IFC’s Dave Franco-directed horror movie The Rental continued to hold its lease atop the box office for a second weekend in a row, grossing $317,823 from 242 locations. Pic’s 10-day gross stands at $916,333.
The Rental reps the first No. 1 movie for the indie distrib (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, if you remember, only got up to the No. 2 spot for three weekends in a row starting in Labor Day 2002). Again, The Rental is the second new title to hold the top spot at the box office since the major chains closed down in mid-March, after Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour. Black Bear produced and financed The Rental.
The Rental continues to hold strong digitally, maintaining the No. 1 spot on iTunes’ Horror charts this week, as well as placing within the platform’s top 10 overall.
The Rental last weekend was the top film film on iTunes and at the weekend box office, making it only the second film to top both charts concurrently.
Franco’s feature directorial debut, The Rental follows two couples who rent a vacation home for what should be a celebratory weekend get-away. Pic stars Alison Brie, Dan Stevens, Jeremy Allen White, and Sheila Vand, and is written by Franco and Joe Swanberg.
As has been the norm during the pandemic, drive-ins continued to be the box office leaders, with a majority of the top 160 locations this weekend belonging to car venues. On a Comscore flash sheet, the top five locations for Friday and Saturday were the Ford Wyoming Drive-in in Dearborn, MI; the Cine-Drive in Saint Eustache, Quebec, the Stardust Drive-in in Sharon, Canada, the Sky Line drive-in in NYC, and the Wellfleet Drive-in in Wellfleet, Mass.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the big circuits begin to reopen, AMC eyeing a mid-August date and Regal Cinemas an Aug. 21 date (or whether the chain truly stick to their reopening plans with New York and California still dark from COVID-19).
Catalog titles filled the rest of this weekend’s top 5, with Warner Bros.’ Goonies making $150K across Friday-Saturday in its 1,835th weekend at 145 sites, Universal’s Jurassic Park taking No. 3 with an estimated $117K at 246 cinemas, the studio’s Back to the Future in the No. 4 spot with a two-day take of $107K at 116 locations, and Paramount’s Grease with $102K at 75 locations in weekend 2,199.