Weekend Box Office: Undercover Boss

The weekend’s box office estimates are in, yet the battle for the top spot continues. For now, it appears that an underdog has won… but that can change.

Surprise, surprise. Although critics and audiences haven’t been satisfied with Melissa McCarthy’s unfunny comedy ‘The Boss‘, studio estimates place it as edging out two-week reigning champ ‘Batman v. Superman’ by just $45,000. Unless Warner Bros. overestimated the weekend’s returns for ‘BvS’ (which did happen during its opening weekend) there’s a good chance that the two could swap positions once the final numbers are announced later today.

Produced on a budget of $29 million, McCarthy’s latest vehicle once again shows her star power. From 3,480 locations, the R-rated picture pulled in $23.48 million domestically. Two thoughts come to mind: First, if McCarthy can be a sure thing star with crappy movies like ‘The Boss’, then we’re going to continue seeing her in bad movies like this and ‘Tammy‘. Second, think of how much bigger of a star she’d become if she made more solid comedies like ‘Spy‘.

In its third week, ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice‘ fell 54% in attendance, which is a little steeper than most movies of its sort would have fallen. The estimated $23.43 million places it right on the heels of ‘The Boss’. After 17 days, ‘Batman v. Superman’ has grossed $296.6 million domestically, which places it ahead of the domestic lifetime total for ‘Man of Steel‘. To date, ‘Dawn of Justice’ has made $783.4 million worldwide and will likely cross the $800 million mark next weekend.

Now six weeks into its theatrical release, Disney’s ‘Zootopia‘ dropped into the #3 spot. Slipping just 26% in attendance, the animated family film earned another $14.3 million and sits with a domestic total of $296 million. It should cross the $300 million mark within the next few days. To date, ‘Zootopia’ now has a worldwide total of $852.5 million.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2‘ closed its third week with $6.4 million, giving it a week-over-week decline of 43%. The sequel’s domestic 17-day total sits at $46.7 million, while its worldwide total is $70.8 million.

Rounding out the Top 5 was STX’s first-person action movie ‘Hardcore Henry‘, which took a box office beating. Debuting on 3,015 screens, the R-rated flick scored just $5 million, for a lackluster $1,690 per-screen average.

Unfortunately for Jake Gyllenhaal, his mopey widower dramedy opened just as unimpressively. From 854 locations, Fox Searchlight’s ‘Demolition‘ landed in the #15 spot with $1.1 million, giving it a tragic per-screen average of $1,317.

Top 10:

1. ‘The Boss’ (Universal) – $23,480,000

2. ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (Warner Bros.) – $23,435,000

3. ‘Zootopia’ (Buena Vista) – $14,353,000

4. ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2’ (Universal) – $6,420,000

5. ‘Hardcore Henry’ (STX) – $5,096,000

6. ‘Miracles from Heaven’ (TriStar) – $4,844,000

7. ‘God’s Not Dead 2’ (Pure Flix) – $4,333,707

8. ‘The Divergent Series: Allegiant’ (Summit) – $3,600,000

9. ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ (Paramount) – $3,000,000

10. ‘Eye in the Sky’ (Bleecker Street) – $2,829,375

1 comment

  1. Bolo

    I went to see ‘Hardcore Henry’ and I’m glad I did. It was just berserk. I used to live in Moscow, so it was nice see some of the old neighbourhoods. A lot of movies I see set and shot in Moscow just don’t feel like Moscow. They go for a touristy sterile look. This film really looked like how I remember the city.

    I’m not sure who thought there was potential for it to be a mainstream hit. It’s more of a grindhouse type of movie. I’m surprised they even ran it through multiplexes. There were very few people in the cinema I went to see it in, and they were all Russian.

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