"The Croods: A New Age" is the very best field workplace opening for the reason that pandemic started

The prehistoric family of the Croods are challenged by a rival family, the Bettermans, who claim to be better and more evolved.

Universal

"The Croods: A New Age" stunned the box office this weekend, grabbing the largest opening of a film to be released during the pandemic.

The animated sequel grossed an estimated $ 9.71 million domestically over the course of Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, bringing the five-day Thanksgiving weekend balance sheet to $ 14.22 million.

Internationally, the Dreamworks film is on track to hit $ 20.8 million in ticket sales, bringing global reach to around $ 35 million for its debut.

"Given the pressures of the market, the showing of" The Croods: A New Age "shows that family audiences were actually interested in going to the movies, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. "Despite the availability of the film on home video in the not-too-distant future, seeing the film on the big screen was attractive to audiences around the world who turned up in solid numbers."

There has been some skepticism about how well The Croods: A New Age might fare on Thanksgiving weekend. Before the holidays, coronavirus cases had continued to hit new highs and the number of public theaters was falling. There were fears that moviegoers would forego going to the cinema.

As of Sunday, 2,267 theaters in the US and Canada were open, around 38% of theaters opened at the same time last year.

Instead, the film pulled the largest box office opening since Disney's "Onward" in March, facing statewide lockdowns. That number also suggests Warner Bros. & # 39; Tenet, which opened for $ 9.35 million on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Labor Day Weekend.

"The fact that this film has exceeded expectations in a market that is less than halfway operational and that it has the highest opening ever in the pandemic era shows that moviegoers, especially families, are missing out on the cinema experience and looking for it where it is safe and possible. So" said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Boxoffice.com. "The industry still has a challenging road ahead of it in the winter, but the debut of 'Croods' is a preliminary sign that the resilience cinemas can show themselves in the long run."

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Dreamworks Animation.