they don’t represent the worst or even the best case scenarios. As we’ve all learned throughout the course of 2020, though, nothing is guaranteed. Theaters are open, though. While, understandably, not everyone will come back at the same time, many people are ready to (safely) leave the real world behind for a few hours of entertainment and escapism — and Tenet‘s time has come.

This Week’s Release Calendar Updates

• The Broken Hearts Gallery (Sony / Columbia) has been re-dated for September 11, 2020 (previously unset).
  
  
• The King’s Man (Disney / 20th Century Studios) has been re-scheduled for February 26, 2021 (formerly September 18, 2020).
  
  
• Nomadland (Disney / Searchlight Studios) has been dated for December 4, 2020 (limited release).

Long Range Forecast / 8-Week Wide Release Calendar

Release Date	Title	3-Day (FSS) Opening Range	% Chg from Last Week	Domestic Total Range	% Chg from Last Week	Estimated Location Count	Distributor
8/31/2020	Tenet	$15,000,000 – $35,000,000	NEW	$150,000,000 – $300,000,000	NEW	2,400+	Warner Bros.
9/11/2020	The Broken Hearts Gallery	$3,000,000 – $8,000,000	NEW	$15,000,000 – $35,000,000	NEW		Sony / Columbia
9/18/2020	Infidel					1,800	Cloudburst Entertainment
9/25/2020	Greenland	$5,000,000 – $10,000,000	NEW	$20,000,000 – $40,000,000	NEW		STX
10/2/2020	Wonder Woman 1984						Warner Bros.
10/9/2020	Honest Thief						Open Road
10/9/2020	The War with Grandpa						101 Studios
10/16/2020	2 Hearts						Freestyle Releasing
10/16/2020	Candyman (2020)						Universal
10/16/2020	The Courier						Roadside Attractions
10/23/2020	Connected						Sony / Columbia
10/23/2020	Death on the Nile (2020)						20th Century Studios
10/23/2020	Snake Eyes						Paramount

For press inquiries, please contact Shawn Robbins

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Thursday Night Report: New Mutants Earns $750K from Domestic Previews

August 28 Update: Disney reports this morning that The New Mutants earned an estimated $750K from domestic previews that began at 6pm Thursday night.

Comparisons may be somewhat strained at this stage for all of the reasons previously discussed in regards to the theatrical re-opening and recovery process during the era of COVID-19, including the fact that — while relatively low profile for the genre — this remains a film with inherent pent-up demand from some franchise fans.

With that caveat in mind, New Mutants‘ Thursday night take was generally in line with expectations ahead of release and in step with the last Thursday previews reported before the industry’s shutdown back in March. At the time, Bloodshot, I Still Believe, and The Hunt opened to $1.2 million, $780K, and $435K, respectively.

New Mutants‘ Thursday performance also registered ahead of other horror-thriller pics released in early 2020, such as The Turning ($425K), Gretel and Hansel ($475K), and Brahms: The Boy 2 ($375K). Compared to summer genre films, the X-Men spin-off came in north of last August’s 47 Meters Down: Uncaged ($500K).

More updates to follow throughout the weekend. Check out our earlier Weekend Forecast here.

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What the Dickens: The Personal History of David Copperfield Heads to the Big Screen

Director Armando Iannucci returns to the big screen, following 2017’s The Death of Stalin and 2009’s Oscar-nominated In the Loop, with The Personal History of David Copperfield. The Charles Dickens adaptation—which tells the tale of a young man (Dev Patel) suffering through numerous changes in fortune in 19th-century England—had its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2019. A U.K. release came in January 2020, and a North American bow was scheduled for May. And then … we don’t need to tell you what happened.  

Luckily for fans of witty, colorful costume dramas, The Personal History of David Copperfield is still heading to theaters—this time on August 28, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. In advance of the film’s foray into newly opened cinemas, Iannucci took the time to speak to Boxoffice Pro.

The following conversation was conducted on June 26. It has been edited for length and clarity. 

Before we start, I have to thank you. The Personal History of David Copperfield was the last film I saw on the big screen before everything stopped.

Before the end times.

Yes! It was a really good note to end on. Since then, some films have been going straight to VOD instead of theaters—was that ever a possibility for David Copperfield?

Well, we talked about it. The fundamental issue was that no one knew what was going to happen. Obviously, everyone’s concerned. Uppermost, really, was safety. The May release, perfectly understandably, was deferred. And we just kept talking about dates. I think everyone knew that I, particularly, didn’t want to go into theaters when it still felt too raw and too fresh. The August date stands at the moment, but if things change—film isn’t as important as stopping this pandemic and making sure everyone is safe. I’m pleased that we’ve got a date. But I know that everyone’s going to keep reviewing it and making sure that it’s all safe.

 Avenue 5, your sci-fi comedy television series [in which a group of tourists are stranded on a spaceship], finished its first season on HBO in March. What else have you been up to during quarantine?

Fortunately, we’ve been writing season two of Avenue 5. I miss the fun of having everyone in the room and bouncing ideas off each other. We’ve had to do that remotely, and it sort of works, but it just feels a bit odd. Avenue 5 is about lots of people trapped in a situation they can’t get out of, with no real leaders. So it’s a bit painfully close to home. But I’m glad I’ve had something to fill my days with, because I sympathize with anyone who’s just been stuck at home, unable to work. That sense of lack of structure can be quite interesting and useful for a week or so. But by the time you get to week 11, 12, 13, 14, you really want to get out and run about on a windy hill with a kite [a favored activity of The Personal History of David Copperfield’s Mr. Dick, played by Avenue 5 star Hugh Laurie].

