A Quiet Place sequel makes US box-office noise with $75m opening
Film raked in $75m during four-day Memorial Day weekend in US
LOS ANGELES: Horror thriller A Quiet Place Part II opened in North America over the long Memorial Day weekend to considerable fanfare and with numbers unlike any seen since the pandemic began, as Covid curbs began falling and theatres started filling up again. After Hollywood's brutal year, box-office figures showed movies are starting to come back.
"The symbolic importance of this Memorial Day Weekend to the movie theater industry cannot be overstated," said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst at Comscore.
A Quiet Place Part II - a John Krasinski-directed sequel to the popular 2018 film about a young family trying to outwit horrific blind monsters with frighteningly keen hearing - took in US$57.1 million (S$75.6 million) for the four-day Memorial Day weekend, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported.
It opens in cinemas here on June 17, with sneaks from June 5.
The ticket sales are significant because it is not far off from what the movie was projected to make prior to the pandemic. The sequel was originally set for release in March last year, and the original movie had opened to US$50 million in 2018.
A Quiet Place Part II's haul pushed the combined gross for the weekend's top 12 films to US$97.5 million, up from US$18.8 million the previous weekend.
In second place was Disney's live- action crime caper Cruella - with a snarling Emma Stone as the title baddie and Emma Thompson in a supporting role - at US$26.5 million.
It can also be streamed on the Disney+ channel. - AFP/REUTERS
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