Screendollars

Warner Bros.' Tom & Jerry chased away the industry's boxoffice blues in its opening weekend, earnings $13.7M while playing at 2475 North American theatres.  The live-action animated feature produced the second best opening weekend for any film during the pandemic, surpassed only by WB's Wonder Woman 1984 which earned $16.7M during its Christmas weekend premiere. Universal's  The Croods: A New Age continued its successful run in theatres by taking second place once again on the boxoffice charts, earning $1.2M this weekend and $52.4M after 14 weeks in theatres.

This week, our Popcorn Previews Boxoffice Buzz video celebrates the impressive weekend performance of Tom & Jerry.

Our Weekly summary of Industry News begins with a focus on the emergence of Amazon Studios as a distributor for mainstream feature films. With the pandemic having shuttered cinemas and postponed theatrical releases, Amazon has stepped in with high-dollar acquisitions of feature films to stream on Amazon Prime Video, served up to an audience of 150M subscribers. We also highlight several articles on progress being made on the re-opening of exhibition and distribution, led by last week's important announcement that theatres in New York City will be allowed to resume limited operation starting next Friday.

In their Box Office Outlook, the analysts at Gower Street plot out the history of theatre closures and re-openings over the last 12 months.   Their analysis reveals that lower-grossing theatres with fewer screens have been more likely to remain closed. It seems likely that the lower ceiling for revenues and high cost to retrofit for operations during the pandemic have teamed up to keep many of these locations dark.

In this week's Hollywood Report, Martin Grove notes this year's late arrival for the Golden Globes ceremony, taking over the night which had been vacated by the Academy when they pushed back the Oscars to April 25th. This year's GG ceremony will be bi-coastal and mostly virtual.

Our Studio Release Calendar provides details on film releases through Easter, the first weekend in April. We conclude with a list of the most recent studio release changes, MPAA film ratings announcements and the most important new trailers released last week.

Screendollars helps exhibitors stay informed about the schedule of Hollywood film releases, important industry news and how to maximize earnings from in-theater advertising. We encourage exhibitors to contact us to learn more about Screendollars in-theater advertising and marketing programs.