Speaking of the timeliness of Avenue 5—I saw David Copperfield twice: once before everything shut down and once well after. In the second viewing, the issues of class conflict that crop up throughout the story had a bigger impact on me. 

That’s why I wanted to make the film! I’ve always been a huge Dickens fan. I reread the book about 10 years ago, and I was struck by how absolutely contemporary it felt. It felt so modern. It also had, in Mr. Dick, a really honest and open discussion of mental illness and the burdens it brings. And, yes, wealth and poverty existing side by side in the street. And this kind of—I suppose the modern expression would be status anxiety, imposter syndrome, that whole thing of, do I fit in? Do I belong? Have I made the right friends? What do they think of me? Have I made the right life decisions? The whole book is about a search for identity. 

David goes from fortune to fortune and household to household, being given different names by people. He’s trying to work out who he is. And it’s only when he realizes he’s a writer, that he has to write his memory and his experience down, that [he realizes] who he is. So it’s a deeply modern, contemporary book. That was my gut feeling, turning it into a movie. I didn’t want to do a modern version of it. I wanted to set it very much in its time. But I wanted people in the theater to feel that at any point they could just stand up and walk into it and feel a part of it, feel that they connected with the people in the film. 

Photo by Dean Rogers. © 2019 Twentieth Century. All Rights Reserved

Uriah Heep [a servant who takes advantage of people on his way up the social ladder] is an interesting character. He does awful things, but when he says he doesn’t want to bow and scrape to people just because he happens to have been born into a different class—he’s not wrong.

Yes! And I think it’s right that you feel a little sorry for him. At times, I think David is a little bit unreasonably cruel to him, in order to remain friends with Steerforth [his upper-class friend, played by Aneurin Barnard] and so on. And that’s what I took from reading the book. Dev and I and Ben [Whishaw, who plays Uriah], we discussed that actually [Uriah] is about the same age as David, and they started off with roughly similar circumstances. So it’s almost like he is a mirror image of David. Or he’s what David might have become if he had taken a slightly different path or decided to advance himself a different way. He’s there as a kind of warning to David.

I’ve always been fascinated by heroes and villains who are not a hundred percent heroic or a hundred percent villainous. That ambiguity, that sense of, that could be me. The vulnerability in it. I think that’s far more interesting than a two-dimensional, “this is good and this is bad.” That was very much a conscious decision that we wanted to keep. I think it becomes all the more unnerving because of it. [Uriah’s behavior isn’t] a grotesque caricature based on very base, animalistic instinct. There’s a survival instinct that’s gone a little bit the wrong way.

Watching the other characters be cruel to him is really uncomfortable. 

That’s what Dickens does in quite a few of his books. The opening lines of this film and the book are, “Whether I turn out to be the hero of this story …” There’s a question mark. And Dickens is very interested in making the hero vulnerable. In Great Expectations, the hero becomes the snob. He looks down on people who have less money than him. Great Expectations was a later novel, but you can see that in David Copperfield. 

The childhood scenes in Copperfield are based very much on Dickens’s own childhood. But he kept that quiet. He didn’t tell people it was based on him, because he was ashamed. That sense of trying to hide from other people’s opinions is all there. And therefore, we wanted David to make jokes at the expense of the people who’ve been looking after him. To do impressions of Mr. Wickfield [played by Benedict Wong] for the other people in the school. None of us are perfect, and all of us try and play to the crowd in order to get approval. 

Photo by Dean Rogers. © 2019 Twentieth Century. All Rights Reserved

Like you said, he has impostor syndrome and he’s trying to fit in.

Dev and I spoke about it when I asked him to be David. He talked about the fact that he came from an immigrant Indian family, but born in Britain. Similarly, I’m from an Italian immigrant family, but born in Britain. In the 19th century, whether you are in or whether you are out is based on wealth and money and class, whereas today, identity’s determined by a host of other things as well. What job you do. Ethnicity. All these questions.

Having a racially diverse cast helps with modernizing the story without straight-up making a modern version.

It wasn’t part of a deliberate—the only person I could think of to play David was Dev. As an actor, as a performer, as a presence, he embodied David Copperfield and all that I want to portray about David: his optimism, his energy, his sense of humor, the pathos. He’s in every scene. He’s the heart of the film. You have to do impressions. You have to do slapstick. You have to do romance. You have to do tragedy. You have to do poverty. Everything. I could only think of Dev. When Dev said yes, a) I was relieved, because I didn’t have a plan B. But I also thought, that’s how I must cast everyone. Find the actor who best contains the spirit of that character, irrespective of what their background is or what acting tradition they’re in. Because in fact, when you analyze it, the whole film is about community and friendship. It’s about loving those who are your friends and being friends with those that you love. People of all sorts of different backgrounds, caring for each other because they’re part of a community. 

Photo by Dean Rogers. © 2019 Twentieth Century. All Rights Reserved

You’ve done both film and TV. How do you decide which medium fits a particular project? Because, obviously, there have been a ton of limited-series adaptations of Dickens.

 [David Copperfield is] actually such a poetic, lyrical book—it’s a book about language and imagination and memory and how memory plays tricks on you and [how] things that you remember, when you revisit them, are actually different. I felt this had to be a film, because I had to have a sense of structure, and you had to experience it as a life being lived. And I think you can only do that in one, continuous viewing rather than in episodic viewing. 

