Bad Boys for Life

Theaters were shuttered in China for the second weekend in a row as the country deals with the Coronavirus outbreak growing to over 18,000 reported cases and 362 dead. This drove global box office receipts to unexpected lows.

This weekend’s global box office sales were severely diminished by the outbreak of the SARS-like coronavirus in China and its rapid spread to neighboring countries and beyond. Authorities in the PRC ordered the closure of all movie theaters and the cancellation of New Year’s celebrations in an effort to contain the virus, whose mortality and rate of transmission is, as yet, unclear.

Sony jumped into a strong lead over the long Martin Luther King Day weekend with their action-comedy Bad Boys for Life taking first in the US with $73 million during the three-day weekend. It had the second biggest release for January of all time after American Sniper (which opened in December and went wide on MLK day) started with $107.