Despite New York City movie theaters having reopened for the first time in nearly a year this weekend, the box-office struggled to sell tickets. Is this another sure sign that moviegoing normalcy isn’t coming any time soon? You bet.
Disney’s animated “Raya and the Last Dragon,” opened to $8.6 million from 2,045 screens. Last weekend’s animated debut, “Tom & Jerry,” had earned almost double that ($14.1 million). ‘Raya’ was made available to Disney Plus subscribers for a $30 fee, but “Tom and Jerry” was also a streaming exclusive on HBO Max, and without the extra fee. Disappointing numbers.
In its second weekend of release, “Tom & Jerry” picked up $6.6 million domestically, pushing its accumulative intake past the $23 million mark. Lionsgate’s “Chaos Walking,” the critically panned fantasy adventure starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, grossed $3.8 million for a third-place finish. The reported budget of that Doug Liman-directed film was $100 million. A box-office bomb is born.
