Weekend Wrap-Up: Empire Strikes Back, Again
July 14, 2020
For the third time in the past 40 years, The Empire Strikes Back opened in first place on the weekend box office chart. According to Deadline, the film pulled in $611,000 over the three-day weekend for a total opening of $644,000. This puts it near the very top of the pandemic re-releases, ahead of last week’s winner, Ghostbusters, looking at the three-day figure, but behind it over five.
Disney also had the next two spots on the chart with Black Panther and Inside Out earning $367,000 and $340,000 respectively. Deadline has Relic next with $236,000; however, the distributor’s official number, which is what we report is lower. This leaves Jurassic Park ($224,000) and The Goonies ($213,000) to round out the top five.
Relic was the best non-re-release earning, $186,553 in 126 theaters over the weekend for a two-week total of $531,949. Palm Springs was the best new release of the week with an estimated haul of $164,000 from 66 theaters. This isn’t the usual film to succeed in drive-ins, so the diversity is good news.
IFC announced they were the first studio to earn $2 million in drive-ins with new releases during the pandemic, most of which has been earned by IFC Midnight’s horror and thriller releases.
Filed under: Jurassic Park, Star Wars Ep. V: The Empire Strikes Back, The Goonies, Black Panther, Inside Out, Relic, Palm Springs