Friday Box Office Analysis?
By Kim Hollis
September 12, 2020
BoxOfficeProphets.com

New Mutants

What happens when only three studios (technically two) report box office on Saturday for Friday theatrical showings? Well, you get a super duper short article!

Yes, only Fox and Fox Searchlight (meaning Disney) and a faith-based distributor revealed any hint of box office numbers yesterday. So, if you're wondering how this little experiment of opening theaters is going, I think you can probably draw some pretty quick conclusions.

At the moment, The New Mutants is in first place as it earned 600,000 yesterday. That's honestly a pretty okay hold from last Friday, as it just fell 28 percent. My speculation is that it's appearing in more drive-ins at the moment (it's at my local one along with The Avengers in a double feature), which means that it has ever so slightly improved numbers than we might have expected otherwise. I would say that right around $2 million is a fair expectation, although Sunday might deflate that some if my drive-in theory is correct.

Disney's other film reporting box office is The Personal History of David Copperfield, which I'm looking forward to streaming. It earned $58,000 yesterday, down 38 percent, and is approaching $1.5 million overall.

The final film that shared Friday numbers was My Brothers' Crossing, distributed by Atlas Distribution. They're the same people who exhibited the ill-fated Atlas Shrugged films. The target audience for My Brothers' Crossing really seems to like it. It earned $3,256 in 69 venues and has a bit over $30,000 so far. Hey, I think reporting numbers is a great strategy, as it brings attention to a project most people would never hear about otherwise.

You may be wondering where Tenet might be in the midst of all this. Well, Warner Bros. has basically decided only to share numbers on Sundays, and when I say that I mean that they are not reporting daily box office or Friday/Saturday figures. Sony is likewise holding off on reporting information for their new release, Broken Hearts Gallery. Rival studios are a bit miffed, as many are trying to determine release strategies for their 2020 and possibly 2021 films.

Nonetheless, if you want an indication of how Warner Bros. feels about Tenet's performance, the studio pushed their prize jewel WW 1984 to Christmas (with the future of Dune still to be determined). Meanwhile, Universal decided not to hedge any bets as they moved horror flick Candyman to 2021 and off the 2020 schedule altogether.

Over the next few days, I do think we may see additional studio moves depending on the news from WB and Sony. Buckle up, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.