“In the Heights” hit the lows this weekend.
The Warner Bros. musical may have done well on HBO Max, but in theaters it was a dud and a disappointment.
The Broadway musical adaptation was projected to hit $20 million but only came in at $11.4 million.
It’s kind of surprising considering how much publicity and marketing went into this project. The effort was unparalleled in this pandemic time.
Warner’s even gave the movie to the former Tribeca Film Festival for opening night, and put on a big premiere up in Washington Heights.
Plus, Lin Manuel Miranda, who wrote “In the Heights” before “Hamilton” and appears in the movie, has done a lot of appearances to help support it.
But having no actual marquee names may have hurt the box office, not to mention a soundtrack that doesn’t seem to have breakout hits. The CD and iTunes version are selling, but there’s no one number capturing airplay or sales.
Even with this weekend’s low opening, it’s still possible “In the Heights” will get ‘legs’ and stick around through the summer. It may be that as June plays out, “In the Heights” will build a cult following. After all, critics loved it– 96% on Rotten Tomatoes — and there’s still a lot of time for word of mouth to pull it along.
