Even though it’s been two years since the theatrical industry was brought to a standstill by the first wave of the pandemic, business is still struggling to reach anything approaching the levels it was at back when times were both certain and precedented.
As a result, any broad crowd-pleasing blockbuster that comes packing a high concept premise and plenty of star power that isn’t a superhero movie or a sequel debuting to $30 million at the box office is viewed as an absolute win, with The Lost City continuing to overachieve in its opening weekend.
After nabbing a strong $2.5 million from Thursday previews, Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s romantic adventure hoovered up in excess of $11.5 million yesterday, which has Adam and Aaron Nee’s latest feature heading for a first frame north of $30 million.
Breaking that down, by the time the dust settles on tomorrow’s numbers, The Lost City will have scored the highest-grossing debut for an original film since Encanto arrived back in November of last year. Every single title to have spent at least one week at the summit of the domestic charts since then has been either a sequel or an adaptation of some kind, so we were about due something fresh.
That’s also going to ensure that The Lost City takes the crown for the biggest pandemic-era opening for a female-fronted project, so it’s a significant victory all-round, and there might even be the possibility of a second installment should international figures follow suit when the old-fashioned flight of fancy begins rolling out overseas.
