April has surpassed all box office expectations considering we are still amid the devastating results of the pandemic. Godzilla vs. Kong’s successful opening has jump-started the movement back to moviegoers significantly patronizing theaters, and this is great news for titles that are coming up. The release of the sequel to John Krasinski’s 2018 A Quiet Place is steadily approaching after being severely delayed by COVID-19, and as the first tentpole, theater-only release since Tenet at the very beginning of theater re-openings, A Quiet Place Part II could "quietly" pull in a large amount from its big screen run.
According to Box Office Pro’s forecast, Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II could now bring in $30-50 million domestically during its opening weekend alone, a significant increase from past forecasts. As far as its overall theatrical run goes, the film is forecasted to bring in anywhere from $75-125 million domestically.
This number is roughly doubling Disney’s live action Cruella’s estimated opening weekend. The Disney film stars Emma Stone and is set to be released to theaters on the same day as A Quiet Place Part II. Granted, Cruella will be premiering on Disney+'s Premier Access as well as in theaters, while the Paramount film will initially only be available for viewing in a theater.
While some major films have chosen to go ahead and release in theaters even with the pandemic still going on, most haven’t really done so without a safety net. Warner Bros has put out a good amount of big films since its Christmas release of Wonder Woman 1984, but the studio has also released all of its films to HBO Max simultaneously. A Quiet Place Part II will risk heading to theaters without the safety net of a streaming platform to back it up and is the first major release to do so since Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, which was itself the first major film to release after theaters were shut down and reopened.
A Quiet Place Part II does have one other significant thing going for it, though: it is releasing on Memorial Day weekend. This time of year has often been promising for theaters. Even though this year all bets are off due to the uncertainty of the pandemic, hopefully that weekend paired with the current box office success we are seeing to yield good results for Memorial Day pictures like A Quiet Place Part II.
All this being said, we are not back to normal yet. There are still some delays happening; for instance, the nearly-here Mortal Kombat was delayed by a week recently. There are also some titles still being pulled from theaters all together, as exemplified in Disney’s decision to pull Luca in favor of making it available exclusively on Disney+.
If the box office numbers remain good, and we continue to see films doing well and following Godzilla vs Kong’s path, theaters may start to get back into the traditional swing of things. If A Quiet Place Part II does as well as the projected numbers say it will, we may even see more major films gaining theatrical releases. Fingers crossed we are able to safely get back to normal!