And also, I want it to be in the cinemas. It’s a big canvas, a big stage. It has so many speaking parts and so many characters in such a big, colorful world. To me, it always felt like a film. It is also an 800-page book. So the challenge was in coming up with an adaptation that fulfills that criteria of having a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that kind of drive-through narrative, a thematic development that really keeps propelling you forward. So that was the difficult part in terms of the script. And that was about being true to the spirit of the book, but not feeling absolutely over-reverential about the plot. We’ve changed the story lines of various people. We’ve got rid of certain characters. We’ve compressed certain characters into one. This is a film that I want people to come to feeling they don’t have to read the book. They don’t need to know anything about Dickens or the period or anything. I want people to feel fully immersed in this film from start to finish. 

You’ve been passionate about the need to help cultural institutions that are in very real trouble right now. I’m wondering how you feel about the exhibition community in the U.K., specifically independent and art house theaters. 

One of the reasons I’m pleased that we now have a date in the U.S. is—Searchlight was telling me that a lot of the independent theaters were very keen to have the film as one of their first films on reopening, because they need to get people back in. The larger cinema chains, I think, can cope temporarily with slightly reduced numbers, but the art house theaters need continuous custom. 

In the U.K., it’s live theater, live music, live-performance venues that I’m really worried about, because they are going to be the very, very last ones to open up. For sound, scientific reasons. But for that reason, they are the ones that are going to need the support. Because if there’s one thing people have really come to value during this lockdown, it’s the arts. It’s you streaming Netflix, it’s you downloading a movie, it’s you reading a book. It’s that sense of the creative output that we have so long taken for granted. But it’s helped get us through this, and it’s helped sustain us mentally and emotionally. It would be a terrible tragic end to the situation, if when we all open up, the creative industries have died around us. Because they’re what helped get us through our moments of isolation.

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Harkins Theatres to Reopen All Arizona Locations This Friday

Harkins Theatres has announced it will reopen all Arizona locations this Friday, Aug. 28. Available films will include The New Mutants, Unhinged, the 10^th anniversary rerelease of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and several films whose runs in theaters were cut short by the pandemic. It will additionally screen a variety of classic films for $5 and begin early access screenings of Tenet on Monday, Aug. 31.

The reopened theaters will put in place a number of health and safety protocols that “meet or exceed uniform guidance from the CDC, governmental health authorities, and the National Association of Theatre Owners,” according to a release. These protocols include mandatory face coverings for guests and employees, except while eating or drinking in seats; mandatory social distancing; additional cleaning staff and enhanced cleaning and sanitizing procedures; daily health checks for employees; reserved and socially distant seating; staggered showtimes to reduce the number of guests in lobbies; safety shields at all customer interaction points; increased fresh air, hospital-grade MERV 13 air filters, and HEPA filtered vacuums in all auditoriums; and more.

“There is no question that this has been the most difficult time in my 50 plus years in the business,” said Harkins Theatres owner Dan Harkins. “I am so excited and so appreciative of our incredible team and tremendously loyal guests that have continued to support us through this challenging time. I will be there opening night and cannot wait to welcome everyone back to the movies!”

“In trying times, people have always looked to us to escape for just a few hours of solace and to immerse themselves in another world,” added Harkins president and CEO Mike Bowers. “After nearly six months, we are so happy and deeply grateful to our team and our valued guests for the opportunity to carefully begin our return to deliver on this mission again.”

The Harkins announcement comes as hard top theaters begin opening back up across the U.S. Yesterday, AMC Theatres announced it would reopen an additional 170 North American locations this Thursday after resuming business at 100 cinemas the week prior. To address safety concerns among the general public, earlier this week the nation’s largest exhibitor joined fellow members of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) to unveil CinemaSafe, a protocol of uniform health and safety guidelines to be instituted across 315 cinema operators.

For more information about Harkins Theatres reopening plans and to purchase tickets, visit Harkins.com.

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New Hampshire’s Wilton Town Hall Theatre Hosts a Week of Silent Movie Comedies

Want to forget the 2020s and return to the 1920s? Last week, the Wilton Town Hall Theatre in New Hampshire held five consecutive days of silent film screenings with live musical accompaniment.

The two-screen location, with about 200 seats in the main auditorium and 68 in the screening room, reopened in July with a combination of newer releases (Irresistible and Emma) and repertory titles (1776 and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World). With attendance not reaching the levels they’d hoped for, the cinema decided to double down on their hit Sunday silent film series, which usually runs about twice a month.

“Those are films you really need to experience in a theater with other people,” pianist and musical accompanist Jeff Rapsis explained in an interview. “It was my idea to do a whole week of them. We decided comedy was the way to go. The Douglas Fairbanks films we’d been running this year had been swashbuckling action adventures. But boy, do we need to laugh right now.”

From Monday, August 10 to Friday, August 14, the cinema showed 1926’s The General starring Buster Keaton, 1926’s Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, 1921’s The Kid starring Charlie Chaplin, 1922’s Grandma’s Boy, and 1928’s Steamboat Bill Jr.

According to numbers provided by owner and operator Dennis Markaverich, Steamboat proved the best-attended film—no doubt helped by its Friday night slot—while Tramp was the least-attended, which Markaverich blamed on that day’s heat wave. (It was the hottest day of the week in New Hampshire, with a high of 95 degrees.)

“I’m not just accompanying the film. I’m accompanying the audience, as well,” Rapsis explains. “If you start playing really loud and fast all at once, you step on the laughter that the audience makes. Sometimes the laughter grows and builds, but if the music is too loud, that doesn’t happen. You have to start quiet, almost like a nursery rhyme.”

