LOS ANGELES -- North American audiences are not staying away from theaters amid virus concerns, according to the weekend's box office numbers. Disney and Pixar's Onward topped the charts as expected and the Ben Affleck basketball drama The Way Back also opened normally.
Onward earned $40 million from 4,310 North American locations, according to studio estimates on Sunday. It's on the lower end of openings for the studio, more in line with The Good Dinosaur's premiere in 2015. Onward is an original story about two teenage elf brothers voiced by Chris Pratt and Tom Holland who get a chance to spend one last day with their late father.
"I think it's a solid start for an original animated film," said Cathleen Taff, Disney's president of distribution. "We're especially excited about the fact that we've seen such good word of mouth."
The studio expects it to continue performing well with spring breaks starting for many students and families next week.
Internationally, Onward picked up $28 million. Disney noted that outside of Asia-Pacific regions, coronavirus concerns have not made a material impact on earnings.
"It's not quite as strong as we hoped in some international territories, but this is an original property so there isn't as much awareness and urgency leading into it," Taff said. "We have seen excellent responses from audiences so we're confident that will be the case here and set us up for a good long run."
The weekend overall is down some 50% from the same weekend last year, but that's only because that's when Captain Marvel opened to over $153 million and is not any indication of the market taking a hit, said Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
The rest of the charts also looked normal, even with recent virus-related shake-ups in the entertainment industry, including the cancellation of the South by Southwest festival.
Universal and Blumhouse's The Invisible Man dropped to second place in week two with $15.2 million, bringing its domestic total to $52.7 million. Worldwide, it's just shy of $100 million.
In third place, Warner Bros.' The Way Back opened in line with projections with an estimated $8.5 million. The R-rated drama cost around $21 million to produce.
Affleck's performance was well-received by critics, and the star has been unusually candid about his own real-life struggles with alcoholism in the press in the weeks leading up to release.
"It's a very specific drama," said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.' president of domestic distribution. "Ben Affleck did a great job and the reviews back that up."
Audiences, who skewed older (64% were over the age of 35), gave the film a B+ CinemaScore. Goldstein noted that the audience age broadened over the weekend.
He also hasn't seen any significant impact of the virus on the North American box office yet.
"When you look at the box office [last] weekend with Onward and The Way Back, these are solid numbers when we're all concerned 'Will people hole up inside?'" Goldstein said. "We're not seeing evidence of that, but anything can happen."
"Thus far, I'm not seeing any impact," Dergarabedian said. "This weekend played out exactly as expected. You have families and children going to theaters to the tune of $40 million. People remain in the habit of going to the movies."
In limited release, A24 debuted Kelly Reichardt's acclaimed First Cow in four locations in New York and Los Angeles. It earned $96,059 and will be rolling out nationwide throughout the spring.
The disease outbreak has taken a toll on the stocks of theater owners. AMC Entertainment Inc., Cineworld Group Plc and Cinemark Holdings Inc. together control nearly half of U.S. cinema screens and ticket sales, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. That's in addition to theaters they operate in Europe and Latin America.
Last week, the James Bond sequel No Time to Die was pushed back until Thanksgiving in light of the global conditions.
MovieStyle on 03/13/2020