With the slowdown in activity in the United States and Canada in the fight against the emerging corona virus, movie theaters were almost empty, and some even closed their doors, so the box office in North America hit its lowest level in 20 years.
With the start of postponing the production of huge productions to avoid losing revenue and with the complete or partial closure of the cinemas, the first 12 films in the arrangement achieved less than $ 51 million during the weekend, according to what was reported by the specialized company, "Exeter Resources", and this revenue is almost twice less than revenues. Last weekend's 93 million, which is even lower than that recorded on the weekend that followed the September 11, 2011 attacks.
As for the past year and the same period, the revenues were about 130 million dollars.
The mayors of New York and Los Angeles ordered the closure of all cinemas in the two cities to curb the spread of the new Corona virus, and many viewers in North America complied with the authorities ’instructions to keep their homes closed.
In this disastrous situation, Disney's "Onward" released the box office for the second week in a row with $ 10.6 million, ahead of two new films, "Bloodshoot" starring Van Diesel (9.2 million dollars) and "Steel Believe" ( 9.1 million). He came in fourth place, "Invisible Man", and tells the story of a young woman whose ex-boyfriend lives her dreams after committing suicide with $ 5.9 million. As for the fifth place, it went to the suspense movie "The Hunt", which generated revenues of $ 5.3 million.
The cinemas are almost empty, some of them closed.