This week was the first sign of things may be starting to get back to normal service on the cinema industry and Tom & Jerry: The Movie has the second biggest opening weekend since the spread of the pandemic forced the closure of cinemas a year ago.
There is little else going on this week but the coming months are starting to look better, New York cinemas have started to re-open with limited capacity and on the other side of America California will start to re-open cinema doors soon.
Of not this week is the small amount most films have dropped from last weekend, a sure sign that cinemas are starting to open up, and that people are starting to attend.
US box office Quickview
Here is the US box office top 5 breakdown 26th - 28th February 2021
Warner Bros. have by far been the studio leading to way during the last year as far as releases is concerned, Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984 didn't pay off as much as they had hoped but this live action version of the classic cartoon seems to have hit the spot.
Directed by Tim Story and starring Chlo� Grace Moretz alongside animated versions of the famous cat and mouse the movie takes an incredible $14.11 Million on its opening weekend.
The movie is also available on HBO Max, but if it follows in the steps of fellow kid pic The Croods: A New Age it could be around a while.
Falling from its second spell at the top of the US box office the animated sequel takes $1.25 Million this weekend, down just 27% from last week.
This gives the movie a total gross of $52.43 Million after 14 weeks of release.
Falling to number 3 this week is the John Lee Hancock directed movie which takes $930,000 over the weekend, a drop of just 23%, the movie has taken a very good $12.91 Million over 5 weeks of release.
Director Patty Jenkins sequel remains at 4 and takes $705,000 this weekend, down 12% from last week giving the movie a $43.61 Million total gross after 10 weeks.
Liam Neeson stays put at number 5 this weekend with $701,002, down just 10%, giving the movie a $12.34 Million total from 7 weeks of release.
With the box office chart on hold for the second time due to the lockdown in the UK we take a look at the video charts.
Fox Video's (Disney) film much delayed film from 2020 The New Mutants makes its debut at the top of the box office removing Tenet from a 3 week run at the top.
Also new is the Nicholas Cage action movie Jiu Jitsu which is new this week at number 5.
Here is a breakdown of the video charts week of 10th - 16th January 2021.
Set in the X-Men universe this Marvel/20th Century Fox/Disney production has a troubled time getting a release date being moved around quite a bit before finally landing a UK release date of 4th September 2020.
It was a relatively big hit in the UK, especially considering cinemas has just re-opened and not to full capacity, but the movie made its debut at number 2 with £686,407 and went on to gross £1.5 Million.
The 'saviour of cinema' has spent the last 3 weeks at the top of the video chart but this week gives way to the Mutant movie.
Christopher Nolans mind bending movie took £17 Million in the UK August - September 2020 and is the highest grossing movie of the COVID-19 pandemic era.
Robert Zemeckis's adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl book skipped a theatrical release in favour of a direct to VOD release and after 4 weeks falls to number 3 on the video chart.
This sci-fi action movie from Russia jumps from 10 to number 4 this week as the British viewing public look for something new and exciting to watch during a period of time when there are little new releases.
Starring Nicholas Cage this action movie skipped cinemas in the UK and makes its debut on the video chart at number 5 this week.
With the 2020 box office collapsing in March due to the global pandemic the Chinese market was the first an quickest to recover and it dominated the global scene over the whole year.
The top grossing movie of the year was The Eight Hundred wich was released in August and did big business in China.
Chinese films accounted for 6 of the top 20 movies of the year and 7 of the movie were released in 2019 with a holdover in 2020.
Tenet which was the first big movie released during the pandemic made it into the top 5 movies of the year despite being considered a flop.
Many movies have had there releases moved to 2021 and cinemas did not have the massive tentpole pictures that would have pulled in over a Billion dollars in revenue, in fact its the first time in over a decade there has been no movie taking over $1 Billion.
Here are the top 5 movies by gross across the globe in 2020.
A massive hit in China the action war epic is directed by Hu Guan and took $161 Million on its full opening weekend.
Over its full global release the movie took $441.8 Million making the top grossing global movie of the year.
After a lengthy gap Will Smith and Martin Lawrence re-teamed as the Miami cops and the movie was a global smash.
Released at the start of the year its release just missed the cinemas closures due to COVID-19 and took $418.2 Million.
Sam Mendes released his Oscar nominated was movie in America in late 2019 but got its global release in early 2020 and its the 3rd top movie of 2020 with $375.4 Million.
Directed by 7 of Chinas top directors this anthology movie took $101 Million durings its Chinese opening.
Globally the movie is the 4th highest grossing of the year with $371.1 Million.
In America this movie was moved to an August release with studios hoping that cinemas would have re-opened after 4 months of closures, but the global pandemic had other ideas and although countries has started to re-opened cinemas had limited capacity.
