The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
The United States now celebrates the annual Memorial Day holiday. This past weekend, boosted by the holidays and two new films, the North American film box office exceeded the $80 million mark in one fell swoop, rushing to the peak after theaters reopened in New York, Los Angeles and other places in March; it was also the highest level in 15 months since the epidemic; at the same time, it surpassed the Chinese mainland of 410 million yuan and regained the throne of the world's largest film market.
The box office top was won by "A Quiet Place: Part II," which premiered On Friday. The Paramount-produced thriller was released in 3,752 theaters in North America and grossed $48.38 million in three days. Although slightly inferior to the $50.2 million opening box office of the first film released three years ago, this achievement is quite eye-catching and surprising to the industry at a time when the theater is still in the recovery period.
A quiet place 2 poster
Of course, it is difficult for the industry to make accurate box office predictions at present. Before the epidemic, memorial day at the end of May was usually considered to be the opening of the summer program, and there will be blockbusters on the file, and the box office is always stable. For example, in 2018 and 2019, "Ranger Solo: Star Wars Story" and the live-action version of "Aladdin" led the way, and both films premiered at the box office of more than $80 million in the small long holiday. However, the first theatrical blockbuster "Creed" after the epidemic suffered a box office failure; after the reopening of the New York and Los Angeles theaters as a box office, only the premiere of "Godzilla vs. King Kong" rushed to the box office of $30 million. Therefore, some insiders believe that it may not be until the marvel movie "Black Widow" is released in early July before the box office can return to the pre-epidemic value.
In addition to North America, "A Quiet Place 2" was also released simultaneously in Chinese mainland, Australia, Indonesia and other countries and regions, and earned $20.71 million at the overseas box office. Among them, Chinese mainland Kaihua box office reached 95.77 million yuan, ranking third in the weekend box office list, second only to "Fast and Furious 9" and "Doraemon: Walk with Me 2".
"A Quiet Place 2" has a 91% rating among critics on the film review collection website "Rotten Tomatoes", and the audience praise rate is also 94%, and obviously good word of mouth is also helpful to the box office. In addition, there is another reason that Paramount did not copy the mode of simultaneous launch of Warner Bros. and Disney's streaming platform in the way the film was released, but decided to push the Paramount+ platform after the 45-day window as usual.
Disney's new film "Cruella," which was scheduled to land on theaters and streaming platforms on Friday, grossed $21.3 million over the weekend, second at the box office. Featuring The 101 Spotted Dog villain Kuila, the film tells the story of how she went from an ambitious young girl to an evil paranoid, starring Emma Stone, Emma Thompson and others.
Kuila poster
Covering 3,982 theaters in North America, Kuila is the largest film to be released on weekends. A 72% rating of critics and a 97% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is not bad for a Disney live-action movie. It should be known that Disney's last villain live-action movie, "Sleeping Curse 2" released in 2019, had only 37% positive reviews by critics, and the result was also $37 million at the opening box office.
The reason why "Kuila" failed to stand at the top of the box office list is more or less related to the simultaneous launch of the Disney + platform. I don't know if this will have an impact on the release mode of blockbusters such as "Black Widow". Starting this week, "Kuila" will also be released in overseas regions. The Chinese mainland is scheduled for this Sunday (June 6).
In the view of box office analyst Sean Robbins, the significance of the North American box office performance over the weekend is that it marks that a large number of viewers can return to the theater safely and safely, and the box office performance is also good before the epidemic. In any case, this undoubtedly gives a shot in the arm for north American theaters that are still recovering, and the industry can also have more optimistic expectations for the box office of new films such as the upcoming "Bid Rabbit 2", "In the Highlands", "Summer Friendship Day", "Fast and Furious 9", "Black Widow" and so on.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Ding Xiao