Weekend Box Office: April 30th – May 2nd, 2021
By Kurt Balingit
This weekend saw the debut of two big studio titles, both of which went directly to streaming platforms. Paramount’s Tom Clancy film “Without Remorse,” and Sony Animation’s “The Mitchells vs the Machines,” were launched on Amazon Prime and Netflix. On the Netflix chart. “The Mitchells vs the Machines” is currently the number one movie on Netflix.
After narrowly losing first place last weekend, “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” has surged ahead of “Mortal Kombat” on U.S. box office charts. Funimation’s anime action adventure “Demon Slayer” ended the weekend with $6.4 million in ticket sales, with “Mortal Kombat” trailing behind it with $6.2 million. Both films debuted last weekend and dipped roughly 70% from last week.
- Demon Slayer: Mugen Train – $6,412,933 ($34,118,776 total gross)
- Mortal Kombat – $6,235,000 ($34,087,000 total gross)
- Godzilla vs. Kong – $2,820,000 ($90,390,000 total gross)
- Separation – $1,800,162 ($1,800,162 total gross)
- Raya and the Last Dragon – $1,381,155 ($41,627,102 total gross)
Demon Slayer was released in Japan in 2020 and is the Japan’s top grossing film of all time raking in $361 million there. After it’s release to U.S theaters it has made just over $400 million.
The only new release this weekend was William Brent Bell’s horror film “Separation,” which earned $1.8 million and an 9% Tomatometer score which was the worst score from all releases in 2021, beating Chaos Walking’s 23%. We have been seeing a trend in demographics attending the theater and younger, male audiences are turning out on opening weekend seeing action films