In its 40th Anniversary year, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back jumps back to the top of the box office this weekend, for the first time since the February 1997 reissue, after clocking an estimated $175K at 483 locations in the US. It is expected to take between $400K and low $500K in the US, and will probably top the box office in the UK too.
Some of these recent classic reissues, such as Ghostbusters last weekend and Jurassic Park and Jaws over the June 19-21 weekend, have been collecting around a half million dollars lately in a given weekend on less than 500 sites.
Last night’s gross for Empire Strikes Back brings the 1980 George Lucas-executive produced and story by, and Irvin Kershner-directed movie’s lifetime gross to $290.4M stateside. The pic’s five-day gross stands at $210K.
Empire Strikes Back, according to Box Office Mojo, held the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office for eight weeks following its May 21, 1980 release. There was a 1982 re-release, and then the Lucas-tweaked and revived 1997 edition, which had a two-weekend run at No. 1, grossing $21.97M on its first weekend of Feb. 21-23 and then $13.1M in its second weekend.
The 1997 edition of Empire contributed another $67.6M overall to Episode V‘s running domestic box office. All of the Star Wars movies, including Rogue One, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and the animated Clone Wars through 12 titles have racked up over $10.3 billion at the global box office.
In fact, Disney can boast the top three spots at the box office this weekend, with 20th Century Studios’ Empire at No. 1, Marvel’s Black Panther at No. 2 with an estimated $110K at 336 sites yesterday, and Pixar’s 2015 Oscar-winner Inside Out with $106K at 316. We’ll update you on their 3-day industry figures on Monday.
Drive-ins, despite repping a third of the over 1K supply of theaters open, continue to rake in the most business, with a majority of the top-grossing 135 locations in the US being drive-ins. Yesterday, the top 5 were Cine-Drive in Saint Eustache, Quebec; the Sacramento 6 in CA, the Capitol 6 in San Jose, CA; the Transit Drive-in in Lockport, NY; and the Vali-Hi in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. There’s a lot of financial upside for exhibition on catalog titles, and I understand that typically the studios charge movie theaters a flat fee of just $250 a title.
Last weekend, after California Governor Gavin Newsom’s order to close beaches, dine-in restaurants, bars, and wine tasting rooms in 19 counties, that order took its toll on ten hard-top theaters that were open, sources tell us. One of theaters that was scheduled to reopen, the Studio Movie Grill in Simi Valley, CA, would have repped the closest cinema to LA (40 miles north) to reopen. The cinema is located in Ventura County. To stay afloat, the cinema is providing take-out food service for customers. It will reopen fully toward the end of July.
