Welcome back to Box Office Breakdown, the weekly segment where I analyze the top ten highest grossing films of the past weekend.
Unfortunately, since most theatres are still closed down due to the COVID-19 and will continue to be for a while, we are unable to analyze the box office as studios are not reporting weekend projections. Due to this situation, studios are prematurely pulling films from theatres and releasing them on VOD, allowing audiences to watch them within the comfort of their own home. While theatres are temporarily shut down for an indefinite amount of time, we are dedicating this segment to analyzing how each film fares on VOD.
Now that almost every theatrical release has already been prematurity pulled from theatres and released on VOD, there isn’t much to talk about in terms of new releases.
Only one new high-profile film was released this past week: Never Rarely Sometimes Always. After premiering at Sundance to outstanding reviews and receiving a brief limited theatrical release, the film was prematurely pulled from theatres before beginning a nationwide expansion. Focus Features made the decision to release the film on VOD, unlike A24’s First Cow and Searchlight’s Wendy, whose expansions were postponed after shortened limited theatrical releases. Due to fierce competition, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is struggling to find an audience outside of the cinephile community and isn’t charting on Amazon or iTunes. This could change if the film generates some word of mouth buzz in the coming weeks.
Aside from new releases, we wanted to report which films have been generating the most sales on the iTunes Charts. Apple doesn’t release statistics or a weekly chart, so these are the top 10 films on iTunes as of the writing of this article:
1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
2. Jumanji: The Next Level
3. 1917
4. Onward
5. IT: Chapter 2
6. Sonic the Hedgehog
7. Bad Boys for Life
8. Knives Out
9. Parasite
10. Ford V. Ferrari
In terms of upcoming theatrical releases, within the past week numerous films have either been delayed indefinitely or have been rescheduled to a later date. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run moved from May 22nd to July 31st; Candyman moved from June 12th to September 25th; Top Gun: Maverick moved from June 24th to December 23rd; Ryan Reynolds video game comedy Free Guy moved from July 3rd to December 11th: Wes Anderson’s star studded anthology film The French Dispatch moved from July 24th to October 16th and Disney’s Jungle Cruise has been pushed back an entire year to July 30th, 2021.
Next week Trolls: World Tour is set to release on VOD and it will be interesting to see how it fares against Onward. In the coming weeks, we will continue to analyze the state of VOD releases and will provide updates regarding upcoming films.
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