New Mutants #1 at Box Office

This was probably the only way The New Mutants was going to be a #1 movie. It opened this weekend in theaters, in spite of the need to maintain social distancing, and it took in $7 million. In over 2400 theaters, that’s a per-screen average of less than $3000.

A news story about the local theater in my area said that, in a 300-seat auditorium, they were allowed to sell 10 tickets, so it probably wasn’t ever going to make very much money in these circumstances.

Originally scheduled for release in April 2018, the movie was delayed for a variety of reasons. Most recently, it was Disney acquiring Fox (the studio who had the X-Men movie license) and the pandemic.

The horror approach to a group of young mutants telling their origins in some weird asylum sounded different, but Disney refusing to screen the movie for reviewers didn’t bode well, particularly when it meant viewers risking their health.