Thanksgiving Box Office Expected To Be Slim

Thanksgiving, usually a good time for the movie theater box office, likely won’t be doing even close to as well this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, CNBC writes.

Usually, the Thanksgiving weekend nets the box office over $250 million, as families get together without having to work and families often take children to see new releases.

This year, though, with people largely avoiding movie theaters and a lack of much new content, the amount is likely to be less than $20 million, CNBC writes.

Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian said the new films still arriving in theaters this year wouldn’t be enough to offset the catastrophic fallout from the pandemic.

“The pandemic has negatively impacted every traditionally important box office holiday from Memorial weekend to Fourth of July, and even sidelined the almighty summer movie season, so it’s no surprise that Thanksgiving would be impacted as well,” Dergarabedian said, according to CNBC. He said despite the usual tradition of getting together to enjoy the movies, this year the cinema would be “literally a turkey.”

This year overall has seen a 77 percent drop in box office sales, CNBC writes. At this time last year, the biggest box office hits included “Frozen 2,” “Knives Out” and “Ford vs. Ferrarri,” and the weekend alone netted box office sales of $263.4 million. By comparison, this year only has one new release in “The Croods: A New Age,” which might draw crowds for the fact that it’s new, but likely won’t have a big impact on the box office.

Movie theaters have been open for months, but not doing well as the majority of audiences simply aren’t ready to return to the theaters. The lack of new releases only makes a “Catch 22″ situation, PYMNTS writes, in which theaters need to show blockbusters to get audiences to attend, but the movie studios need large crowds to justify releasing hugely expensive films.