Russell Crowe's Unhinged Helps Invigorate US Box Office

While the movie industry and the nation collectively continues to navigate COVID-19 complications, this this week gave us a glimpse at the pre-pandemic world--box-office business is starting to report earnings again after a weekend full of releases with national runs. Leading the pack from this early group of films kicking the tires on normalcy was Russell Crowe's Unhinged, which reportedly had a domestic debut of $4 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"It feels like we are back in the movie business," Mark Gill, the CEO of Solstice Studios, Unhinged's distributor said. "It's a huge relief to see theaters open again and to see people buying tickets again."

These are, of course, unusual and extreme times, for movie releases. The "old rules" may or may not apply for new movies for who knows how long--right now, the horizon is full of some films getting more than the usual runs, or longer runs than usual, as theaters still struggle to get into lockstep about standard policies on how to operate safely (or at all) during the pandemic. The biggest test case for what direction the winds might be blowing in the cinema will likely come next week, when Christopher Nolan's Tenet will finally--after many, many delays--will be in stateside theaters starting September 3. You can read our review of Tenet here.

Unhinged stars Russell Crowe as Tom Cooper, an unstable man terrorizing a young woman played by Caren Pistorius, after the two have a rush-hour traffic incident. In other words, it sounds like a fantastic pick-me-up after months and months of social distancing and self-isolation!