A look at box office performance of Ryan Reynold's video game action comedy Free Guy

Despite a marketplace challenged by COVID-19, video game action comedy Free Guy has topped the North American box office in its opening weekend, taking in $28.4 million, preliminary figures from trade firm Exhibitor Relations showed Sunday.

The movie directed by Shawn Levy was made by the Walt Disney Co-owned 20th Century Fox, with a theatrical release contractually stipulated for the roughly $100 million production.

Free Guy succeeded with an old-school formula

After a few weeks of declining audiences and underwhelming debuts amid the delta variant surge, Free Guy succeeded with an old-school formula: an original, star-fronted movie with good word-of-mouth playing only in North American theatres.

“This is a very good opening under difficult conditions. The Delta variant is taking a toll,” David A Gross, who runs consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, told AFP, referring to a surge in coronavirus cases.

Playing in 4,165 North American theatres, Free Guy was expected to debut around $20 million. Its surprisingly strong opening gave further proof to what some analysts have been saying throughout the year — hybrid releases that send new movies immediately onto streaming platforms can significantly harm ticket sales.

Reviews were good (82% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), and a male-heavy audience gave Free Guy an “A” CinemaScore. (About 60% of moviegoers were male, Disney said.) Free Guy also added $22.5 million internationally.

Free Guy will play exclusively in theatres for at least 45 days — and its strong performance through the weekend suggests it could buck the summer’s typical trend of fast drop offs.

Other films 

Last week’s top film, The Suicide Squad , slid steeply, dropping 70% in its second weekend. After its $26.2 million debut, James Gunn’s Suicide Squad redo pulled in just $7.8 million for Warner Bros, bringing its two-week total to $42.9 million. It’s concurrently playing on HBO Max.

That film’s tumble gave a few other releases more room at multiplexes. Sony Pictures’ horror sequel Don’t Breathe 2 opened with $10.6 million, in line with studio projections. While Don’t Breathe 2 debuted with less than half the opening of the 2016 original, the sequel was made with a modest budget of $15 million.

MGM and United Artists’ Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson, debuted with $8.8 million. Respect, which has drawn praise for Hudson’s leading performance, also landed an “A” CinemaScore. Its audience was 66% female and nearly half of ticket buyers were Black.

Disney’s Jungle Cruise , starring Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson, landed in third place in its third weekend with $9 million. Its worldwide total is $154.3 million. It’s also playing on Disney+ for an additional $30.

Apple didn’t report grosses for CODA , one of the company’s major movie acquisitions and one seen as a crowd-pleasing milestone in deaf representation of on screen. The film, starring deaf actors Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant, was a prize-winning sensation at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where Apple plunked down a festival-record $25 million for the film. CODA, which stands for child of a deaf adult, debuted simultaneously in theatres and on Apple TV+.

Here are the rest of the top 10:

Old ($2.4 million)

Black Widow ($2 million)

Stillwater ($1.3 million)

The Green Knight ($1.2 million)

Space Jam: A New Legacy ($1.2 million)

(With inputs from agencies)