The Croods 2 at the Top of the Box Office Again… Again
For the second weekend in a row, The Croods: A New Age was in the first place at the weekend box office. The CGI-animated adventure by DreamWorks is now in its 13th week in cinemas. It is nevertheless holding remarkably well, mostly due to the lack of other new family-friendly movies in cinemas… Or any new movies, period. A feature film debut of Joel Crawford, A New Age earned $1,7 million last weekend, bringing its worldwide gross up to over $154 million.
After dropping down to third place a weekend before last, crime thriller The Little Things rose to second place last weekend, with $1,2 million. A Warner Bros. production starring Jared Leto (Suicide Squad), Rami Malek (Mr. Robot), and Denzel Washington (Training Day), The Little Things so far has a total gross of around $20 million. In its second weekend in cinemas, Shaka King’s biopic Judas and the Black Messiah dropped from second to third place, earning $905,000. Its combined gross currently stands at $3,4 million. After nine weeks, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 remains in fourth place, with $805,000. An eagerly awaited sequel to 2017 blockbuster, it so far grossed around $160 million worldwide. And finally, in fifth place at the last weekend’s box office is once more the crime thriller The Marksman, featuring Liam Neeson as a grizzled rancher fighting the Mexican cartel to save a life of a kid. After six weeks in movie theaters, The Marksman earned $782,000 last weekend, with a total worldwide gross of $15,2 million.
All of this data comes from the Box Office Mojo.
Introducing Paramount+
Beginning March 4, ViacomCBS will be rebranding its streaming service CBS All Access as Paramount+. During this week’s Investor Day, the company presented the slate of projects that will air on the new/old streaming service. Here are some of the highlights.
Possibly the most interesting announcement deals with potential blockbusters like A Quiet Place Part II, Mission: Impossible 7, and Top Gun: Maverick. According to SlashFilm, these movies will arrive at Paramount+ 45 days after their premiere in cinemas. For comparison, the traditional theatrical window used to be between 70 and 90 days. The reason Paramount could shorten it is simple: with movie theaters closed due to lockdowns, studios began turning towards streaming as a source of revenue. This, in turn, forced cinemas to accept harsher distribution deals. For example, NBCUniversal made a deal with AMC that shortened the theatrical release window for Universal movies to a mere 17 days.
Some Paramount movies will skip the theatrical distribution entirely. Again, according to SlashFilm, these include (yet another) Paranormal Activity sequel as well as the Pet Sematary prequel. Dumping them directly to streaming may turn out to be a smart move.
Paramount+ will feature plenty of reheated reboots of shows like Criminal Minds, Frasier, Inside Amy Schumer, and Rugrats. There will also be TV shows based on movies like Fatal Attraction, Flashdance, Grease, Love Story, The Italian Job, and The Parallax View. Finally, a long-gestating Halo TV series – initially produced for Showtime – is now set to premiere on Paramount+ instead.
HBO Max Expanding to New Territories
HBO Max launched in North America on May 27, 2020. Now, WarnerMedia is looking to expand the reach of its streaming service. GeekTyrant reports that starting from June 2021, HBO Max will become available in an additional 39 countries in Central and South America.
These countries include – takes a deep breath – Anguilla, Antigua, Argentina, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St.Kitts and Nevis, St.Lucia, St.Vincent, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks and Caicos, Uruguay and Venezuela. Owners of the HBO GO subscription will get instant access to HBO Max as the lder service will be phased out.
As we reported last week, Netflix remains the streaming service with the largest number of subscribers – around 203 million worldwide. It is followed by Amazon’s 150 million. Disney Plus surpassed all expectations, reaching over 94 million subscribers in less than 18 months since its launch. HBO Max currently has “only” about 37,7 million subscribers. It remains to be seen will this number rise with WarnerMedia’s ambitious plan to release all of its 2021 titles both in cinemas and on HBO Max.
