Here’s something no one at the weekend box office really expected, especially at a depressed time when there aren’t any big new studio releases: Disney’s big re-release of the 1993 classic witch comedy Hocus Pocus is doing pretty well in 2,570 theaters on the way to what seems to be a $ 1.6M – $ 1.8M estimated weekend in second place behind Tenet.
That’s arguably the largest amount of weekend money we’ve seen for a catalog title during the pandemic. That surpassed Disney’s remake of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back last weekend, which grossed $ 908,000 in 2,097 theaters.
More impressive is the fact that Hocus Pocus aired two nights ago on October 1st with Midler Live Tweets on Disney’s sister cable network Freeform. People will still go to the movies now. Still, I hear drive-ins point the way for most of the gross Hocus Pocus. Disney reported that yesterday’s numbers for the movie Better Midler-Sarah Jessica Parker-Kathy Najimy were $ 650,000.
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Directed by Kenny Ortega in 1993, which grossed $ 39.5 million after a release in July of that year, the film follows a curious youth who moves to Salem. There he struggles to adapt before raising a trio of diabolical witches (played by Midler, Parker, and Najimy) who were executed in the 17th century. A new incarnation of Hocus Pocus is in the works at Disney + with TV writer Jen D’Angelo (Happy Together, LA to Vegas, Workaholics).
Most distributors report their numbers on Sunday morning, rather than all weekend. So we don’t yet know what Warner Bros. Tenet is doing. However, it is expected to head inland again, now on its technically sixth weekend, first unreported 3-day stay in Canada) Last weekend, Tenet earned $ 3.4 million, -28% on a running total of $ 41.2 million. Warner Bros. continues to hide daily drill-down and theater-by-theater box office numbers in Comscore, preventing competing distributors and exhibitors from analyzing how the film is doing.
Disney’s New Mutants on Weekend 6 are expected to rake in around $ 900,000 for third place, -23% after yesterday Friday of $ 260,000 on the way to a $ 20.8 million cume.
We will have more updates for your tomorrow.
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