If there was any lingering concern that movie theaters would struggle to come back after the pandemic, this weekend’s box office debut of A Quiet Place Part II should put those to rest. The sci-fi horror sequel is on track to land an estimated $58.5 million through the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and it should come as no surprise that this will be a record-breaking box office haul for the industry during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Hollywood Reporter has the estimated A Quiet Place Part II box office numbers for the Memorial Day holiday weekend. The projected $58.5 million is enough to land a new pandemic box office record, and even the individual daily numbers for Friday and Saturday are enough to shatter previous pandemic numbers. On Friday, the sequel earned $19.3 million, followed by another $14.9 million on Saturday.

The projected gross for the regular three-day weekend is $48.4 million, which will also surpass any previous box office weekend during the pandemic. But when do we consider a box office weekend to be post-pandemic? Is it when there aren’t any COVID-19 cases across the United States? I suppose it’ll end up being inconsequential, because no one will care about pandemic box office numbers after it’s all over. Either way, this is good news. Box office analyst Shawn Robbins said:

“This is a giant leap forward from where the industry has been throughout the past year, and a table-setting weekend for what sustained recovery will look like throughout summer and beyond. The optics and symbolism of large audiences safely returning to cinemas outweigh the box office dollars themselves, but these numbers are still quite impressive even by pre-pandemic standards.”

Indeed, the box office debut of A Quiet Place Part II is extremely reassuring in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. With all the changes that were made to the theatrical exhibition model over the past year, some were worried that audiences wouldn’t flock back to movie theaters after getting a taste of watching big studio movies at home, especially with HBO Max’s deal with Warner Bros. Pictures that releases all of their major movies to the streaming service the same day they hit theaters.

A Quiet Place Part II is supposed to hit Paramount+ 45 days after its theatrical debut, but that doesn’t seem to have hurt the movie’s box office haul. Maybe that’s because general audiences aren’t aware that such a deal is in place for Paramount Pictures movies. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that audiences are just aching to get out of the house after the pandemic. It’s also possible that this specific movie just makes for a great theatrical experience, due to the quiet suspense it perfectly creates. Unfortunately, there’s no way of accurately knowing how the eventual streaming release impacted the box office numbers.

We’ll have to see how the rest of the box office shakes out after the holiday weekend is over. There’s even a chance that A Quiet Place Part II ends up taking in more when the final numbers are tallied.

The post Movie Theaters Are Back, Baby: ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ Looks to Land $58 Million Holiday Box Office Haul appeared first on /Film.