Well, damn. Who knew? Kevin Smith had no idea his 2019 movie Jay and Silent Bob Reboot broke box office records. But it turns out the eighth movie in the View Askewniverse has some impressive stats under its belt, including several massive per-screen averages that combined to set a new record.
Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes took Jay and Silent Bob Reboot on a roadshow with Q&As and that's how the opening weekend from October 18-20, 2019 ended up with a staggering per-screen average of $93,520. Because it only played in one theater and that theater was packed with fans! For comparison, as Business Insider pointed out back in October, Avengers: Endgame had a per-screen average of $76,601 from 4,662 screens. So Kevin Smith gets to say his movie topped his beloved Endgame in at least one metric.
Only 42 other movies have had as high a per-screen average as Jay and Silent Bob Reboot's $93,520. For a little while, it was the highest per-screen average of 2019, until Parasite came along with over $125,000.
But that's not the box office record in question. As Forbes noted, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot didn't just have one huge per-screen weekend. It had per-screen averages over $60,000 four different times in its domestic run, and apparently no other movie in history has done that before. It's pretty amazing!
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot's other three box office weekends north of $60,000 actually came in early 2020 from January 10-12's per-screen average of $76,768, followed by Feb. 7-9's $63,980, and Feb 14-16's $63,986, per Box Office Mojo.
Forbes' little discovery of that specific box office record tickled Kevin Smith, who was happy to see it and share it:
It's clear Jay and Silent Bob Reboot came at the right time. It really found its family, and the reactions have been very positive. Would it have done even better with a wider release, beyond just 17 theaters at its peak? The wider the release, the lower the per-screen average -- so it probably wouldn't have this nifty record -- but a wider release gives the film more money because more people have a chance to see it on the big screen.
By comparison, this weekend's #1 movie is Onward, which has a per-screen average of $9,280 from 4,310 theaters. That's a much lower per-screen average than Jay and Silent Bob Reboot but the Pixar movie has already made $40,000,000 at the domestic box office, which is certainly a lot more than Kevin Smith's movie.
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot has only made $4.58 million at the domestic box office so far. But still, it's impressive, and it came organically through reaching out to fans one screening at a time. And what a rush to now have this little feather in their caps that it set a random and very specific box office record!
