The box office came up as “Divergent” on Friday, as the highly-anticipated YA adaptation made off with a huge $22.8 million on opening day. “Muppets Most Wanted” opened to a surprisingly low $4.6 million.
Summit's “Divergent,” which stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Kate Winslet, is on track for a weekend debut north of $50 million.
It's good for the second-biggest debut of 2014 so far (trailing “The Lego Movie's” $69 million opening, but it's significantly behind the opening weekend gross of the first “Twilight” film ($69.6 million), let alone “The Hunger Games” ($152 million).
Opening in second place was “Muppets,” which will have a hard time topping $18 million in its opening frame, and is facing competition from other family films.
2011's “The Muppets” opened to a much more robust $29.9 million.
The new Christian-themed film “God's Not Dead” and the animated holdover “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” are batting it out for third place this weekend.
The former picked up $2.8 million on Friday from just 780 screens, while the latter earned another $2.7 million.
“Sherman” has so far grossed a strong $72 million, and may be stealing audiences away from “Muppets” (along with the still popular “Lego Movie”).
Rounding out the top five was holdover “300: Rise of an Empire,” which plundered another $2.4 million on Friday.
Its domestic total stands at $87.4 million. It will have a tough time matching the $210 million grossed by its predecessor.
Look for continuing box office updates throughout the weekend and holidays on HitFix.