“The Invisible Man” Gets Noticed at the Box Office

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report Comments Off on “The Invisible Man” Gets Noticed at the Box Office

BOX OFFICE REPORT

February 28-March 1, 2020

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

The Invisible Man  $29 million
Sonic the Hedgehog  $16 million
The Call of the Wild  $13.2 million
My Hero Academia:
Heroes Rising 		 $5.1 million
Bad Boys for Life $4.3 million

Even with an abundance of horror movies in the first two months of the year, fans looking for a scary good time turned out for Leigh Whannell's remake of The Invisible Man. The updated thriller took in a strong $29 million. That's almost as much as the more star-powered remake of The Mummy earned during its 2017 debut. This, of course, was not a big-budget affair, produced by Blumhouse, giving its director limited funds but unlimited creative freedom. It's clear creatively and financially this is the way Universal should go forward with its monster properties.

Sonic the Hedgehog fell to second in its third weekend. The little blue guy sped to $128 million total thus far, giving Paramount a much-needed win after their disastrous returns on The Rhythm Section. The Call of the Wild slipped down to third, continuing to find some gold in those hills. It's earned $45 million to date.

The big surprise this week was the anime film My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising crashing into the top five. Taking advantage of a lack of competition, the second film based on the popular manga series earned $5.1 million on only around 1,200 screens. FUNimation had even greater success last year with Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Bad Boys for Life hung onto the top 5 for a shocking seventh weekend, earning $4.3 million.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: Religious-tinged comedy-drama Saint Frances earned $16,150 on its lone screen.
  • Wendy and Greed aren't going to be big awards contenders for Fox or Sony. Both films earned mixed reviews despite coming from respected directors and averaged a weak $7,500 in their opening frames.
  • Parasite finally crossed the $50 million mark, becoming one of only four foreign-language films to do so, and the only one of the four to be set in modern times.

Next week:

Pixar is back to dominate with Onward, which will enthrall kids and make their parents weep uncontrollably. An opening around $70 million seems right. Meanwhile, adults without kids will probably flock to the Ben Affleck redemption/sports movie The Way Back, which should earn between $20 and $25 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.