There isn’t official box office to report since 5,000 movie theaters have closed their doors amid the coronavirus pandemic but there is a silver lining to discuss. Even though in-door movie theater chains are shuttered, a lot of drive-in movie theaters remain open and they have seen some significant gains.
First let’s talk in-door movie theater chains because, although most are closed, there are still between 79-135 theaters that are still open out of roughly 5,000 that are closed. Those alive were in such areas as Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Miami, West Palm Beach, and Nashville to name a few. I kind of want to commend them for remaining open because while they might not be big venues, they’re keeping people employed and that’s all that matters.
The theaters doing the most business out there are drive-in movie theaters. Check this out: Among Onward‘s top 30-grossing theaters this past weekend, drive-ins pulled in 25 of them. For Invisible Man, 20 out of its 30 theaters earned money from drive-ins, Call of the Wild‘s saw 15 out of 30, and Bloodshot 14 out of 30. All of Onward‘s top 20 theaters were drive-ins, led by the Glendale 9 in Glendale, AZ with close to $10,000. Invisible Man‘s top 17 theaters were drive-ins, led by the Starlight 4 in Atlanta, GA with $11,000. Bloodshot‘s top venue was also Atlanta’s Starlight with just over $7,000, while Call of the Wild‘s top theater was the Swan drive-in Blue Ridge, GA with just under $5,000. Due to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s orders to close all cinemas in the state until at least March 31, it looks like drive-ins like the one in Paramount, CA, which was doing quite well last week, did not appear to be open over the weekend sadly.
It’s a sad state of affairs but it’s nice to see this movie relic of the past make a bit of a comeback and as long as they can safely stay open, I’m all for it.
