After a monstrous March that saw five movies open with more than $40 million (including the $175 million opening of Beauty and the Beast), April got off to an unremarkable start, and with the exception of next week’s The Fate and the Furious, it’s likely to remain that way until the first weekend of May when Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens.
The race for first place this weekend was between two holdovers — last week’s number one movie, The Boss Baby, and the number one film the two weeks prior to it, Beauty and the Beast. Alec Baldwin’s The Boss Baby ultimately took the weekend by a margin of around $1 million, about the same margin it bested the Disney film by last week. After 10 days, The Boss Baby has made nearly $90 million, and with a foreign total that matches the domestic one, it looks like The Boss Baby is going to end up being among the middle of the pack for Dreamworks Animation releases. It should complete its run in the same ballpark as the $150 million fetched by Trolls domestically.
Meanwhile, Beauty and the Beast added $25 million and continues to climb up the all-time charts. After four weeks, it’s poised to enter the top 15 all time, passing the $424 million of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Breaking the top ten is well within reach (Star Wars‘ $460 million sits at number ten) and it may make it as far as sixth place, all time, by passing The Dark Knight‘s $534 million before it ends its run. Worldwide, it should break the $1 billion mark this week and sneak into the top 30 all time.
Third and fourth place this weekend went to two new entries and I think it was closer than many thought it might be, mostly because Smurfs under performed and Going In Style slightly over-performed. Smurfs: The Lost Village, the third entry in the Smurfs franchise, is a reboot of sorts. The entry went fully animated this time around (as opposed to the live-action hybrid of the previous two films) and sought to appeal to young girls by building the third movie around Smurfette, now voiced by Demi Lovato (replacing Katy Perry). The results were not promising for the Smurfs franchise. It opened with around $14 million, short of the $35 million opening of the first film and the $17 million opening weekend of Smurfs 2. Both of those films, however, had strong legs, but The Lost Village is going to need to leg it out against the continuing competition of Beauty and the Beast, The Boss Baby and next weekend’s limited release Spark: A Space Tail if it has any chance of forcing a fourth installment.
Going in Style came in at the top of expectations with $12.5 million. The Zach Braff directed film — about three senior citizens played by Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin robbing a bank after their pensions belly up — appealed heavily to senior citizens. As retirees are less in a rush to see films opening weekend, Going in Style could continue to put up decent numbers during weekday matinees. The $24 million heist film might ultimately put up a tidy little profit for New Line Cinema. Braff may also be able to continue his second career as an unremarkable studio director paid slightly more than scale (that said, I do have hopes for Start Up, the TV series he’s producing and directing based on Alex Blumberg’s podcast).
Elsewhere, Ghost in the Shell continued its lackluster run, adding only $7 million in its second weekend, dropping 61 percent from its already dismal opening weekend. The good news is, it’s faring much better internationally and it still hasn’t opened in China or Japan yet. The film is probably going to end up in the black before it’s all said and done. This week, Power Rangers took sixth place with $6 million, bringing its domestic total to $75 million, and Kong: Skull Island added $5.6 million to bring its total to $156 million. Another new entry, the faith-based Case for Christ came in at number eight with $4.5 million, and Get Out and Logan maintained their positions in the top ten for one more week, their seventh and sixth, respectively.
In the specialty market, Colossal racked up $120,000 in only four theaters, as it looks to expand in the coming weeks. It’s a weird little monster movie starring Anne Hathaway, and everyone should see it if it makes it to your neighborhood. Meanwhile, Gifted — the movie where Chris Evans and Jenny Slate met and fell in love (before later breaking up) — also opened this weekend with a modest $500,000 in 56 theaters. It’s also worth seeing, and it is expected to expand to 1,000 theaters next weekend.
Next week, Fate and the Furious is the only new wide release, and it should dominate the box office for the rest of April.
(Via Deadline, Box Office Mojo)