Back in the 1920s, “There was no official score. They didn’t send around sheet music. So it was up to local musicians to create the right kind of music for that theater, that town, that area. It could differ widely, and people would choose to go to a theater because of the music,” Rapsis continues. “So I take pride in never really repeating myself. Each performance is a unique custom-made thing, like what a jazz musician might do.”

Admission was $10, with an additional optional donation jar in the middle of the lobby. Three people attending all five screenings. “I wanted to give them a toaster or something,” says Rapsis, who also chose the five films. “I have some favorites from that era too,” Markaverich laughs, “but I would probably make the wrong choice!” 

Next weekend they’ll continue their silent film series with 1920’s The Mask of Zorro on Saturday, August 29 and 1925’s sequel Don Q, Son of Zorro on Sunday, August 30, both at 2 P.M. Admission is free, though a $10 donation is suggested.

Wilton Town Hall Theatre has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, and like all cinemas during the COVID-19 pandemic, this year hasn’t been their easiest financially. “Just in the past six months, I finally gave up doing newspaper ads,” Markaverich admits. “But I’ve been managing here for 47 years… and I intend to be here another 47 years.”

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AMC to Open Second Wave of U.S. Movie Theaters This Weekend

Citing a “successful reopening” for its first wave of 100 theaters, AMC has announced the reopening of 170 additional U.S. locations this Thursday, August 27.

AMC reopened its first 100 locations—spread across 19 states and Washington, DC—on Thursday, August 20. Today’s announcement will have close to 300 AMC locations open for the Friday, August 28 release of The New Mutants. Boxoffice Pro’s weekend forecast, made before the announcement of AMC’s second wave, puts The New Mutants at a $5 million-$10 million debut weekend.

AMC plans to have approximately two-thirds of its approximately 600 U.S. locations open in time for the September 3 release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

A complete list of the theaters in AMC’s second wave can be found here; they include the first AMC locations to reopen in Montana, South Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Utah.

“We are grateful for the positive feedback we have been receiving about our guests’ desire to see movies on the big screen at AMC, and about our extensive AMC Safe & Clean policies and procedures,” said AMC CEO and president Adam Aron. “Our comprehensive commitment to operating our theaters safely now includes social distancing through limiting ticket sales and automatic seat blocking, seamless contactless ticketing, greatly enhanced cleaning procedures, the availability of hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes throughout our theaters, as well as a mandatory mask policy for all guests and crew members. In addition, we have invested millions for high tech solutions to sanitization and disinfection including electrostatic sprayers, HEPA vacuums and MERV 13 air filters. Guests returning to AMC can do so knowing that we’ve been in constant dialogue with top scientists and experts in public health and cleaning about how best to reopen our theaters in ways that will be responsible and welcoming.”

In addition to AMC’s Safe & Clean program, the chain has signed on to NATO’s CinemaSafe program, a recently announced slate of health and safety guidelines adopted by 315 exhibitors in the U.S.. “With so many different guidelines in different states, we believe it is critical that movie theaters commit to following basic guidelines no matter where they are, so moviegoers can return to their favorite pastime with confidence in our commitment to their health and safety,” said NATO president and CEO John Fithian at the time of CinemaSafe’s unveiling.

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Weekend Forecast: The New Mutants Targets $5M+ Domestic Debut As Exhibition’s Restart Continues; Tenet Begins Overseas Rollout with Healthy Pre-Sales Reports

We’re almost one week into exhibition’s restart across the United States, and early results have been encouraging. Solstice Studios successfully launched Unhinged to $4 million last weekend from 1,823 locations, landing at the high end of expectations even with seating capacities in play and not quite reaching the projected 2,000-theater count.

With the first wide release in the COVID-19 recovery era under the industry’s belt, we now look to the next marker for progress: the first wide release from a major studio, Disney and 20th Century Studios’ The New Mutants.

A Long Road to Release

Fans and astute followers of the business are well aware of this film’s dodgy history over the past few years. The film, an off-shoot of Fox’s X-Men franchise featuring characters never before introduced on screen, was originally set to debut in April 2018. For reasons varying between re-shoots, rumored story changes, avoiding competition with other films, and ultimately, the Disney buyout of 20th Century Fox, the film ended up with delays to February 2019, August 2019, and eventually April 2020.

The latter target was the subject of our Long Range Forecast at one point earlier this year, but of course, the pandemic resulted in that release also being nixed.

At long last, though, The New Mutants will see the light of day this weekend — albeit, under very different circumstances than it would have before.

Box Office Expectations

Our aforementioned forecast for the film (two months out from release) originally called for an opening weekend between $15 million and $25 million, and a domestic finish between $35 million and $55 million. The latter range could still be a reasonable expectation, but the former is almost certainly off the table with the current realities facing exhibition and the restart of moviegoing.

The good news is that a second wave of stateside theatrical re-openings will arrive this weekend as major chains continue to expand their footprint of resumed operations. Disney confirmed to us that 62 percent of the domestic market, in terms of total grossing capacity, will be open this weekend. That share is on par with recent expectations in the restart as the industry builds towards Tenet‘s domestic release next week.

States such as California, New York, New Jersey, Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Maryland, and New Mexico — as well as regional city areas Seattle, Miami, Portland, and Philadelphia — remain closed, though. That should again help many drive-in locations perform very well this weekend, as was the case with Unhinged‘s top performing markets in densely populated areas during its first U.S. frame.

Pre-sales for The New Mutants have been encouraging at face value, but we emphasize the pressing need to throw every comparison out the window for the foreseeable future until consumer habits return to something resembling normal.

