Weekend Box Office: Sipping Champagne from a Glass Slipper

Was there ever any doubt as to whom would be the prettiest girl at the ball this weekend?

Disney fooled audiences into seeing the pointless live-action retelling of ‘Cinderella‘. Even without a boost from expensive 3D ticket sales, the pretentious, Kenneth Branagh-directed fairy tale is estimated to have grossed more than last year’s ‘Maleficent‘ (which opened with $69.4 million). From 3,845 locations, ‘Cinderella’ is said to have snuck away with $70 million. Combined with the international numbers ($62.4 million), this will only further fuel Disney’s string of live-action remakes.

Liam Neeson surely could have used a fairy godmother. His action-thriller ‘Run All Night‘ stumbled all weekend. From 3,171 screens, the mobster revenge flick pulled in just $11 million. In comparison, Neeson’s last similar R-rated picture ‘A Walk Among the Tombstones‘ opened to $12.8 million. With this decline and January’s drop in the monetary success of the ‘Taken’ franchise, we can only hope that this will mark the end of Neeson’s action stint.

Kingsman: The Secret Service‘ continues to play strong across the country. Its small 25% drop-off resulted in $6.2 million in ticket sales, pushing the film back up into third place in its fifth weekend. To give that some perspective, ‘Kingsman’ opened against the front-loaded ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ five weeks ago – yet while ‘Kingsman’ finished this weekend in third, ‘Fifty Shades’ finished in 11th place. What a difference quality makes.

Will Smith’s three-week-old romantic caper ‘Focus‘ landed at #4. Slipping 42% in attendance to $5.805 million, it’s estimated to have barely beaten out two-week-old ‘Chappie‘ with $5.8 million. The finalized numbers, which will be announced later today, will prove which movie ultimately landed ahead of the other.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel‘ added 449 locations to its nationwide run, yet still had a 33% drop-off. Its sixth-place $5.7 million weekend brings the film’s domestic ten-day total to $18 million.

The indie horror flick ‘It Follows‘, which premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, debuted to $163,000 from just four locations. The success resulted in a $40,750 per-screen average.

Weekend numbers have yet to be released for ‘Home Sweet Hell’.

Top 10:

1. ‘Cinderella’ (Buena Vista) – $70,053,000

2. ‘Run All Night’ (Warner Bros.) – $11,015,000

3. ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ (Fox) – $6,200,000

4. ‘Focus’ (Warner Bros.) – $5,805,000

5. ‘Chappie’ (Sony) – $5,800,000

6. ‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (Fox Searchlight) – $5,700,000

7. ‘The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water’ (Paramount) – $4,100,000

8. ‘McFarland, USA’ (Buena Vista) – $3,692,000

9. ‘American Sniper’ (Warner Bros.) – $2,930,000

10. ‘The DUFF’ (Lionsgate) – $2,900,000

3 comments

  1. Ryan

    My wife and I quite enjoyed Cinderella. I didn’t feel “fooled” at all. Critics seemed to enjoy the movie as well

  2. Les

    I saw Run All Night this past weekend with my wife and we both thought it was a very good movie, certainly one of his better movies. Unfortunately, maybe, his previous (2) movies were not anywhere near as good and movie goers figured this was more of the same. The movie was given a “A-” Cinemascore by the viewing public. It is that good.

    In any case, I will not hesitate picking this one up on Blu-ray when it comes out.

  3. William Henley

    I did a double-take seeing Kingsman in the number three spot. It seems several movies have been released since then, all of which initially did better, and are now lower on the charts.

    I still need to see this myself. Weather has prevented me from seeing it the last few weeks, and I leave today on vacation, so I guess I will either be catching this at the dollar-theater or wait until the disc comes out.

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