The Croods: A New Age continued its reign this past weekend but the box office news that’s still creating shock waves in Hollywood and the global film market is WarnerMedia’s groundbreaking decision to release its entire slate of 2021 movies on HBO Max and theaters at the same time.

Several days after the media and entertainment conglomerate announced that all of its films next year, including Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix 4, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights, would be simultaneously released in streaming and theatrical platforms – the industry – especially the exhibitor sector, is still talking about the unprecedented move.

When WarnerMedia made the surprise decision to debut Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max, which it owns, and in theaters on December 25, no one expected that one of the world’s biggest movie studios would follow it up with a “shocking” announcement a couple of weeks later. Movie theater owners, already reeling from the drastically reduced attendance due to the coronavirus pandemic, spoke to media about how they would now compete with HBO Max as well.

HBO Max is currently available in the United States only but WarnerMedia reportedly plans to launch its streaming service gradually in several international territories by the end of 2021. The giant entertainment corporation also announced that the release dates of some of its 2021 films could change.

As the world awaits the result of WarnerMedia’s hybrid launch of Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day, the post-Thanksgiving weekend box office action, traditionally a slow one, was even more sluggish, given the pandemic environment.

Still, The Croods sequel, a film from Universal’s DreamWorks Animation, managed to earn $4.4 million to stay on top of the weekend box office chart for a second week.

Focus Features’ Half Brothers, a comedy by Luke Greenfield about a Mexican aviation executive who finds out he has an American half-brother, debuted in second place with $720,000.

Vince Vaughn’s body-swap horror-comedy, Freaky, continues to perform well with $460,000 to rank third in the weekend chart. The Blumhouse movie has earned a total of $13.31 million in four weeks.

All My Life, Universal’s romantic drama starring Jessica Rothe and which launched Glee alum Harry Shum, Jr. as a leading man, cinched the fourth spot with $350,000.

Robert De Niro’s comedy, The War with Grandpa, earned $329,0000 to occupy the fifth berth.

In streaming chart news, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit topped Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 SVOD chart for the week through November 8. Nielsen, which launched its weekly Top 10 streaming shows chart last August, hopes to reduce the lag time from viewing to reporting. As of this writing, Nielsen’s figures are from early November.

Aside from trying to speed up streaming ranking reporting to reflect more recent viewing chart results, Nielsen also faces objections from Netflix and other platforms that the rating service’s figures do not include viewing on other devices. Nevertheless, Netflix managed to grab all the Top 10 rankings for the week ending November 8, except for the number three spot which went to Disney Plus’ The Mandalorian.

Aside from The Queen’s Gambit, the other top performing Netflix shows are, listed in order: The Office (the old NBC sitcom is a hit again on streaming), Schitt’s Creek, Criminal Minds, The Great British Baking Show, Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, The Blacklist and The 100.

Offering a ray of hope to movie exhibitors is the gradual rollout of COVID-19 vaccine. But the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention recommended giving top priority to residents of long-term health care facilities and front line workers, high-risk elderly people and essential workers.

With the CDC expecting adults to get the COVID-19 vaccine by 2021, the movie industry hopes people will feel more comfortable returning to cineplexes. In late September, when a COVID-19 vaccine was nowhere in sight, only 18 percent felt safe going to a cinema.