Compounding the unique situation of the current time, this is a film that was already facing the challenge of releasing soon after Dark Phoenix — a film that underwhelmed at the box office in a notable way for such a big franchise. Mutants also lacks a unified marketing identity for casual moviegoers given the widespread fan knowledge that it has nothing to do with the Marvel Cinematic Universe curated by Disney, who are now distributing this film after inheriting it in the Fox deal. It is, essentially, the last of Fox’s X-Men era.

The upside: moviegoers comfortable with returning to theaters are starved for new content, and the franchise’s branding could at least help Mutants build upon the kind of opening Unhinged put on display as a completely original title. The lack of competition will be a benefit for any film releasing right now, but we still expect a much less front-loaded run even for a series well known to burn off much of its demand in the opening days.

The New Mutants will open in approximately 2,400 domestic locations this weekend, including 205 IMAX screens, 450 Premium Large Format auditoriums, and 75 D-Box/4D screens. Preview shows will start on Thursday evening at 6pm, picking up the pre-pandemic trend of early weekend lead-ins.

According to The Boxoffice Company’s Showtimes Dashboard, New Mutants currently represents 30 percent of all booked shows among reporting theaters (1,744 in this film’s case, as of Wednesday morning) between Thursday night and the end of Sunday. That leads Unhinged (17 percent), The Personal History of David Copperfield (9 percent), and Words on Bathroom Walls (7 percent), and Inception (4 percent). Notably, Bill & Ted Face the Music — receiving a simultaneous PVOD and theatrical opening this weekend — accounts for 3 percent of showtimes from 475 locations.

Based on continuously adaptive models during this recovery process of theatrical operations that aim to weigh seating capacities, market availability, and other factors as best as possible, we are currently forecasting a domestic opening weekend between $5 million and $10 million — with a heavy lean toward the low-to-middle end of that range, particularly given the lack of reviews available..

As noted, it’s probably safe to expect a longer tail beyond opening weekend than usual with very few new releases entering the market before October and an eased return to cinemas by patrons. (Disney itself cites a recent poll that 40 percent of moviegoers are comfortable returning to the theaters immediately.)

Internationally, New Mutants will open day and date in France, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Unhinged will expand to an estimated 2,300 locations domestically this weekend. If it follows the pattern of holdover performances in other countries to date, a weekend north of $2.5 million looks very likely, potentially hitting $3 million or more. It will lose many of its premium screens to The New Mutants, though.

Domestic Weekend Forecast Ranges

• The New Mutants ($5 – 10 million opening)
• Unhinged ($2.5 – $3.5 million)

Tenet Begins Global Rollout with International Release

Not to be forgotten (how could it?) is the much anticipated start of Tenet‘s theatrical run in international markets this week.

The roll-out begins with 25 territories on August 26 (including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Spain, and Christopher Nolan’s home base of the United Kingdom). Another 12 will open over August 27 and August 28, leading up to the United States launch on September 3 alongside Russia, followed by China on September 4. Brazil and Mexico will follow on September 10, followed by Japan on September 18.

Given the important nature of this film’s meaning to the global exhibition market, expectations are conservative for the opening days of play with virtually all parties involved planning for a months-long run fueled by the film’s event-level status and forthcoming word of mouth. Nolan’s films are historically leggy to begin with, so it stands to reason that these expectations are quite realistic in a market with only one other major tentpole (October’s Wonder Woman 1984) opening before November.

That being said, Warner Bros. is mum on details thus far and various sources have told us not to expect box office reports from the international release until late this weekend at the earliest. From there, coupled with sneak previews in the United States on August 31, September 1, and September 2 (which have shown strong pre-sales trends, as have other overseas markets), we can expect to be able to report on the film’s initial box office performance by — hopefully — early next week, leading into the official domestic wide release before Labor Day weekend.

Based on very preliminary numbers, pre-sales, sneak preview earnings in Australia earlier this week, and the success of lower profile openers in various countries throughout the summer, it’s conceivable that Tenet could net $35 million or more internationally by Sunday’s close of business. Again, though, the rule book of forecasting right now is that there is no rule book.

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The Eight Hundred Drives IMAX’s Top Box Office Day of 2020 in China on Tuesday; Love You Forever Bows to $38M Opening in Middle Kingdom

IMAX reports that the continued success of Huayi Brothers’ The Eight Hundred in China resulted in the company’s top performing box office day of the year in the country, posting $2.7 million from 647 screens on Tuesday. That figure accounted for 10 percent of the day’s nationwide gross on the film, $27 million.

To date, The Eight Hundred has earned $11 million from IMAX venues in China, representing 6.6 percent of the film’s $163 million total through Tuesday’s close of business.

Meanwhile, China’s Valentine’s Day holiday helped fuel more strong results on Tuesday with the release of Love You Forever. The local title claimed first place with $38 million on opening day, providing another strong example of the demand for returning to theaters in China. As IMAX notes, this demonstrates demand is “not tied to a single blockbuster.”

As The Eight Hundred continues to march on with its strong run, all eyes will now shift toward Tenet‘s international release beginning today (August 26). The Christopher Nolan film is expected to provide the first worldwide, tentpole-level boost to exhibition since reopening over the course of summer. IMAX, in particular, is projected to benefit strongly from the film’s release having been shot entirely with their cameras.

China will see Tenet release on September 4.

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Atom Tickets Launches Ticketing Feature Within Snapchat

Atom Tickets has launched a new ticketing function within Snapchat that allows fans to buy tickets and organize movie nights without leaving the social app.

