To borrow American football lingo, the weekend box office contest was full of interesting plays.
M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, knock on the booth, topping the national chart with $14.2 million from 3,643 theaters. While the psychology-tinged horror pic has bragging rights that it’s finally the movie to topple Avatar: The Way of the Water from breakpoint, it is nonetheless the lowest North American opening of any film Shyamalan has directed.
Poor word of mouth could be the cause. knock on the booth received a C CinemaScore (that’s below the C+ awarded to the latest film from the prolific writer-director, Old). Exit scores on PostTrak aren’t that good either. Men dominated the audience, while more than 60% of ticket buyers were between 18 and 24 years old.
Overseas, the picture grossed $7 million for an initial worldwide total of $21.2 million.
knock on the booth follows a young girl and her parents who are held hostage in an isolated cabin by a group of evil strangers who ask them to make an unthinkable choice in order to avoid the apocalypse. Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, newcomer Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn and Rupert Grint star.
Universal fate knock on the booth, a production of Blinding Edge Pictures, in association with FilmNation Features and Wilshmore Entertainment. Shyamalan finances his own films.
In 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, Old debuted to $17 million domestically. Shyamalan’s two previous films, 2018 Glass and 2016 Divideeach open to $40 million.
The other studio novelty of the weekend, 80 for Bradyopened in second place with $12.5 million in 3,912 locations after successfully winning over older consumers, especially women.
From Paramount Pictures and Fifth Season, the comedy stars Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field as a group of friends who are determined to meet New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady at the Super Bowl 2017. Brady produced and stars in the film, which opens a week before this year’s Super Bowl championship game, and just days after Brady announced, for the second time, that he was retiring .
In an unprecedented move, Paramount and theater owners across the country – including the biggest circuits – have teamed up on an initiative to dramatically cut ticket prices to appeal to adult moviegoers who have been more reluctant to return to the cinema. (Older theatrical films have become an endangered species in the wake of the pandemic.)
One disappointment — extremely cold weather in parts of the Northeast has hurt box office traffic in the Boston area.
80 for BradyThe pricing plan, which will be maintained throughout the film, was first detailed by The Hollywood Reporter. There are promising signs that the variable price has boosted the film’s opening, although the verdict has yet to be written. For example, more customers showed up to see 80 for Brady that knock on the boothor 1.3 million moviegoers against 1.1 million, according to EntTelligence.
Women made up over 70% of the audience, while almost 80% were over 35, including 50% over 55.
Avatar: The Way of the Water fell to No. 3 in its eighth North American gaming weekend with approximately $10.8 million from 3,310 theaters to end the weekend with a worldwide total of $2.174 billion, not far behind behind fellow photo directed by James Cameron Titanic.
Disney and the 20th century The way of the water should eventually exceed Titanic becoming the third highest-grossing film of all time behind the original Avatar And Avengers: Endgame.
Other North American highlights included special theatrical screenings of BTS: yet to come in cinemaswhich is expected to earn more than $6 million in 1,125 theaters, and The Chosen Season 3: The Finalewhich grossed nearly $4 million for the weekend proper from 2,000 locations.
More soon.
