By Bronson Jayamanna
Los Angeles, USA(CWBN)_ Universal Studios and Focus Features have managed to continue their dominance over the pandemic box office for the third consecutive weekend as “The Croods: A New Age” remained at number one position and the studio’s 7th successive weekend on being in the list, earning a total of $3 million from 2,115 screens. The theatrical windows were signed by AMC and Cinemark.
In other parts of the world, the film has contributed to $6.6 million from China and $8.4 million from all other foreign markets. In global terms, the box office of ‘Croods 2′ currently totals $76 million, though Universal is planning to publish the film on demand as part of its theatrical window contract in the coming week. The same arrangement is to follow for the two remaining releases for the year by the studios’: Paul Greengrass’ “News of the World” and Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman.”
Last weekend, “Croods 2” was the only film that was able to gross more than $1 million. The second-place came to Concentrate’ Half Brothers, which earned $490,000 to make its total to $1.3 million in its second weekend. In third place was a re-release of the Christmas comedy featuring Will Ferrell as “Elf” making $400,000 on 850 screens. The fourth spot bringing in $ 315,000, was Universal/Blumhouse’s “Freaky” with a total of $6.2 million. On the bottom, rung was 101 Studios’ “The War with Grandpa” which had made over $18 million total after over two months at the theatre, however, had only been able to rake in $ 260,000 dollars during the last weekend.
For the theatres outside the box office, it was a tough week since as any glimpse of hope for a Congressional pandemic fund was denied by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, while Directors like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve were at the forehead of a backlash against Warner Bros who had decided to release all their films in theatres and on HBO Max at the same time.
Additionally, Disney revealed during an investor conference that the remakes of “Pinocchio” and “Peter Pan” planned initially for theatres would switch to Disney+, while “Raya and the Last Dragon” would be launched on theatres and then later on their premium streaming service in March. The studio avoided announcing moves for other theatre launches like “Black Widow” but revealed new theatre titles like “Luca” by Pixar for 2021.
