A look at box office performance of Ryan Reynold’s video game action comedy Free Guy-Entertainment News , Firstpost

Despite a marketplace challenged by COVID-19 , video game action comedy Free Guy has topped the North American box office in its opening weekend, taking in $28.4 million, preliminary figures from trade firm Exhibitor Relations showed Sunday.

The movie directed by Shawn Levy was made by the Walt Disney Co-owned 20th Century Fox, with a theatrical release contractually stipulated for the roughly $100 million production.

Free Guy succeeded with an old-school formula

After a few weeks of declining audiences and underwhelming debuts amid the delta variant surge, Free Guy succeeded with an old-school formula: an original, star-fronted movie with good word-of-mouth playing only in North American theatres.

“This is a very good opening under difficult conditions. The Delta variant is taking a toll,” David A Gross, who runs consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, told AFP, referring to a surge in coronavirus cases.

Playing in 4,165 North American theatres, Free Guy was expected to debut around $20 million. Its surprisingly strong opening gave further proof to what some analysts have been saying throughout the year — hybrid releases that send new movies immediately onto streaming platforms can significantly harm ticket sales.

Reviews were good (82% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), and a male-heavy audience gave Free Guy an “A” CinemaScore. (About 60% of moviegoers were male, Disney said.) Free Guy also added $22.5 million internationally.

Free Guy will play exclusively in theatres for at least 45 days — and its strong performance through the weekend suggests it could buck the summer’s typical trend of fast drop offs.

 

Other films 

Last week’s top film, The Suicide Squad, slid steeply, dropping 70% in its second weekend. After its $26.2 million debut, James Gunn’s Suicide Squad redo pulled in just $7.8 million for Warner Bros, bringing its two-week total to $42.9 million. It’s concurrently playing on HBO Max.

That film’s tumble gave a few other releases more room at multiplexes. Sony Pictures’ horror sequel Don’t Breathe 2 opened with $10.6 million, in line with studio projections. While Don’t Breathe 2 debuted with less than half the opening of the 2016 original, the sequel was made with a modest budget of $15 million.

MGM and United Artists’ Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson, debuted with $8.8 million. Respect, which has drawn praise for Hudson’s leading performance, also landed an “A” CinemaScore. Its audience was 66% female and nearly half of ticket buyers were Black.

Disney’s Jungle Cruise, starring Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson, landed in third place in its third weekend with $9 million. Its worldwide total is $154.3 million. It’s also playing on Disney+ for an additional $30.

Apple didn’t report grosses for CODA, one of the company’s major movie acquisitions and one seen as a crowd-pleasing milestone in deaf representation of on screen. The film, starring deaf actors Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant, was a prize-winning sensation at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where Apple plunked down a festival-record $25 million for the film. CODA, which stands for child of a deaf adult, debuted simultaneously in theatres and on Apple TV+.

Here are the rest of the top 10:

Old ($2.4 million)

Black Widow ($2 million)

Stillwater ($1.3 million)

The Green Knight ($1.2 million)

Space Jam: A New Legacy ($1.2 million)

(With inputs from agencies)