Unhinged Grosses $4 Million In U.S. Opening Weekend

[Nergal]

 

 

 

The Russell Crowe thriller Unhinged made $4 million at the domestic box office this weekend. The movie didn't shift to a PVOD release strategy or push to 2021, like many have and more will continue to do, because Solstice Studios, a fairly new distributor, wanted to keep the movie in a theatrical run. The bold strategy looks to have paid off.

It has been touch-and-go regarding the release of Unhinged, which was originally slated to come out July 3. From its initial marketing launch, the movie was continually touted to be the first movie released in theaters after the months-long coronavirus lockdown. Tenet has been moving goal post regarding brining audiences back to multiplexes, its original release date was July 17 just a few weeks after Unhinged. However, both movies have had to move their dates and change their release strategies as theaters struggled to open until recently.

Per Box Office Mojo, Unhinged played in just over 1,800 theaters during its domestic wide release. It did receive a limited run the week prior. This past weekend's $4 million haul brings the movie to just over $5 million, cumulatively. The numbers proved some people were ready to go back to theaters because the week-to-week bump in box office revenue amounted to a growth of 575.5-percent for the new release. While the overall number might not seem like a lot, it's actually well within range for a film of this size, that's an original IP and not based on a pre-existing franchise.
 

This past weekend saw the first proper box office reporting since the start of the pandemic began. Over the past few months, IFC has released a slate of horror movies, which have done very well with drive-in audiences, but they also had VOD releases because indoor theaters haven't been open as widely as they are now. On top of Unhinged, less publicized movies like Words on Bathroom Walls and Cut Throat City opted to go to theaters and drive-ins and not debut with a VOD release.

For its second weekend in theaters, Unhinged will have to contend with the theatrical opening of Marvel's New Mutants. The highly-anticipated comic book adaptation could pull second-week audiences away from Unhinged in favor of a slightly more family-friendly experience.

Plus, the debate regarding reopoening continues to rage on. Several states are still seeing spikes in the coronavirus, causing theaters that do open to alter their day-to-day operations drastically. Solstice Studios, as a new company, needs to make a name for themselves, so they wanted to continue with their marketing strategy regarding Unhinged.