Yahoo Finance New York Area Weekend B.O. Posts $1M+ In Wake Of NYC Cinemas Reopening – Monday Update
EXCLUSIVE Update Monday: Thanks to the reopening of New York City movie theaters in the five boroughs, the overall New York DMA which includes outlying areas Long Island, Westchester County, Connecticut and New Jersey posted $1.07M at the box office, a 380% jump over last weekend according to B.O. sources.
Those ticket sales are from 88 locations in the New York DMA. Broken out, Friday grossed $314,7K, Saturday was up 44% to $454,2K and Sunday eased 33% to $301,4K.
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During Feb. 26-28, the New York DMA grossed $222,9K at the B.O., ranking fifth among all markets. Montreal was No. 1 over that period with $548K.
Even though Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon wasn’t spectacular in its No. 1 opening with $8.6M with rival Lionsgate wide release Chaos Walking also tanking with $3.8M in 3rd place, Comscore reports that the overall weekend box office is poised to be the best we’ve seen during the pandemic since theaters reopened in late August. Yesterday, Comscore reported an estimated 3-day of $25.5M for all titles in play, +26% over Feb. 26-28. That figure is expected to simmer down to $24M, which is still ahead of Christmas weekend’s $23.8M, which is the previous 3-day high during the pandemic when Wonder Woman 1984 opened.
As we previously reported, New York was the top DMA this past weekend for the first time in a long time, followed by Salt Lake City ($598,6K), Dallas ($571,5K), Chicago ($505K), Phoenix ($492k), Houston ($440,2K), Orlando (360,9K), Detroit ($354,7K), Denver ($338,1K) and Minneapolis ($329,3K).
EXCLUSIVE, Sunday Update after Saturday post: This weekend’s titles at the box office, Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon and Lionsgate’s Chaos Walking, may not have opened respectively with $8.6M and $3.8M, but New York City definitely did open.
With cinemas in the five boroughs back on line, that fueled the New York DMA (which includes Connecticut, New Jersey, Long Island and Westchester County) to surge 525% for Friday and Saturday at the B.O. compared to the same period last weekend. The New York DMA for Friday and Saturday per box office sources made $744K from 83 sites versus $119K for the two days last weekend. Broken down, the New York market did $307K on Friday and another $437K on Saturday repping a 42% increase.
NYC theaters had been shuttered for 50 1/2 weeks due to the Covid lockdown. The NY DMA was easily the No. 1 market in the country over the weekend, followed by Salt Lake City, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, Houston, Orlando, Detroit, Denver, Minneapolis and Montreal. All movie theaters in NYC are operating at 25% capacity restrictions.
AMC Boss Adam Aron went on CNBC late Friday to celebrate the reopening of NYC theaters, says 13 of the chain’s locations in NYC were reopening, for a total of 29 in the Empire state. AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street and its Lincoln Square venue have consistently ranked in pre-pandemic times as the top grossing cinemas at the domestic box office. Overall, 90% of the No. 1 chain’s movie theaters are open coast to coast.
New York was the top market for new wide titles Lionsgate’s Chaos Walking and Focus Features’ Boogie. The market I’m told also did well for Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon, although Salt Lake City was very strong for that animated title.
For Boogie, AMC Empire repped its top grossing theater with AMC 34th Street and AMC Bay Plaza the movie’s sixth and seventh highest grossing locations.
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