In yet another depressing week of moviegoing, the Liam Neeson thriller The Marksman grossed $2.03M (-34.6%) to stay atop the box office rankings. The film has now totaled a ho hum $6.09M, which pales in comparison to the $34M Bad Boys for Life earned in its second week of release. Obviously, pandemics have a funny way of changing things, but we’re a long way off from normalcy.
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According to Deadline, just 56.5% of the 5,900 theaters in the U.S. and Canada are open, though Illinois is expected to open next (with 40%-50% auditorium capacity) for the release of Warner Bros/HBO Max’s The Little Things.
As of now, all eyes are on Marvel’s Black Widow, which is expected to open May 7 in theaters … though, rumors continue to swirl of a possible Disney+ release coinciding with the theatrical release.
Otherwise, it was the usual entries rounding out the box office charts. In second place was The Croods: A New Age, which added $1.8M to its impressive $41M holiday haul in its ninth week of release. While Wonder Woman 1984 followed in third with $1.6M. The superhero sequel has grossed $38M to date, but could continue to add to its total now that its HBO Max run has ended.
The only new releases were Our Friends, which churned up $250K and the 2021 re-release of Abominable, which grossed $55K.
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Internationally, Disney/Pixar’s Soul got off to a tremendous start in Korea and Russia where it debuted at No. 1, ahead of several pre-Covid animation openings. The animated hit accrued another $10.4M at the international box office and has now collected $71M worldwide.
Shockwave 2 made headlines for crossing $20M at Imax theaters in China thanks to a strong $850K weekend in its fifth week of release. The film becomes the seventh highest grossing Imax local language title and the sixth highest grossing Imax Chinese title.