Available now, Movie Tickets by Atom—what is known as a Snap Mini—gives North American Snapchat users the ability to watch movie trailers, buy tickets, and share their movie night plans with friends directly inside the app. After purchasing a ticket, users can share a post listing the details of the event with individual friends, a group, or to a Snap Story; friends can then click on a link to purchase their own tickets and choose seats nearby via reserved seat maps that include information on socially distanced seating measures adopted by individual theaters. In addition, purchasers can avoid ticket lines by using a QR code from their smartphone for contactless scanning.

Movie Tickets by Atom supports ticketing for all of Atom’s exhibitor partners, including AMC Theatres, Cinemark, Harkins Theaters, National Amusements’ Showcase Cinemas, CMX Cinemas, Landmark Cinemas of Canada, Studio Movie Grill, Malco Theatres, Landmark Theatres, ArcLight Cinemas, and Larry H. Miller Megaplex Theatres.

“With safety measures in place and movie fans eager to return to the movies, we knew the timing was right to launch Atom’s ticketing experience on Snapchat,” said Atom Tickets co-founder and chairman Matthew Bakal in a statement. “We’re happy to provide a safe, contactless digital service that gives movie fans what they want—a little time to escape and enjoy a movie. We’re sure the new Movie Tickets By Atom Mini, which builds upon our existing DNA as a socially driven platform, will make moviegoing easier and bring friends together.”

Today’s announcement follows the results of a recent survey of 16,000 moviegoers conducted by Atom in which 74% said they were ready to return to theaters within the next month and 40% said they were ready to return immediately. The survey also found that the most important safety measures for respondents were spaced seating and wearing masks (both staff and guests).

“We couldn’t be more excited to have Movie Tickets By Atom launch on Snapchat,” added Snap, Inc. director of platform partnerships Alston Cheek. “Atom has built a seamless ecommerce experience for the Snap Minis platform, bringing the best of Atom Tickets to Snapchatters across North America.”

As noted in the release announcing Atom’s new Snapchat feature, the forthcoming theatrical release calendar includes such films as Tenet, Wonder Woman 1984, and Bill & Ted Face the Music. Last weekend, Solstice Studios’ Unhinged became the first major film to release wide in North American theaters since the pandemic began. The Russell Crowe thriller debuted to just over $4 million from 1,823 screens.

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B&B Theatres to Open 14-Screen Jackson, MS Location September 3

The nation’s seventh-biggest domestic exhibitor, B&B Theatres announced the September 3 debut of one of their biggest locations yet in Jackson, Mississippi.

Located within the Northpark shopping center, the Ridgeland Northpark 14 in Jackson will include an MX4D auditorium with motion seating and sensory effects, a ScreenX auditorium with visuals on the two side walls for a 270-degree experience, a screenPlay! auditorium featuring a children’s playground inside, and a Lyric auditorium designed for smaller screenings and available for private events.

The location, which B&B Theatres took over from a former Regal on the property in May 2019, was initially scheduled to open in mid-2020. B&B Theatres announced the closure of all their 50 locations on March 18 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and began reopening some of their locations in drive-in form in early May. This indoor reopening is timed to the release of Warner Bros.’ Tenet, the first major theatrical tentpole to to open post-pandemic.

The chain ranked seventh in Boxoffice PRO‘s annual “Giants of Exhibition 2020” ranking of the largest exhibitors domestically. The Kansas City, Missouri-based company’s locations are scattered across the South and Midwest, including Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.

This new 14-auditorium venue represents the chain’s second location in Mississippi, along with a location in Vicksburg.

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Gold Medal Products Announces Prepackaged Gourmet Popcorn Line

Gold Medal Products has launched a prepackaged gourmet popcorn line that will allow its signature recipes to be sold at retailers, concession stands and more.

The Gold Medal Gourmet Popcorn line is crafted in small batches and “wet popped” in specially-designed oils and seasonings. Its flavors are then mixed in an “artisan fashion” rather than utilizing the commercial spray-on method.

Available flavors include: Old-Fashioned Caramel Corn, Cheddar Cheese Corn, Caramel & Cheese Corn Mix, Movie Theater Style Butter Popcorn and Kettle Corn. Packaging options include a grab-and-go size, larger retail size and bulk. All flavors are Kosher and Halal-certified and gluten free.

“Throughout our 89-year history, Gold Medal has earned a reputation for excellence in the popcorn industry and we are excited to now bring that same unmistakable quality to our ready-to-eat gourmet popcorn line,” said Gold Medal president Adam Browning in a statement.

For more information on the Gourmet Popcorn line and to order, call 800-543-0862 or visit the Gold Medal website at gmpopcorn.com.

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Studio Movie Grill Opens Chisholm Trail Location in Fort Worth, Texas

Studio Movie Grill (SMG) is opening its first Fort Worth location on August 28, a week ahead of the Warner Bros. release of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. The new site will be the circuit’s 14th location in its home state of Texas, adding an additional 12 screens to its existing 353 screens across 10 states in the U.S.

 “With the opening of SMG Chisholm Trail, we are excited to open our doors for the first time in Fort Worth and become the anchor for this exciting new development and serve the surrounding area,” said Studio Movie Grill Founder/CEO, Brian Schultz. “We are continually innovating our concept and pride ourselves on offering much more than just the best in movies and full-service in-theater dining; our mission is to open hearts and minds one story at a time and to serve and support our local communities.”   

SMG will be the anchor tenant of  The Shops at Chisholm Trail Ranch, a new shopping mall in Fort Worth.  The 40,000-square foot theater features 1,200 luxury recliners in 12 auditoriums, outfitted with the NEC laser projectors, and  QSC’s Q-SYS custom sound systems.

