| Title | Weekend Gross | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The New Mutants | $7,000,000 |
| 2 | Unhinged | $2,600,000 |
| 3 | Bill & Ted Face the Music | $1,060,000 |
| 4 | The Personal History of David Copperfield |
$520,000 |
| 5 | Words on Bathroom Walls | $453,360 |
| 6 | The SpongBob Movie: Sponge on the Run |
$400,000 |
| 7 | Jurassic Park | $200,000 |
| 8 | Spider-Man: Far From Home | $160,000 |
| 9 | Cut Throat City | $155,000 |
| 10 | Spider-Man: Homecoming | $130,000 |
Josh Boone’s The New Mutants, a film we have been waiting for since 2017, finally arrived in theaters this weekend. It debuted after multiple delays, endless speculation and, of course, a killer pandemic.
The New Mutants brought in $7,000,000 in North America for its opening weekend. Approximately 62% of theaters are open in America and the theaters that are operating are (hopefully) following strict social distancing rules. Many theaters can only fill 40% of the seats in their auditoriums, meaning movies like The New Mutants can’t generate crowds like they used to. So The New Mutants, Unhinged and even next week’s Tenet have a lot working against them. But that’s all necessary because — and I’ll repeat this again and again — going to the movies right now is a dangerous activity and people should be fucking careful.
In a world without COVID-19, The New Mutants’ $7 million haul would probably add up to around $14-20 million. That’s still not incredible for a superhero movie, even one that is a dark spin-off of a now-defunct franchise. As the years have gone on, it’s become more and more apparent that The New Mutants was never going to be a huge smash. For one, the delays just didn’t help. For two, it was full of new characters from the X-Men universe, not a Wolverine or Professor X in sight. Thirdly, Disney had no plans to hype up the film too much since they are moving on from the X-Men films as we knew them. There was a time when Fox would’ve advertised the hell out of Boone’s movie. But then Disney’s acquisition of Fox came along, X-Men officially died and The New Mutants become the odd man out.
Still, this opening total for Josh Boone’s movie is a lackluster-but-not-embarrassing end of the road for a movie that has been the source of rumor and interest for years. The New Mutants has finally hit theaters, you can officially tell your grandchildren you were alive when it debuted. It didn’t set the world on fire, it didn’t even cause much of a spark. But it had a lot working against it, didn’t it? Make sure to tell your grandchildren that. Tell them that fate just doomed The New Mutants.
Oh, the horrible reviews didn’t help either. So it was fate and quality that did the movie in.
The rest of this weekend’s box office was understandably quiet. More theaters are opening across the country but we still have a long way to go before things are moving and shaking like they used to. Russell Crowe’s silly road-rage thriller Unhinged brought in $2,600,000 in its second weekend. Meanwhile, Bill & Ted Face the Music garnered $1,060,000 during its first session. The movie did pretty damn well on-demand though, taking the top spot on the iTunes Store. It also generated positive reviews so I think Bill & Ted may end up out-grossing The New Mutants and Unhinged in the long run. I bet it has longer legs than both of those films. The Personal History of David Copperfield earned $520,000; the per theater average for the movie ($382) isn’t very encouraging so one wonders if this is the first bomb of the COVID-19 era?
Next week comes the great savior of cinema, Tenet. We are all familiar with Tenet and we are all rooting for Tenet. We love Christopher Nolan and we also love big blockbusters. Of course we want the film to succeed. At the same time, we need people to be safe and theater-going isn’t the safest thing in the world right now. I feel a lot of movie fans are torn: should they go see Tenet as a sign of solidarity with the theater-going experience or should they stay home as a sign of their commitment to safety in the face of COVID-19? I am not going to tell people what to do. I will say this though: whatever you do, be cautious and smart. No movie is worth more than your life.
Well, except maybe Fincher’s Zodiac. That movie is worth more than all of us combined.