Weekend Box Office: Just Keep Swimming

Just as Universal was last year, Disney is absolutely unstoppable thus far in 2016. Not only did the latest Pixar flick debut atop the box office chart, it set the record for the largest domestic opening of all-time for an animated picture. Although more than $100 million behind it, Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson’s buddy movie also had a solid debut.

With a seven-year gap between the original and the sequel, Disney’s ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ was a major flop this year. However, with a brand as strong as ‘Finding Nemo’, even a 13-year gap couldn’t stop ‘Finding Dory‘ from crushing the box office this weekend. From 4,305 locations, the sequel grossed a record-breaking $136.1 million in North America. Internationally, it launched in 30+ markets, some of which resulted in the best Pixar openings to date for those countries. With overseas showing resulting in $50 million, ‘Dory’ is off to a great start with $186.1 million worldwide, which just might be good enough to make it Disney’s third $1 billion earner of 2016.

The returns on Kevin Hart’s movies have been dwindling, but pairing him with Dwayne Johnson turned that trend around. Coming in a distant second, Warner Brothers’ PG-13 comedy ‘Central Intelligence‘ scored $34.5 million from 3,508 domestic locations. With positive word-of-mouth and numbers this strong, it’s expected to cross the $100 million milestone before its theatrical run wraps.

Last week’s top picture took a harder than expected hit in its second week. ‘The Conjuring 2‘ fell a steep 61% week-over-week and landed in third place. To give that some perspective, the original ‘Conjuring‘ only fell 47% in its second week. While the sequel’s drop is more along the lines of what happens to typical R-rated horror movies, this brand was expected to have stronger holdover than that. Even so, no matter how you look at it, Warner is still making a killing off the returns of the $40 million horror movie. The $15.5 million weekend brings its ten-day total up to $71.7 million. The international total sits a healthy $116.2 million, giving it $189.7 million worldwide.

The #4 and #5 pictures took even harder hits in their second outings.

Now You See Me 2‘ dropped 57% over its soft opening weekend. In comparison, the original movie only dropped 35% in its second week. Playing on 3,232 screens, the $9.6 million weekend resulted in a low $2,986 per-screen average for the sequel, meaning that theater owners will reduce the screen count and/or count of daily showings in the coming days. The $90 million magic flick has only grossed $41.3 million domestically and $49.7 million overseas. The steep fall, the $91 million ten-day worldwide total, and the low returns combined are not a good sign for its ultimate box office health.

Even worse than that is ‘Warcraft‘. Duncan Jones’ grand scale computer game adaptation debuted slightly above already-low predictions last week, but ended up clobbered in weekend #2 thanks to a 73% drop. Playing on 3,406 screens and only pulling in $6.5 million, the film’s per-screen average slumped to $1,914. Universal’s $160 million epic has only pulled $37.7 million in North America over the last ten days, but is still seeing great returns overseas where it has earned $339.9 million. The $377.6 million worldwide total is still more than anyone expected it to make.

Debut numbers for limited releases ‘Swiss Army Man’ and ‘Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made’ have yet to be announced.

Top 10:

1. ‘Finding Dory’ (Buena Vista) – $136,183,170

2. ‘Central Intelligence’ (Warner Bros.) – $34,500,000

3. ‘The Conjuring 2’ (Warner Bros.) – $15,555,000

4. ‘Now You See Me 2’ (Summit) – $9,650,000

5. ‘Warcraft’ (Universal) – $6,520,000

6. ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ (Fox) – $5,210,000

7. ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows’ (Paramount) – $5,200,000

8. ‘Me Before You’ (Warner Bros.) – $4,155,000

9. ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ (Buena Vista) – $3,615,385

10. ‘Captain America: Civil War’ (Buena Vista) – $2,296,207

1 comment

  1. Wow! Dory just keeps on swimming. It’ll probably surpass $250 this weekend,

    I must admit I was fairly confident that Captain America 3 would remain the top grossing movie of 2016 for most of the year. I didn’t really see any potential for $400M+ for any of the upcoming movies until Rogue One, but Dory is definately on a mission.

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