Weekend Box Office: The pandemic's second Liam Neeson thriller takes out Wonder Woman 1984
Our elected officials failed us a lot in 2020, but one of the most tangible ways that they failed us was in willfully ignoring the realities of the threat posed by COVID-19, resulting in what will soon be a full year of restrictions and lockdowns. It’s hard to really understand how long it’s been, though, so here’s a clearer illustration of just how prolonged the coronavirus nightmare has been: As of this weekend, the U.S. box office has now gotten two Liam Neeson thrillers since the pandemic began. Two! And no Marvel movies! The first was Honest Thief in October, and now we’ve gotten the Clint Eastwood-esque The Marksman—which stars Liam Neeson as a certified Real American living on a ranch near the Mexican border and aiming his rifle at immigrants crossing into his property. It won the box office this past weekend, making a fairly impressive $3.2 million. (It was also, for the record, the third Liam Neeson movie the pandemic if you count the comedy Made In Italy. Fourth if you count Ordinary Love from February. The man works.)
That was enough to dethrone Wonder Woman 1984, which still made $2.6 million (for a respectable total of $35.8, which is a huge box office take for during this pandemic). Unfortunately for Diana Of Themyscira, though, any hopes of beating the total haul of The Croods: A New Age are staring to slip away: It made just over $2 million this past weekend, which is not that much less than WW84, and it put it just under $40 million. It’ll have to drop off fast for Wonder Woman 1984 to catch up—not that it, or any of this, really matters.
The next few spots on the list, like last week, remain unchanged: News Of The World made $1 million, Monster Hunter made $920,000, Fatale made $530,000 (big drop off between those two), and Promising Young Woman made just $430,000. Disney’s requisite questionably necessary rerelease for the week (The Emperor’s New Groove this time) made only $169,000, and everything after that is pretty grim. But, as we keep saying, it’s probably not safe to go to a movie theater right now anyway, so… yeah.
For a more detailed breakdown of the weekend’s box office numbers, click on over to Box Office Mojo.