Weak Thanksgiving holdovers? Absence of new titles? Uptick in Covid concerns? Confusion over home availability? Name your poison, and it still might not include the scariest possibility — that interest in moviegoing has taken a permanent hit from which it may never recover.At $12.7 million, “Encanto” (Disney) led a weekend when all films combined could only manage around a $51 million total.
This year’s animated release from the studio dropped 53 percent, within range of the post-holiday second weekend for similar titles.But the drop came from a low-end start.
Some context for the rut theaters are in: Two years ago, weekend three of “Frozen II” (which opened a week earlier) did $35 million, almost three times as much as “Encanto.” While nobody expected the Colombia-set animated film (with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda) to perform at that sequel’s level, the shortfall is indicative of theatrical weakness — in this case, exacerbated by anticipation
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