Thanksgiving estimates: Croods 2 outperforms expectations with $14-million Thanksgiving debut
November 29, 2020
The Croods: A New Age is delivering some welcome news at the box office this weekend with an opening that is significantly better than our prediction. In fact, if it hits Universal’s Sunday morning projection of $9.71 million, it will have the best Friday–Sunday weekend since theaters started reopening, beating Tenet’s $9.35 million first full weekend (although note that Warner Bros. published a figure of $20.2 million for Tenet, which included a week of earnings in Canada, and preview screenings in the United States). The reason for this big weekend was the continued attendance of families in movie theaters: 81% of the audience for Croods 2 was either under 18 or a parent bringing a child.
Other movies came very close to our pre-weekend predictions, suggesting that the performance of Croods was not so much a reflection of general market improvement as the specific draw of a film like this. According to exit polling data provided by Universal, 14% of the audience consists of children under 10, 19% children between 10 and 12, and 32% parents with children. Add in another 17% from children between 13 and 17, and that puts an overwhelming 81% of the audience in the family bracket. Another 16% of the audience was between 18 and 24, leaving only 3% over 25s without children. (Note that figures do not add up to 100% due to rounding).
Ethnically, the audience was 41% Caucasian, 36% Hispanic, 17% African American, 2% Asian, and 4% “other.” That share from Hispanic audiences is the highest for any movie in our database, beating a 29% Hispanic share for Abominable last year. Information on ethnicity isn’t often provided by the studios, but this is still a striking figure.
The gender breakdown for Croods was fairly even, with 53% under 13 girls, 52% mothers, and a 53% female share in the general audience.
The other film to out-perform expectations this weekend was The War with Grandpa, which now has $17.26 million in total after another $640,000 or so this weekend. Once more it looks as though families are the demographic group most likely to go to theaters at the moment. Although we have very limited data, perhaps 50% of family groups are willing to go to theaters right now, compared to about 35% of the general audience. Unfortunately for the industry, Croods 2 was the last major family film to be released in 2020.
The Croods: A New Age is performing well in its early overseas outings. It is set to earn $20.795 million internationally this weekend for a worldwide opening weekend of $30.515 million and $35.01 million in total globally to date. It will top the Chinese box office with a $19.2 million weekend. It also opened in some smaller markets with $400,000 in Saudi Arabia, $400,000 in Vietnam, $300,000 in the U.A.E., and $200,000 in Singapore. With many countries locking down again, the film will roll out slowly around the world, with Mexico the next key market on December 11, and launches extending well into 2021: France is scheduled for January 27, Germany on January 28, Italy on February 4, the UK on February 5, Korea on February 10, and Japan not until September 17, 2021.
Freaky couples its $870,000 domestically with $770,000 internationally for totals of $4.871 million in North America, $7.024 million abroad, and $11.895 million worldwide. Let Him Go has $9.354 million worldwide, with a small share of that, $612,000, earned internationally. Its main international market is Australia, with $242,000 to date.
The Witches will earn a projected $1.2 million from 28 overseas markets this weekend for an international cume of $16.9 million. It is opening to a strong $514,000 in the Netherlands to top the chart there. Tenet will earn around $837,000 globally this weekend. Its international total is now $300.4 million, for a worldwide total of $357.8 million.
Finally, Superintelligence, which debuted on HBO Max in the United States on Thursday, will earn a projected $750,000 from 1,852 screens in 9 international markets. Russia leads the way with $395,000 this weekend, followed by Saudi Arabia with $200,000.
- Weekend studio estimates
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International Markets
- Weekend predictions
- Weekend theater counts