We saw this at the start of 2020, with, for example, Jeff Fowler’s Sonic The Hedgehog being bumped by Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, and The Invisible Man being bumped by Pixar’s Onward, but COVID-19 has decimated that design for the last few months.
Now we seem to at the very least have that part of the system back as studios are feeling slightly more confident about theatrical releases.
While films and theaters presently are not exactly raking it in, so to speak, what can at the very least be appreciated is the sense of normalcy that comes with news of there being a weekly new “number one movie in America.”
Obviously there are annual hits that dominate the box office for multiple weekends in a row, but the normal pattern is that significant new arrivals get released every Friday to test the legs and staying power of the features already playing on the big screen, which usually results in a fresh feature wearing the box office crown.