“On behalf of the City, I’d like to congratulate Studio Movie Grill on opening its first location in Fort Worth,” said Jungus Jordan, Mayor Pro Tem and Fort Worth City Councilman. Further touting, The Shops at Chisholm Trail Ranch’s anchor tenant is a great addition to our great city!  Not only is it a wonderful entertainment venue but it will also aid in driving traffic to the shopping center. As a luxury movie theatre, Studio Movie Grill should quickly help to invigorate the area, by increasing amenities and offering guests safe, full-service dining options.”

The new location will open at 50 percent capacity due to Covid-19 measures in place across the circuit. A full list of SMG’s Covid-19 guidelines and policies can be found on the circuit’s website.   

A full menu for SMG Chisholm Trail is available online. 

Advance tickets for Tenet and The New Mutants at SMG locations are now on sale. 

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Box Office Gladiator: Charting the Commercial Highs & Lows of Unhinged Star Russell Crowe

Russell Crowe’s next film, the high-octane car chase thriller Unhinged, marks the first major release of the actor’s fourth decade in movies. Upon its Aug. 21 release, it will also be the first major film to debut in North American theaters during the pandemic—not to mention the inaugural title from upstart distributor Solstice Studios, which seems determined to make Unhinged the canary in the coal mine of theatrical exhibition during COVID-19.

Crowe may not be the box office draw he once was, but Unhinged nonetheless revolves around the actor’s still-considerable star power, which has paid dividends over his lucrative Hollywood career. Below, we take a look back at the commercial highs and lows of his weighty filmography.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

In Unhinged, Crowe stars as Tom Cooper, a mentally unstable man who stalks a young mother and her teenage son across America’s roadways. It’s a role that highlights the brand of macho bravado audiences first became familiar with via Crowe’s breakthrough role in L.A. Confidential, in which the actor played no-nonsense Los Angeles police officer Wendell “Bud” White.

Directed by Curtis Hanson, L.A. Confidential opened on Sept. 19, 1997 to rave reviews, many of them singling out Crowe’s ferocious performance. Though it never grossed more than $6 million on any weekend domestically, the film was a steady performer that finished its North American run with $64.62 million and another $61.6 million overseas, bringing its global total to $126.22 million off a $35 million budget. It also scored nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won two. In the aftermath, Crowe—whose previous American film credits included box-office flops The Quick and the Dead and Virtuosity—became part of Hollywood’s new class of leading men.

The Insider (1999)

Following a role in the little-seen ice hockey film Mystery, Alaska, Crowe received his best reviews to date in Michael Mann’s 1999 drama The Insider, in which the actor played Big Tobacco whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand. Though the film was a box office flop—grossing just $29.09 million domestic and $60.29 million worldwide off a bloated $90 million budget—Crowe’s transformative performance netted him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, adding further fuel to his burgeoning super-stardom.

Gladiator (2000)

That super-stardom reached full flower with the release of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, in which Crowe played Roman military officer-turned-slave Maximus Decimus Meridius in full action-hero mode. Opening to a robust $34.83 million in its opening weekend in early May 2000, Gladiator became a bona fide pop culture phenomenon and a leggy box office performer, finishing its run with $187.7 million in North America and $460.58 million worldwide off a budget of $103 million. Its triumph was sealed at the following year’s Oscars, where the film won five out of a whopping 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Crowe.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

The massive success of Gladiator had a transformative effect on Crowe’s career, cementing him as one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men. Though the Dec. 2000 action film Proof of Life failed to catch fire with audiences or critics (and was largely overshadowed by his rumored on-set affair with co-star Meg Ryan), his next film—the Ron Howard-directed drama A Beautiful Mind—was another blockbuster.

Debuting in limited release in late Dec. 2001, A Beautiful Mind grossed $16.57 million in its wide debut in early January and ultimately grossed $170.74 million domestic and $313.54 million worldwide off a $58 million budget. Widely praised for his performance as mathematician John Nash, whose struggles with paranoid schizophrenia were a focus of the film, Crowe again received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Though he ultimately lost, A Beautiful Mind would take home four Academy Awards, including Best Picture—the second year in a row in which Crowe starred in the winning film.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

Following the release of A Beautiful Mind, Crowe would not appear in another movie for nearly two years. He re-emerged with the laboriously-titled Napoleonic Wars drama Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, in which the actor starred as a Royal Navy captain who doggedly pursues a French war ship off the coast of South America.

Though it opened to a decent $25.11 million in North America, the Peter Weir-directed film was expensive (its budget was reported to be $150 million), and it ultimately failed to catch on with audiences in the way either Gladiator or A Beautiful Mind had. It finished its run with $93.93 million domestic and $211.62 million worldwide—impressive numbers for nearly any other film, but disappointing for one with such a hefty price tag. Nonetheless, Master and Commander snagged ten Academy Award nominations the following year, including Best Picture, and won two including Best Cinematography. A nod for Crowe—such a favorite with awards voters in previous years—did not materialize in the Best Actor category, however.

Cinderella Man (2005)

A series of commercial disappointments would follow over the next several years. One salient example was the true-life boxing drama Cinderella Man, another pairing between Crowe and his A Beautiful Mind director Howard. Heralded as another potential awards contender, Cinderella Man was nonetheless released on June 3, 2005, the height of the summer blockbuster season (it was previously slated for a fall 2004 release but was pushed back after Crowe suffered an on-set injury). With an opening weekend gross of $18.23 million, Cinderella Man debuted below expectations and failed to hold up in subsequent frames despite a largely positive reaction from critics. It didn’t help that Cinderella Man arrived with a heavyweight $88 million budget—likely bloated by Crowe and co-star Renee Zellweger’s A-list salaries—making its ultimate gross of $61.65 million domestic and $108.54 million global a disappointment in relative terms.

