'The Invitation' prevails in worst movie weekend in months
The Invitation (NYSE:SONY) drew the most dollars at the domestic box office over the week, as many expected - but it did so with the weakest "top" total in well over a year, back in the doldrums of COVID-19 pandemic closures.
Sony's gothic vampire story was tops with just $7M grossed across more than 3,000 theaters, enough to inch past fellow Sony entry Bullet Train, which chugged along to $5.6M in its fourth weekend.
Good for Sony (SONY), but films as a group grossed just $52.7M domestically, in the worst three-day span for the in-person movie experience since late January.
Rival openers did far worse. Three Thousand Years of Longing (NASDAQ:AMZN) drew just $2.9M despite opening in more than 2,400 theaters, and Bleecker Street Media's Breaking edged past the $1M mark on 902 screens. Breaking even gave way to a theatrical re-release of 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (DIS), which pulled $1.1M over the weekend on just 255 screens.
Behind The Invitation and Bullet Train were more holdovers adding to their piles: Beast (CMCSA), with $4.9M; Top Gun: Maverick (NASDAQ:PARA) (NASDAQ:PARAA), with $4.8M in its surprising 14th week; and last week's leader, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (SONY), with $4.6M.
It was the first weekend since May 2021 that no film cleared $10M in receipts. August's overall domestic take is barely surpassing August 2021, when the industry faced more theater closures than it does now.
And still waiting hopefully for a Harry Styles movie in late September (Don't Worry Darling) are cinema exhibitors: AMC Entertainment (AMC); Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWF); Cinemark (CNK); (IMAX); Marcus (MCS); Reading International (RDI); Cineplex (CGX:CA); National CineMedia (NCMI).