THE WAR WITH GRANDPA, The Robert De Niro’s Family Comedy, Unseats TENET at the Box Office

The War With Grandpa Unseats Tenet at the Box Office

The War With Grandpa, a Robert De Niro family comedy which was originally supposed to premiere in theaters in 2018, unseated Tenet as box office king this week.

The original release date was changed after Harvey Weinstein — the producer whose company The Weinstein Company was going to distribute the film — was exposed as a sexual predator. His fall from grace led to the break up of The Weinstein Company and plunged The War With Grandpa among other films such as The Upside and The Current War, into a state of production limbo.

Two years later The War With Grandpa finally hit theaters, although in a drastically more desperate theatrical market, one that faces an existential crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The film grossed $3.6 million from its 2,205 locations while unsurprisingly receiving a drubbing from critics who dismissed it as boring and miserable. Though during quarantine when big markets like New York City and Los Angeles are closed to the public, that could be considered a decent box office. As Forbes notes, it still ranks as the weakest box office leader since 1988; so clearly the industry is facing a very difficult financial situation.

101 Studios — the new production company run by former Weinstein Company executive David Glasser — and Brookdale Entertainment snatched up the rights to The War With Grandpa and released it. The company also distributed The Current War, which was orphaned by its parent company in October in a similar way to The War With Grandpa.

Christopher Nolan‘s Tenet grossed $2.1 million domestically In its sixth week in theaters, bringing its total box office revenue to $48.3 million and giving The War With Grandpa the opportunity to outperform in its opening weekend. The Warner Bros. sci-fi thriller made an estimated $9.8 million globally this weekend in 62 different countries, pushing its worldwide total revenue to $323.3 million.

Disney’s in theater re-release of Hocus Pocus turned out to be a rare hit despite quarantine, earning $1.2 million. The comedy about witches stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy was a box office flop when it debuted in 1993, but later became a cult hit on cable and internet platforms. The New Mutants — the newest addition to the X-Men franchise that Disney inherited after it purchased Fox — earned $685,000, pushing its domestic gross to $22 million.  With such a weak box office, it doesn’t seem likely The New Mutants: Part 2 will be made.

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