Liam Neeson's 'Honest Thief' Has Muted Theater Opening
by EG
Just a year ago, a $3.7-million opening weekend for a movie with a major star would have been considered, at best, a disappointment. This year, such a debut is considered a solid victory. That's how much Liam Neeson's Honest Thief made in its first weekend in theaters. The new film was the highest-grossing movie over the weekend, but close behind were old Halloween movies The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus. Read on for details.
Liam Neeson's turn as older action star continued over the weekend as his film Honest Thief collected a solid $3.7 million in its U.S. box office debut.
The movie, which marks the first release from Tom Ortenberg's revived Open Road Films, topped yet another quiet frame in terms of moviegoing amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.
As of last Friday, Seattle theaters were allowed to open, whereas New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that cinemas outside of New York City can open if they are in counties meeting certain criteria.
Honest Thief has earned a total of $4.2 million when factoring in Canadian grosses.
"Moviegoers, particularly couples, came back to theatres to enjoy Honest Thief in a theatrical environment and were rewarded with a movie rated 88 percent on the audience score from Rotten Tomatoes," said Ortenberg, who recently relaunched Open Road with Josh Green’s Raven Capital.
The movie played particularly well in Miami, Chicago, San Diego and Atlanta.
101 Studios' The War With Grandpa took in $2.5 million in its sophomore session for a 10-day-domestic total of $7.3 million.
Christopher Nolan's Tenet, from Warner Bros, grossed $1.6 million domestically for a North American total of $50.6 million and a worldwide tally of $333.9 million. The film saw a huge boost from Seattle reopenings; five of the top-10 grossing theaters were in the Seattle area.
Perennial favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas became the latest catalogue to take advantage of a relatively empty marquee, grossing $1.3 million for Disney. Fellow Disney title Hocus Pocus earned $756,000 in its second weekend.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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