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Although the domestic box office has begun to recover in the aftermath of the coronavirus epidemic, ticket sales during the upcoming Fourth of July weekend may fall short of pre-Covid levels. According to Comscore data, the weekend before the Fourth of July typically brings in between $150 million and $200 million, depending on which films are released and which day the holiday falls on. Two Universal films, “The Boss Baby: Family Business” and “The Forever Purge,” as well as Searchlight’s “Summer of Soul” and A24’s “Zola,” are set to open this weekend at the box office. The first “Boss Baby” picture grossed $50 million in its opening weekend, but box office pundits predict that the sequel will fall short of that. Many doubt it will be able to outperform “F9,” which had a robust $70 million opening weekend and is expected to gross between $30 million and $40 million in its second week. “The Forever Purge” is the fifth installment in the horror franchise, and it’s unlikely to gross more than $20 million in its first weekend. The first film in the series made $34 million in its opening weekend, whereas the fourth installment, “The First Purge,” only made $17 million in 2018. During Thursday night’s previews, both “The Boss Baby: Family Business” and “The Forever Purge” only made $1.3 million each. This weekend, almost 80% of movie theaters will be available to the public, and mask requirements for people who have received the coronavirus vaccine have been relaxed. While the box office hasn’t yet caught up to the ticket sales it generated in 2019, analysts are optimistic that its upward trajectory will continue. “F9” had the greatest opening weekend of any film released during the pandemic last weekend, helping to bring the total weekend take to $98.7 million, a new industry high. This weekend could be the first to surpass $100 million in ticket sales since the coronavirus outbreak shut down theaters in March 2020, thanks to an inflow of new content and good holdovers from other previously released titles. “There is perhaps no better evidence that the movie theater business is returning to normalcy than the fact that we are on the verge of a good old-fashioned crowded theatrical marketplace for an Independence Day weekend chock-full of movies from literally every genre,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. In addition to “F9,” “A Quiet Place Part II,” “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway,” “Cruella,” and “In the Heights” will continue to bring in money at the box office. Last week, though, none of these films broke the $10 million mark in ticket sales. This week, collections are likely to drop by 25% to 30%, which is an usual decline. Nonetheless, the $1.5 million harvest for the Fourth of July weekend in 2021 will significantly beat the modest $1.5 million take for the same weekend in 2020. The rerelease of 1984’s “Ghostbusters” was the highest-grossing film over the holiday weekend last year. ” After a year in which, for obvious reasons, theatrical revenues hit an all-time low and a 37-year-old film topped the charts in much-appreciated drive-ins that were the only game in town for outside-the-home big screen entertainment, the Fourth of July tradition of going to the movies will resume this year “According to Dergarabedian. As Americans return to more typical activities over the summer and into the fall, Hollywood is optimistic that the box office will pick up. Marvel’s “Black Widow,” Warner Bros.’ “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” and the DC Extended Universe’s “The Suicide Squad” are among the big films set to be released after this weekend. More than half of the US population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, resulting in a significant reduction in Covid-related mortality. In recent weeks, the number of new cases has dropped dramatically and is still well below its high. However, public health officials are keeping a close eye on the development of the extremely contagious delta form in regions with poor vaccination rates, which has resulted in an uptick in cases recently. Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC, is disclosing this information. “The Boss Baby: Family Business” and “The Forever Purge” are both distributed by NBCUniversal./nRead More

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