Interestingly, Crowe’s first reunion with Ridley Scott—who, like Howard, had directed one of Crowe’s biggest box office successes—also failed to ignite. That film was the very un-Gladiator-like romantic comedy A Good Year, which stuttered out of the gate in Nov. 2006, grossing just $7.5 million domestic and $42.27 million global off a $35 million budget. The following September, the Western remake 3:10 to Yuma debuted somewhat promisingly with $14.04 million in its opening weekend but failed to keep up the momentum, ultimately landing at $53.61 million in North America and $70.02 million worldwide—a disappointment given its reported $55 million budget.

Crowe’s only real hit in the mid-to-late ‘00s was his next film with Scott, American Gangster. Starring Denzel Washington as real-life drug trafficker Frank Lucas and Crowe as the detective investigating him, the film opened on Nov. 2, 2007 with a muscular $43.57 million in North America and finished its domestic run with $130.16 million. Worldwide, American Gangster brought in $269.75 million, enough to justify its $100 million budget—though Washington, not Crowe, was the film’s real star.

Robin Hood (2010)

Despite the rare bright spot of American Gangster, Crowe’s commercial track record continued on shaky ground for the next several years. His fourth film with Scott—the 2008 action-thriller Body of Lies co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio—grossed $115.9 million worldwide off a $70 million budget, while the 2009 political thriller State of Play fared even worse, bringing in $87.81 million off a budget of $60 million.

Crowe’s professional relationship with Scott continued with his next film, the mega-budget 2010 Robin Hood. Though it managed to gross $105.27 million domestic and $321.67 million worldwide, the retelling arrived with a hefty price tag in the realm of $200 million, dampening what might otherwise have been viewed as a solid hit for the actor-director duo. Like many releases starring Crowe, the problem with the film lay in its exorbitant production costs: Between L.A. Confidential and Robin Hood, the average budget of a Russell Crowe production came in at over $81 million—a number few stars have the drawing power to justify.

Noah (2014)

In terms of commercial performance, things would improve considerably for Crowe over the following decade. His next film after Robin Hood, 2010’s The Next Three Days, was all but ignored by domestic audiences and made just $67.45 million at the worldwide box office, but its budget was a relatively low $30 million. Two years later, he would score his first real success since American Gangster with director Tom Hooper’s star-studded musical adaptation of Les Misérables, in which Crowe appeared opposite heavy-hitters Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. Made on a budget of $61 million, the acclaimed film opened to a solid $27.28 million in North America over the Christmas holiday and ultimately grossed a muscular $148.81 million domestic and $441.81 million worldwide. Les Misérables went on to score eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won three, including Best Supporting Actress for Hathaway.

As successful as Les Misérables was, the film wasn’t a traditional starring vehicle for Crowe, instead functioning as more of an ensemble piece. From a marketing perspective, his presence was much more essential to his next film, 2013’s Broken City, in which he starred opposite Mark Wahlberg. That film sputtered to just $34.74 million worldwide off a $35 million budget, while his next two movies—the blockbuster Superman reboot Man of Steel and romantic fantasy Winter’s Tale—featured him in supporting roles.

It was with Noah, a retelling of the biblical tale directed by Darren Aronofsky, that Crowe would enjoy his biggest success in over a decade. Released on March 28, 2014, the $125 million production (or $160 million, depending on the source) grossed a hefty $43.72 million in its opening weekend, the highest of Crowe’s career to date (not counting Man of Steel). It would go on to gross $101.2 million in North America and over two times that amount overseas, ultimately landing with $359.2 million worldwide. While not quite a Gladiator-level blockbuster, the film nonetheless gave Crowe his greatest commercial success since 2001’s A Beautiful Mind.

The Nice Guys (2016) and beyond

After making a pit stop with his little-seen directorial debut The Water Diviner (in which he also starred), Crowe returned to studio fare with the Warner Bros. action-comedy The Nice Guys, in which he starred opposite Ryan Gosling as one-half of a pair of private eyes investigating a porn star’s apparent suicide. While critically acclaimed, the Shane Black-directed film stumbled commercially, grossing $36.26 million in North America and $62.79 million worldwide off a $50 million budget.

Since The Nice Guys, it’s been over four years since Crowe starred in a proper leading role. In Universal’s big-budget reimagining of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise in 2017 he was only a supporting player, while the 2018 independent drama Boy Erased never performed well enough to earn a wide release. His most recent film, the low-budget Australian western True History of the Kelly Gang, hit the U.S. during the pandemic, leading to minimal theatrical revenue on a handful of drive-in screens.

Unhinged, of course, is a special case—not only for Crowe, but for the U.S. theatrical marketplace. If the film succeeds, one could interpret it as a testament to the enduring star magic that rocketed Crowe to the top of the Hollywood A-list early in his career—though it could also be interpreted as a testament to the enduring power of the theatrical experience, as well as audiences’ desperation to return to some semblance of normalcy. On the other hand, if it fails, Crowe can hardly be blamed for the shortfall given the unprecedented nature of theatrical exhibition post-COVID-19.

The post Box Office <em>Gladiator</em>: Charting the Commercial Highs & Lows of <em>Unhinged</em> Star Russell Crowe appeared first on Boxoffice.

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