By: Keaton Marcus

Diving into the weekend, 2020’s first horror hit of the year was The Invisible Man which overperformed on expectations, and made 7x its budget in just three days, claiming the top spot. Otherwise, Sonic the Hedgehog continued its excellent run, holding well with The Call of the Wild—topping new release and surprise My Hero Academia. Once again, Bad Boys for Life rounded out the top five.

Topping the charts was Universal’s R-rated horror reboot The Invisible Man which grossed an estimated 29M in ticket sales from 3,610 locations, averaging a rock-solid $8,033 per-screen. Not only delivering the biggest debut for a horror film this year, but also beating its 20-25M pre-weekend expectations despite the Coronavirus. Comparatively, the movie beat others of the genre such as Escape Room (18.2M), Insidious: Chapter 3 (22.6M) and The Predator (24.6M) despite being edged out by Insidious: The Last Key (29.5M). For the finish, the films above make an average multiplier of 2.48x, which would mean a close of about 71M, but this one boasts excellent reviews from both critics and audiences, so we wouldn’t be surprised if it caps around 90M+.

Internationally, The Invisible Man brought an estimated 20.2M from 47 markets for a global launch of 49.2M, which doesn’t seem massive, but considering its 7 million cost, that’s great news. Leading the way was a 2.9M debut in the UK, followed by France (2.2M), Mexico (1.8M), Australia (1.7M), Germany (1.2M), Korea (1.1M) and Spain (1M). Next weekend we see releases in several markets, including a March 5th opening in Russia, and ending with a May 1st release in Japan.

Review wise, surprisingly, both critics and audiences alike took a great liking to the film. On RottenTomatoes, the movie scored an excellent 90% “Certified Fresh” based on 250 reviews with a consensus of: “Smart, well-acted and above all scary, The Invisible Man proves that sometimes, the classic source material for a fresh reboot can be hiding in plain sight.” Additionally, audiences gave it a very high 88% approval rating on RT and an impressive B+ CinemaScore, way above-average for a horror film.

In runner-up, we saw Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog which earned another 16M in its third weekend, sliding just 39% from last weekend and reaching 128.2M domestically after 17 days in release. Overseas, the children’s film added another 26.8M from 62 markets for a foreign total of 137.2M and a worldwide haul of 265.4M, already breaking even with its 85M budget.

Thirdly, there was 20th Century Studios’ The Call of the Wild made 13.2M in its sophomore session, indicating a reasonable drop of 47%, but still struggling at a domestic cume of just 45.8M after 10 days. Overseas, things aren’t going much better for the 135M production, which added 11M internationally for a foreign gross of 33.4M and a worldwide total of 79.2M.

In fourth the second new wide release was FUNimation’s My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising which pulled in a solid 5.1M from 1,260 theaters in three days, crossing 8.4M over five. While it likely won’t match the 30.7M North American run for 2018’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly, it will remain the studio’s second biggest movie ever.

Rounding out the top five was Sony’s Bad Boys for Life which earned 4.3M over the weekend, crossing 197.3M domestically. Internationally, the film hauled in 4.9M for an overseas gross of 208M and a global total of 405.3M after 45 days in release.

Next weekend, we see two nationwide releases soaring into theaters. First off, Disney and Pixar’s Onward will be released in over 4,000 theaters (55-60M expectations), followed by sports drama The Way Back starring Ben Affleck, which will open in 2,600 locations (10-15M predictions).

TOP FIVE:

The Invisible Man
Sonic the Hedgehog
The Call of the Wild (2020)
My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising
Bad Boys for Life