The movie did relatively well in global cinemas but with mixed reviews it was not the film Warner Bros. had hoped, but a top five of the year is not bad with a gross of $362.6.
In a year which saw a worrying trend of movies not getting a theatrical release due to the global pandemic that hit the world in 2020 its unsure if the industry will recover as studios see big returns for movies on streaming services rather than box office returns.
The biggest grossing movie in the UK for the year is 1917 from director Sam Mandes which was released in January and has not been challenged all year as movies after March had no chance of making a substantial box office return.
The two movies which tried the most were Tenet released in August and did manage to become the 5th top movie of the year and Wonder Woman 1984 which although released in December, after many release changes, was hit by another UK lockdown which has massively impacted its box office potential.
Of the top 5 movies in the UK 2 of them were released in 2019 and 2 of them released in early 2020 with Tenet being the other.
Worth of a mention is that apart from Tenet which is the top movie in the pandemic era sleeper hit After We Collided which was released in early September is the 20th top movie of the year with a total gross of £4 Million, a great achievement in the current market.
Also worthy of a mention is the success the Disney/Pixar movie Onward had at the box office, it was the top movie of the week in March when cinemas closed, then the movie continued to top the box office when cinemas re-opened in July despite already being available on Disney+, the movie is the 12 top movie of 2020 with £7.5 Million.
With a vaccine not hitting the UK in late 2020 the first part of 2021 might be slow for cinemas as well, but providing they can survive once we hit spring it is hopeful doors will start to open again and capacity can return to normal and the box office can start properly once more.
Here is a break down of the top 5 movies in the UK for 2020.
Released in January of 2020 the single shot Oscar nominated movie took £43.7 Million by mid March when cinemas shut down.
The film took a total gross of £43.9 Million by the end of 2020 and is the top movie of the year.
After a troubled first showing of Sonic when the lead character was redesign at the request of the fans, the movie was delayed to mid February 2020 where it took just nuder five million pound on its opening weekend.
After a five week run the Jim Carey starring movie had taken £19 Million and then after cinemas re-opened it's total UK gross rose to £19.2 Million.
Released at the very end of 2019 the JJ Abrams directed, last of the Skywalker sega, took £29.4 Million during its release year.
The movie continued to pull in audiences on 2020 and took another £18.8 Million until the end of January.
Released on the last weekend of 2019 where is took £3.5 Million the movie continued to do well into 2020 where it took an extra £17.5 Million until mid February.
After getting its original release date moved to 28th August the movie was to be the saviour of cinema after 4 month of closures to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Despite much criticism for Warner Bros. releasing the movie when not all cinemas had reopened and capacity was limited the movie spend 13 weeks on the chart taking £17.5 Million and scraped its way into the top 5 movies of 2020.
The US box office got off to a good start for the first quarter of the year by which time the Will Smith and Martin Lawrence movie Bad Boys For Life was the surprise top movie, then in March everything changed.
When the pandemic hit hard cinemas closed for 4 months and although there were weekly charts it was mainly from drive in theatres and studios started shifting release dates hoping things would get back to normal by the end of the year.
Tenet opened in August and it was considered Warner Bros. opened it too early and the movie despite taking $58 Million was considered a flop.
Studios have moved their films around even more since cinemas started to re-open and have gone into 2021 or been moved to streaming, but Warner Bros. again have tested the water at the end of the year with Wonder Woman 1984 which got a release on Christams day 2020 at cinemas and on HBO Max.
Disney has bypassed cinema all together on 2 of their potential biggest movie with Mulan going direct to Disney+ (for a premium price) and the Pixar movie Soul released on Christmas Day.
As it stands the top 20 movies in the US took a reasonable $1.6 Billion but compared to 2019 the top 20 took $5.8 Billion.
Here is 5 top grossing movies at the US box office in 2020.
Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence who return as the Miami cop duo in the third in the Bad Boys series.
The movie was a surprise box office hit on its release on 17th January and took $204.5 Million at the US box office making the top movie of the year.
Released on the 10th January (wide, it cam out in 2019 on limited to catch the Oscar deadline) the movie is based during World War one and is film as if it was a continuous single shot.
Despite not winning the best movie Oscar the film took $158 Million at the US box office and is the second best movie of 2020.
The last movie in the Skywalker Saga was released in 2019 where it took $362.1 Million and was the 6th top movie.
Because of the pandemic the movie managed to be the 3rd best film of 2020 after taking $153 Million.
After going through a strange redesign for its main character Sonic when fan feedback was not too good about his look in the trailer the movie moved to February 14th release date.
The film was a surprise hit and took $146.2 Million at the US box office making it the 4th top movie of 2020.
The sequel movie the 2017 smash hit Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle was released in 2019 where it took $175.4 Million and was the 11th top film in that year.
In 2020 the movie took $142.5 Million and is the 5th top grossing of the year.