Most theatres in the United States have closed during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, but there are still a handful of them that continued showing movies through last weekend. In fact, the weekend box office reports show that three movies were still making money from being shown at fourteen venues around the country – and only one of those venues was a regular movie theatre. The other thirteen were drive-ins. As Joe Bob Briggs says, "The drive-in will never die!"
According to Deadline, the fourteen venues that were open over the weekend were
The Van Buren Drive-in in Riverside, CA; the Mission Tiki in Monclair, CA; the Galaxy Drive-in in Ennis, TX; the Glendale 9 in Glendale, AZ; the Sacramento 6 Drive-In; the Starlite Drive-in in Cadet, MO; the South Bay Drive-In San Diego; the Auto Drive-in the Greenville, NC area; Hi-Way 21 in Beaufort, SC; the Jesup in Georgia; the Ocala in Florida; King Drive in Huntsville, AL; the Lake Worth in Palm Springs, FL; and the Epic Theaters of West Volusia, Florida.
The site also notes that the Van Buren has since closed due to local restrictions.
The three movies that were being shown at those locations were the Disney animated film ONWARD and two Universal/Blumhouse genre pictures – THE INVISIBLE MAN and THE HUNT. The box office totals:
THE INVISIBLE MAN – $36.6K, showing at seven drive-ins and the Epic
THE HUNT – $36K, showing at eight drive-ins
ONWARD – $22.7K, showing at ten drive-ins
I love going to drive-ins, so I'm glad to see that some of them are thriving during this whole mess. It's a safer alternative to going to the theatre… just be careful around the restrooms and concession stand. It's also cool to see that people are taking the opportunity to see these movies on big screens, because ONWARD, THE INVISIBLE MAN, and THE HUNT are all available on VOD.
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