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Election box office: 'Come Play' knocked out of first place and Toy Story returns to $505,000
After just one week, Amblin Partners' Come Play is no longer at the top of the domestic box office. The tech-based horror film took home second place this weekend with $1.7 million in North American ticket sales, boosting its overall total to $5.6 million, Variety confirms.
Thomas Bezucha's Let Him Go — a dramatic thriller starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane (both of whom played Ma and Pa Kent in the DCEU) — took home the box office crown with a $4.1 million debut. Like Come Play, the movie was also distributed by Focus Features.
“We’re thrilled to have our second film open at No.1 in back-to-back weekends and equally excited to see audiences coming back to theaters to watch the caliber of storytelling from Kevin, Diane and Lesley on the big screen," Lisa Bunnell, head of Focus distribution told Deadline.
While theaters are still weathering the storm that is the COVID-19 pandemic, they faced an extra hurdle this past week: the U.S. presidential election, which took over "the news and Americans’ attention," writes Variety. Even so, certain studios and distributors don't want to let the marketplace stagnate too much, even with so many blockbusters pushed to next year.
“There are moviegoers who want to go back to theaters," Bunnell said. "If you don’t offer them a film, if you don’t give people the opportunity to see a movie, you’ll never know if they’ll go back or not. We’re just trying to keep theaters going."
Ahead of its home release rollout next month, Christopher Nolan's Tenet still managed to register in the Top 5 domestic slots with $905,000, bringing its at-home total to $55.1 million. Globally, the ambitious project has made nearly $350 million, but is expected to "fall short of profitability," according to Variety. In a recent interview, Nolan stated that he is happy with the film's box office performance and voiced his dismay over studios being scared off rather than adapting to the times.
Overseas, Robert Zemeckis' remake of The Witches conjured an extra $3.5 million for a worldwide gross of $10.1 million. The fantasy feature (based on the novel of the same name by Roald Dahl) skipped a theatrical debut in the U.S. for a streaming rollout on HBO Max, just in time for Halloween. The Witches made headlines earlier this week when it sparked a controversy within the disability community.
And finally, we have the re-release of Toy Story, which proved its pedigree as a cinematic classic by bringing in an extra $505,000 from domestic sites. The movie, which first put Pixar on the map back in 1995, will celebrate its 25th anniversary later this month.
