After becoming just the first film since Avatar to hold the top spot at the box office for five consecutive weeks, Black Panther finally gave up the top spot, falling to number two with weekend with a still robust $17.5 million in its sixth weekend. With $631 million, Black Panther also becomes the highest grossing Marvel movie in America and takes fifth place all time. With over $630 million, Black Panther is also poised to go as high as the third highest grossing movie in North America ever if it can surpass the $659 million take of Titanic. If Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Robert Downey Jr. are hanging it up after the Infinity Wars movies, Chadwick Boseman might also be the perfect choice to lead The Avengers moving ahead.
Knocking Black Panther off its perch at the top this weekend was Pacific Rim: Uprising, which comes in with a relatively disappointing $28 million on a whopping $150 million budget. That is short of the $37 million debut of its predecessor Pacific Rim, which went on to make $101 million at the American box office. However, the good news for director Steven S. DeKnight, who took over from Guillermo Del Toro, is that Pacific Rim played very well internationally, earning 75 percent of its gross overseas. Expect Uprising to do similarly well outside of America, especially in China, where the appetite for a monsters vs. robots movie will have probably grown since the first film back in 2013 — in fact, Uprising has already earned $120 million overseas, with more than half of that coming from China.
One film that is absolutely not disappointing at the box office is the surprise faith-based hit I Can Only Imagine, which added more than 600 theaters this weekend and fell only 20 percent off last week’s third-place opening. With $13.7 million, I Can Only Imagine has now earned nearly $40 million in ten days, good for 13th all-time among Christian films. The film, which is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, is also benefitting from solid word of mouth, having scored a rare A+ on Cinemascore. For filmmaker brothers Jon and Andrew Erwin, it is their second A+ Cinemascore (after Woodlawn), allowing them to join the ranks of only a few two-timers, including the likes of Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. It’s also only the fourth A+ Cinemascore for a Christian film. With only a $7 million budget, I Can Only Imagine is already profitable after only 10 days of release.
Sherlock Gnomes, the sequel to 2011’s Gnomeo & Juliet, is not likely to boast of profitability anytime soon, if ever. Debuting in fourth place, the $59 million budget film only managed to score $10.3 million at the box office, well off the $25 million opening of its predecessor, which went on to earn $99 million domestic. Despite its relatively modest budget, it’s going to need to do very well overseas to break even, and early returns internationally have not exactly been promising.
Holdovers occupied slots five through seven this week, with Tomb Raider dropped nearly 60 percent in its second weekend to score $10 million, bringing its overall total to $41 million. The Alicia Vikander reboot, however, is benefiting from a strong overseas showing, so far, earning $132 million internationally last weekend. Despite only $41 million in America, it should surpass $200 million globally this weekend, which isn’t so bad for a movie that only cost $95 million to make. A Wrinkle in Time, likewise, continues to underperform in America, coming in sixth place with $8.1 million to brings its three-week total to $73 million. It’s only opened in a few territories overseas, so its foreign box office is still a question mark. Seventh place, meanwhile, goes to the fantastic Love, Simon, which fell only 32 percent in its second weekend thanks to solid word of mouth (and a little help from Matt Bomer). After ten days, the film has earned $23 million on a $17 million budget, but this movie also has teen cult hit written all over it.
Another faith-based film, Paul, Apostle Of Christ, debuted this weekend at only number eight, scoring $4.95 million, as it is clearly being crowded out by I Can Only Imagine. Poor reviews (35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) aren’t helping, despite the presence of James Caviezel, a regular in faith-based films.
Another new entry, Midnight Sun, which is getting hammered by critics (21 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), opened with a meager $4.2 million. The film, which stars Bella Thorne and Patrick Schwarzenegger, could not capitalize in the teen market, where similarly themed movies have also largely struck out since The Fault in Our Stars. Moviegoers likely thought the premise similar to that of last year’s superior Everything, Everything, which was about a teen girl who couldn’t leave her house because of a suppressed immune system (in Midnight Sun, Bella Thorne’s character cannot leave the house during the day because of a sunlight sensitivity).
In the tenth spot, Game Night continues to hang in there, as it crossed the $60 million mark. With international totals, it is closing in on $100 million, which isn’t bad for a $37 million budgeted film that’s also likely to play very well in the home market.
One more new entry this weekend, Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane, didn’t make much of a dent, opening at number eleven with only $3.8 million. We don’t have budget numbers on this, but it probably didn’t cost that much considering that it was filmed entirely on an iPhone 7. Audiences and critics also disagree on the film, with critics giving it solid marks (78 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), while audiences gave it a lowly B- Cinemascore. Personally, I thought it was a very well executed psychological thriller with an exceptional performance from Claire Foy, but it is not what I would call an enjoyable film to watch.
It’s hard to suggest that the box office has been slumping with the runaway success of Black Panther over the last six weeks, but little else has managed to break through in a big way. Steven Spielberg will try to reverse that trend next weekend with Ready Player One (which actually opens on Wednesday). Another faith-based film, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, will try and take advantage of Easter weekend, while Tyler Perry also returns with Acrimony.
(Via Deadline, Box Office Mojo)
