‘The Invitation’ Leads Lowest Summer Box Office Weekend With $7 Million Launch

thewrap.com:

“The Invitation” is taking No. 1 with an opening of just $7 million from 3,114 theaters, which is just more than half of the $11 million opening that Sony earned with another critically panned Screen Gems horror production, “Slender Man,” in August 2018. “Invitation” did slightly better critically with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 29% critics and 53% audience, but will likely die a quick death theatrically.

The only other new wide release this weekend was MGM’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” George Miller’s first film since the Oscar-winning “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The film opened outside the top 5 with $2.8 million from 2,436 theaters, earning positive reviews with a 70% critics RT score and a B from audiences on CinemaScore.

The ongoing drought of buzzy new films is expected to continue well into mid-October, with next weekend’s Labor Day numbers likely to be more than 50% from last year when Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” set a new record for the September holiday.

As we noted in our summer box office review, the strong audience turnout in the early summer months, while helpful, wasn’t enough to dig exhibitors out of the deep financial hole they were thrown into by the pandemic, and the industry is still not in a strong position to withstand the longer, deeper box office dry spells that we have seen this year.