Advertisement

The Top Grossing Movie Last Week Made $1,710 - All From One Drive-In Theater In Florida

Vice - Somewhat exempt in all this are drive-in theaters. According to Deadline, only 14 movie theaters in all of the U.S. were open last week, and 13 of them were drive-ins. Just one of those theaters was showing first-run films: the Ocala Drive-In in Ocala, Florida. Writer Ernie Smith discovered, and shared in a fascinating and thorough Twitter thread, that the Ocala Drive-In was responsible for the entire revenue of the top-grossing film of last weekend: the arthouse horror flick Swallow, bringing in $1,710.

Fascinating. I was thinking about this last night- are there underground bars/restaurants/movie theaters/etc open right now? One of those you have to know someone who knows someone who knows the secret password to get into the backroom speak easy? I'm sure there are. Especially in NYC. There's just gotta be. 

But movie theaters are fascinating right now too. There are 14 open in the USA right now, 13 are drive-ins, and only 1 is showing new movies. I couldn't find any info on the 1 open theater that *isn't* a drive-in..I wonder why though. Why would Vice include that little nugget in the article but not say "and the 1 theater that isn't a drive-in...." but alas, no info. 

The cool part about this entire thing obviously is now these movies "Swallow", "The Other Lamb" and "Strike" become movie nerd trivia questions about the lowest grossing movies to top the box office. Sorry Dickie Roberts, you had a good run though.

I wonder what other weird statistics are out there right now. I'm sure there's things like "most watched Korean minor league baseball game" or "most tweets about wanting a Peleton in a 24 hour period". I love shit like this. 

So congrats to Swallow, which not only isn't a porn...but actually has good reviews too! 

And holy shit I just typed the word "porn" and my first thought was "what if that 1 other theater...is a porn theater?" It's gotta be, right? Somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, a porn theater janitor showed up to work this morning....