It is a scene that has played out repeatedly all over the world from Spain to Japan, and this weekend, it happened in Canada: an animated film took the top spot at a newly reopened box office market.
The animated choice for Canadians was Paramount Animation’s The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run, which grossed approximately $900,000 from 300 theaters. If the number seems small, bear in mind that not all movie theaters have reopened in Canada (between 80-85% are back) and the ones that have are restricting capacity to between 20-40% of the seating in auditoriums.
This was the first weekend in Canada where Hollywood released new films, and the other newcomer, Solstice Studios’s Unhinged starring Russell Crowe, came in second with $582,000. According to Deadline, which reported the studio numbers, moviegoers for both Spongebob and Unhinged were “more prominent in the suburbs than the city.”
