Any victory at the box office, no matter how small, is worth celebrating during these trying time for movie theaters trying to maintain their business and this weekend a new film release, The War With Grandpa, tops the weekend box office and unseats Tenet which has held the top spot for a few weeks.
The War With Grandpa grossed $3.6 million over the weekend which was enough to beat the $2.1 million earned by Tenet to end its seven-week run atop the box office list. We have to look at some of the good news aspects of this win which include the fact that The War With Grandpa. surged 38% on Saturday from its Friday debut. This is in a US marketplace that’s still 16% closed, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York state, and parts of Canada. And let’s not forget that only seven California theaters in Regal’s national 536 location count are open. This is basically the best-case scenario for an unprecedented situation.
Here’s another interesting fact: Of the moviegoers that saw the film this weekend and that were surveyed, 46% of them had not returned to theaters because there haven’t been enough movies out there that they wanted to see. If you don’t supply the movies to theaters, audiences won’t come. It lends some weight to the argument that studios pushing off their 2020 release dates is what’s really hurting the marketplace but studios would argue that the unwillingness of markets like Los Angeles and New York not reopening their theaters is the real culprit. In addition, 90% of those Grandpa moviegoers surveyed said they felt safe and comfortable with their movie-going experience during the pandemic.
As for Tenet, the $200 million film has grossed a mere $48.3 million at the domestic box office but is well over $300 million worldwide. The problem is that Tenet needs about $200 million ore to break even for Warner Bros. and I just don’t see that happening given the slow pace of the domestic box office. If it stays in play until theaters in Los Angeles or New York open, it could see a bump but it likely won’t be enough to turn things around.
