Weekend Wrap-Up: Invisible Man first Horror Film Truly Seen by Audiences
March 3, 2020
It has not been a good year for horror films so far, but The Invisible Man broke the slump by earning first place over the weekend with $28.21 million. It is already the biggest horror hit of the year after just three days of release. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough, as the overall box office fell 4.2% from last weekend to $98 million. Worse still, this was 14% lower than the same weekend last year. Granted, 2020 is still ahead of 2019, so there is no reason to panic. In fact, thanks to weekday numbers, the lead has grown to $116 million / 8.1% at $1.55 billion to $1.43 billion.
It’s been a busy year for horror films, but a bad year with none of the previous five wide releases cracking $25 million domestically. The Invisible Man earned more than that, $28.21 million, during its opening weekend. The film’s reviews and its B plus from CinemaScore strongly suggest longer than average legs for a horror film, which is great news for Universal, as it could need as little as $50 million to break even just on its domestic numbers. With its opening and the audience reactions, it could get to $75 million.
Sonic the Hedgehog matched expectations perfectly with $16.26 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $128.56 million. The film is on pace to soar past $150 million domestically and $175 million looks to be in reach. If it does get there, or at least get close, then Paramount’s share of the domestic box office will be greater than its $90 million production budget. It will need to earn barely more than that internationally to break even before the home market and that seems very likely at this point.
The Call of the Wild won’t be as lucky. The film did come within a rounding error of expectations with $13.36 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $46.02 million. This isn’t a bad run for a live-action family film, but it is a disaster for a film that cost $125 million to make.
My Hero Academia: Hero Rising was a surprise entry in the top five earning $5.80 million over the weekend for a five-day debut of $9.17 million. This is amazing for an anime release; however, it does have the best reviews in the top ten, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that it found some mainstream success.
Bad Boys for Life rounded out the top five with $4.35 million over the weekend for a total of $197.42 million. It is incredibly rare for a film to spend seven weeks in the top five and this is arguably more impressive than hitting $200 million domestically, which it will do shortly.
The only member of the sophomore class not in the top five was Brahms: The Boy II, which landed in ninth place with $2.62 million over the weekend for a running tally of $9.77 million. A decline of 55% is actually rather good for a horror film, but here it is a case of too little, too late.
- Weekend Box Office Chart
- Weekend Estimates: Invisible Man Appears at Top of Chart
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- Friday Box Office Chart
- Saturday Box Office Chart
- Sunday Box Office Chart
- Friday Estimates: Invisible Man Makes Its Presence Felt
- Thursday Night Previews: Invisible Man Makes a Showy Entrance
- Weekend Predictions: Will the Invisible Man be Seen this Weekend?
- Theater Counts
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Bad Boys For Life, The Call of the Wild, Sonic The Hedgehog, The Invisible Man, Brahms: The Boy II, Boku no Hīrō Akademia The Movie Hīrōzu: Raijingu