Screendollars

SO... who s on top? Sonic crossed the 100M$ mark in second week!

Box Office Analysis for the week of February 24th. We send four times the number of happy birthday wishes to all Leaplings who will celebrate their once-every-four-year birthday next Saturday, February 29th.

At the box office, Paramount's Sonic The Hedgehog is showing that the video game hero is a real star, and likely a franchise in the making. The Fantasy Sci-Fi film starring Jim Carrey earned $26.3M in its second week, adding up to an impressive $106.6M after 10 days in theaters. 20th Century Studios (Fox) received an enthusiastic response from its opening of The Call of the Wild, which earned $24.8M and finished as a close runner up to Sonic. The heart-tugging family film stars Harrison Ford as a human companion to Buck, the stalwart and loveable (and live-action animated) sled dog made famous by Jack London in his classic novel.  Also notable, Neon's Oscar-winner Parasite is still going strong after an amazing 20 weeks in theaters, playing at 1800 locations and bringing in another $3.1M at the box office this weekend. 

We begin our Industry News roundup by noting Netflix's recent hiring of two industry veterans into their theatrical distribution team. After spending the last 12 years at New York-based indie film specialist IFC films, Justin DiPietro will now decamp to LA to join Netflix's theatrical sales team led by Spencer Klein.  David Schwartz will also join Netflix as manager of theatrical programming, with responsibility for programming the iconic Paris Theatre in New York to showcase Netflix films and their links to film history.

We highlight positive box office results from Europe, where exhibitors reported a record-breaking 1.34 billion admissions in 2019, up 4.5% from the year before.  Turning to Asia, we report on Imax's comments about the Chinese box office, which is now completely frozen because of mandatory theater closures ordered by the Chinese government in their effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Despite this considerable short-term challenge, Imax's CEO Rich Gelfond is bullish for the long-term, expecting a strong rebound once the health crisis has subsided. 

We shine light on an under-the-radar story worthy of attention.  In January, Harvard Business School professor Ryan Rafaelli published a report highlighting the surpirising strength of community booksellers in the age of Amazon.  Many of the approaches that are working for independent booksellers can be applied by independent exhibitors to build their relationship with movie goers in the communities.

Gower Street's Rolling 8-Week Box Office Forecast now extends to the week of April 10th, when No Time to Die will hit theaters. The 25th installment of the James Bond spy thriller series is expected to boost returns for Easter weekend 2020, and beyond.  Gower's analysts predict a 40% rise in 2020 when compared with results from the same weekend in 2019, when Shazam held the top spot in theaters.

In The Hollywood Report, Martin Grove tracks Paramount's booster crop of sequels planned for 2020.  They include : A Quiet Place II (3/20), SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (5/22), Top Gun: Maverick (6/26), Clifford the Big Red Dog (11/13) and Coming 2 America (12/18).

We conclude with our regular film data and tables: the Weekly Film Calendar covering releases over the next six weeks, recently announced Studio Release Changes, a list of Recent Industry Screenings, the latest MPAA film ratings and a list of Notable New Trailers released last week.

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