THE INVITATION opening | THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING opening | Pandemic update | August 26 to 28, 2022 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: August 26 to 28, 2022
1) The Invitation opening
- This is a fair opening for an original horror film. The weekend figure is roughly average for the genre. Reviews are poor, but that is not necessarily a deterrent here. Original horror movies do not play particularly well overseas, but in this case the primarily British cast should help. Horror films are not expensive to make — The Invitation cost a modest $10m:
2) Three Thousand Years of Longing opening
- This is a weak opening for an original adventure movie. Reviews are good. Adventure films play well overseas and this one should get some help abroad, but not enough help. At a cost of approx. $60m, Three Thousand Years will finish in the red, even with good ancillary distribution. Not all movies come together as planned — this one did not come together:
3) Pandemic update
- New Covid cases in the U.S. have dropped during the last six weeks, while the average number of deaths per day has remained approx. the same, although at a relatively low level compared with the big highs at the beginning of 2022 and 2021:
- 67% of Americans are now fully vaccinated (at least two shots). We've had 94 million reported cases, and more unreported cases on top of that. With greater collective resistance among the public, the illness is slowing. Currently, the caseload is less than a bad year of the common flu. However, Covid remains more deadly than the flu, and that is the concern for the 10% to 15% of moviegoers who say they are not comfortable yet back at the movies:
- Next week we'll have complete August domestic moviegoing figures. After an excellent June and July, the numbers this month have fallen back to down -40% to -45% versus 2019.