By Covid standards, a $7 million opening weekend is pretty good for a movie like Nobody.

Universal’s Nobody was the top movie at the domestic box office on Friday. The original action comedy, starring Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show and Better Call Saul) as a seemingly ordinary guy with a particular set of murder-skills, earned $2.53 million on Friday in 2460 theaters. That sets the stage for a $7 million opening weekend. Not unlike Warner Bros.’ $14 million domestic debut for Tom & Jerry a month ago, the opening feels weirdly optimistic because it’s about what the movie might have earned had it merely disappointed in pre-Covid times.

Sure, conventional wisdom might have suggested an over/under $15 million debut for the roughly $15 million studio programmer. However, we’ve also seen seemingly okay Universal openers like, The Hunt, Cats and Black Christmas debut with around $5 million. It triumphed by disappointing on a curve. Mazel? Yes, that’s a weird way to denote a major studio release as a success, but these are weird times.

Moreover, it’s possible that the well-reviewed and buzzy little grindhouse flick might have “surprised” in a non-Covid environment. But Universal is playing a tricky game, testing out their PVOD plan by in-turn offering struggling theaters a semi-steady supply of small-scale programmers. It’s the kind of movie, like Blumhouse’s Freaky from last November, which will potentially/probably break out on PVOD in a few weeks as otherwise interested moviegoers who would have shown up in theaters in conventional times will instead plunk down $20 to watch at home.

Here’s a positive qualifier: Nobody, directed by Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) and written by Derek Kolstad (John Wick), will have a bigger opening weekend than the $3 million-$4.7 million likes of Diane Lane and Kevin Costner’s Let Him Go, Liam Neeson’s Honest Thief, Liam Neeson’s The Marksman, Russell Crowe’s Unhinged and Denzel Washington’s The Little Things. Yes, that’s partially the market slowly recovering, with theaters in NYC and LA back in business. But a (relative) win is a (relative) win.

Disney+ or not, Nobody had an opening day just slightly under the first $2.6 million Friday of Raya and the Last Dragon. Speaking of which, Walt Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon earned another $950,000 (-34%) on its fourth Friday for a likely $3.3 million (-35%) weekend and $28.2 million 24-day total. In a grim irony, that’s about what the likes of Bolt and The Princess and the Frog opened with in 2008 and 2009, so either audiences are splurging on the Disney+ option or they just weren’t (yet) interested in the latest Disney action-fantasy.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros.’ Tom & Jerry earned around $1.11 million (-35%) on its fifth Friday as it exits HBO Max. We can expect a $2.45 million (-36%) weekend gross for a $37 million domestic cume. Again, in normal times that would be an underwhelming cume for the $79 million, Tim Story-directed Chloe Grace Moretz/Michael Pena vehicle. But since that seems like a realistic pre-Covid “disappointment,” it feels like a moderate win considering the circumstances.

It’s the difference between Tom & Jerry earning essentially what it otherwise would have had it underperformed versus Raya earning maybe 15% of what would have been a reasonable cume had it opened in non-Covid times last Thanksgiving.  Just so I’m not picking on Disney, I’d make the same argument for why The Croods: A New Age ($520,000/-17% for a $56 million cume) is a modest win ($160 million worldwide on a $65 million budget) while Wonder Woman 1984 was a disaster at $165 million worldwide on a $200 million budget.

In normal times, even a disappointing Wonder Woman 1984 would have earned around $650 million, or nearly 4x higher than where it’ll end up. On the other hand, Lionsgate’s Chaos Walking ($11 million by tomorrow night) was always a dead man walking. I like the Doug Liman-directed franchise starter, but there were no marquee characters and was no buzz even before the project was reshot and delayed. Add it to the pile alongside Beautiful Creatures (RIP), The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Dark Is Rising, The Giver and Mortal Engines.

If you need any more proof that the star system is dead, Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland’s $100 million YA fantasy is going to get trounced by Bob Odenkirk’s Nobody. So is, understandably even in pre-Covid times, Benedict Cumberbatch’s rock-solid Cold War spy flick The Courier, which will earn $1.16 million (-38%) over the weekend for a $3.6 million ten-day cume. Likewise, the much delayed (but halfway decent) City of Lies, starring Johnny Depp as the LA cop investigating the murders of Tupac Shukar and Chris Wallace, will earn $110,000 (-62%) in 400 theatres (-101) for a $493,000 ten-day cume.  

Meanwhile, in China, Godzilla Vs. Kong grossed another $28.1 million on its second day, pushing its two-day cume to $49.4 million and setting up a likely over/under $71 million opening weekend. Godzilla: King of the Monsters opened with $68 million on its way to $135 million in May of 2019, while Kong: Skull Island opened with $73 million towards a $168 million cume in March of 2017. All eyes are on a possible over/under $95 million overseas debut as the King Kong/Godzilla title bout roars into domestic theatres and HBO Max on March 31.

China has been soundly rejecting pretty much every Hollywood movie since theatres reopened in August, save for rereleases like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ($24 million), Interstellar ($17 million) and Avatar ($50 million). Godzilla Vs. Kong will nab the biggest opening weekend for an import since Hobbs & Shaw ($94.9 million) in August of 2019. We can, thus far, can add “the MonsterVerse” to the list of Hollywood franchises alongside the MCU, the Fast Saga and, uh, Avatar, that are still “hot in China.”