Bloodshot, The Hunt Opening Weekend Box Office Looking Poor Because of Coronavirus Outbreak

It's shaping up to be a very poor opening weekend outing for the movies that held their release dates for this weekend. Early tracking from industry insiders suggests Pixar's Onward will still top the charts in its second weekend with a haul between $15 and $16 million. That means movies like Sony's Bloodshot and Universal's The Hunt — both opening this weekend — are set to come in substantially lower. After abysmal Thursday previews from both flicks, THR reports Bloodshot is on track to earn between $8 million and $9 million while the long-gestating The Hunt will likely settle somewhere around $6 million in its anticipated opening weekend.

It's been a scary week for theaters, with the majority of studios pushing large releases back to later this year. It started last week with MGM's No Time to Die being delayed until November. Since then, box office tentpoles like F9, Mulan, and A Quiet Place Part II have each been delayed until later in the year as theater-going audiences recover.

Despite closure in international markets, theaters will remain open stateside. AMC Theaters — the biggest chain of the United States — announced Friday afternoon that it'd remain open while reducing crowd capacities. "The health and safety of our guests and theatre teams are of the utmost importance to AMC," AMC chief Adam Aron said in a statement Friday. "Therefore, AMC is proactively taking action to cut in half the number of tickets that we will make available at all our U.S. theatres. With this action, we are facilitating the 'social distance' between guests who still want to see movies on a big screen."

The CEO added, "These are uncharted times in the United States. We are very closely monitoring the guidance of the CDC. We are complying with all directives from federal, state and local health and government authorities, and with our unilateral move to reduce capacity and increase social distancing we are going beyond what governments are requiring of us. Founded in 1920, AMC Theatres has a proud history that spans 100 years. As we enter our second century, AMC remains firmly committed to offering a clean, healthy, entertaining environment every time our guests come to movies at our theatres."

AMC has been the first major US-based theater chain to address the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.