-All eyes were on Raya and the Last Dragon this weekend to see if Disney could bring in more families to theaters. New York City was finally open at limited capacity. Reviews were strong. But, the end result was...$8.6 million ($4,205 per-venue average). That's down 41% from Tom and Jerry's opening last week, and is also behind The Croods: A New Age's $9.7 million three-day start. What exactly happened? Thinking about it further, there are a few things that I think kept Raya from soaring higher.
1: Buzz never seemed to be very strong for this particular Disney title.
2: Opening a week after families already went to watch Tom and Jerry.
3: $30 on Disney+ is a cheaper option for families than spending money to go watch in a movie theater. And, Disney+ has about 5 times as many subscribers as HBOMax (95 million vs. 17 million).
4: Cinemark and a couple of other semi-major chains denied to play Raya due to strict terms from Disney.
Raya should play well though through the next couple of months as overall theatrical offerings are pretty slim through the end of April.
-Tom and Jerry fell 53% to $6.6 million in its' sophomore weekend, for a $23 million pick-up in 10 days. That's still ahead of The Croods: A New Age through the same point, and the drop is due to the combination of new competition and HBOMax availability. Like Raya, however, the adaptation will hold much better in the coming weeks due to a lack of real competition going forward. It is also at near $60 million worldwide so far.
-In third place, Chaos Walking opened nationwide in theaters only to $3.8 million ($1,931 per-venue average). That's in line with most pandemic releases through this point, but it's bad news considering it had a $100 million budget. Lionsgate went through major production problems for this film, including extensive reshoots, so I don't think overall expectations were high anyway. It should play decently for teens in the coming weeks on its way to a possible $10-15 million finish.
-There was one other nationwide release in sports drama Boogie from Focus Features. It earned $1.2 million ($958 per-venue average) in fourth place. While not a great number, it might could have done worse especially since it didn't receive much of a marketing campaign (it honestly went under my radar).
-With new films for families, The Croods: A New Age fell 38% to $780,000 in its 15th weekend, for a $53.6 million pick-up so far. It's also earned $157 million worldwide so far with more territories yet to open.
As for the rest of the Top 10...
-The Little Things was off 41% in its sixth weekend to $550,000, for a $13.7 million pick-up in 37 days.
-Wonder Woman 1984 was down 28% to $511,000, for a $44.4 million gross in 11 weeks.
-The Marksman was down 29% in its eighth weekend to $500,000, for a $13 million gross in 49 days.
-Judas and the Black Messiah wasn't helped by NYC opening and a Golden Globe win for Daniel Kaluuya. It was off 44% to $282,000, for a $4.5 million pick-up in 24 days so far.
-Now on VOD, Monster Hunter was off 43% to $260,000, for a $14.4 million pick-up in 12 weeks.
