Those who’ve been predicting moviegoing’s demise can’t be happy with Thanksgiving’s encouraging launch for THE CROODS 2.
Moviegoers made it clear with a tasty $14.2M ticket sales over the 5-day holiday period for Universal/DreamWorks’ PG animated comedy (pictured) that they’re not worried about venturing into theatres. The exhibition’s gotten across its message that new health measures will keep people safe in cinemas. What’s been missing was a movie people wanted to see.
CROODS 2’s playability to a wide age range made it perfect for family viewing over Thanksgiving. It’s $9.7M for the 3-day weekend is the pandemic’s best opening, beating TENET’s $9.4M over Labor Day when many more theatres were open. This weekend, per Comscore, only 38% of North American cinemas were open.
CROODS 2 also did $20.8M in 7 international markets (with $19.2M of that from China) for a $35M global cume, Comscore said. It should be very profitable, having cost only about $65M. Universal’s new exhibitor deals will let CROODS 2 starts streaming on PVOD pre-Christmas. But by then, moviegoers will have already given it a very merry theatrical welcome.