Home Entertainment Weekend box office – Pixar’s Onward opens lower than expected thanks to Covid-19

Weekend box office – Pixar’s Onward opens lower than expected thanks to Covid-19

2 min read
0

Pixar’s latest animated offering has been pulling in solid but not spectacular word of mouth. Thanks to the pedigree of the studio’s past efforts and two very likeable leads in Chris Pratt and Tom Holland though, Onward was still able to easily open in the top spot of the US box office chart this weekend past. However, the animated feature film posted a domestic debut of $40 million, which is much lower than what was initially projected a few weeks back. But there’s a good reason for that.

A reason for that becomes more apparent on the international front, where Onward pulled in just $28 million from 47 markets. Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, those markets exclude China, around 50% of Italy, and a few portions of France as well. While cinemas aren’t closing in the US yet, clearly turnout is already being affected. We’re in unprecedented territory here, so only time will tell how the viral outbreak will affect more films going forward.

With Onward pushing in at the top, it means The Invisible Man drops down to second. The Universal Elisabeth Moss-led horror-thriller has been doing great work at the box office and that continued this weekend past as it notched a second weekend earning of $15.1 million, dropping just 46%. The film has now earned $52 million in the US after just 10 days on the chart (on just a $7 million budget), giving Universal their first major win of 2020.

In surprising fashion, Ben Affleck’s sports drama, The Way Back, rounded out the top three as it posted an $8.5 million opening. It was expected that Holdovers, Sonic the Hedgehog and The Call of the Wild would take third and fourth place, respectively, but The Way Back just nudged them out narrowly. Sixth place sees the expansion of Jane Austen adaptation Emma as it bumped up its cinema count to 1500 venues. The comedy-drama earned a solid $5 million this weekend past.

There was one other highlight on the charts this week as Bad Boys for Life earned an extra $3 million to push its domestic total over $200 million. That officially makes the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence buddy cop sequel the first film of not just the year, but also the decade, to hit that milestone. With Bad Boys for Life’s global total now sitting on $415 million, this also means that it exceeds the totals of Bad Boys ($141.1 million) and Bad Boys II ($273.3 million) combined. Now that’s impressive.

Let’s see what the rest of the US box office chart looks like:

No.Movie Name Weekend gross Percentage change US Domestic gross Worldwide gross Last Week's Position
1Onward $40 million NE $40 million $68 million NE
2The Invisible Man $15.1 million -46% $52.6 million $98.2 million 1st
3The Way Back $8.5 million NE $8.5 million $9.1 million NE
4Sonic the Hedgehog $8 million -51% $140.8 million $295.6 million 2nd
5The Call of the Wild $7 million -48% $57.4 million $99.5 million 3rd
6Emma $5 million +331% $6.8 million $20.8 million 13th
7Bad Boys for Life $3 million -29% $202 million $415 million 5th
8Birds of Prey $2.1 million -47% $82.5 million $195.7 million 6th
9Impractical Jokers: The Movie $1.8 million -48% $9.6 million 7th
10My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising $1.5 million -74% $12.7 million $27.8 million 4th

NE = New Entry

Last Updated: March 9, 2020

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Sonic the Hedgehog DLC now available in Minecraft

Even if one is nothing but a pile of different coloured blocks, one still has to go fast. …