This weekend, the Lego brand had a huge win, George Clooney had his best-ever directorial debut, and another horrible-looking Young Adult adaptation flopped. Everything is awesome!”
Warner Bros. struck animated gold with ‘The Lego Movie‘. The film’s $69.1 million debut is the second-highest February opening behind ‘The Passion of Christ’ ($83.8 million). With ‘Lego’ stacking up so well, there’s no doubt that this is the birth of a major franchise. The only downside is that 3D ticket purchases only accounted for a low 35% of the overall debut.
Despite mostly negative reviews and a release date bump from December to February, George Clooney’s ‘The Monuments Men‘ is also off to a solid start. The $22.7 million debut landed in second place and gave Clooney a best-ever opening for a film that he directed. Appealing to an older demographic, the movie is expected to have a strong holdover.
In its fourth weekend, Kevin Hart’s ‘Ride Along‘ grossed another $9.3 million, pushing it $5 million beyond the $100 million mark. Thanks to the addition of sing-along screenings, Disney’s ‘Frozen‘ only slipped 23% in the face of ‘Lego’ competition. With another $6.9 million, its domestic haul is up to $368.6, breaking the record set by ‘Despicable Me 2‘ as the highest-grossing animated 2013 release. Fourth-place ‘Frozen’ now sits at a worldwide total of $913.7 million.
‘That Awkward Moment‘ held over surprisingly well, rounding out the Top 5 with $5.5 million. But that really awkward moment was when Weinstein’s ‘Vampire Academy‘ opened to just $4.1 million from 2,676 locations. It turns out that young girls want to watch Zac Efron in a bad R-rated comedy more than another ‘Twilight’ knockoff.
Overseas, the ‘RoboCop‘ reboot has torn shit up. Over the last ten days, it has earned $53.4 million from 47 combined markets, most of which just premiered it this weekend. In Asian markets, the film’s opening numbers are on par with ‘Iron Man 3’. Let’s see how it performs when it hits North American screens this weekend.
Debut numbers have yet to be announced for Zoe Kazan’s ‘The Pretty One’ or Simon Pegg’s ‘A Fantastic Fear of Everything’.
Top 10:
1. ‘The Lego Movie’ (Warner Bros.) – $69,110,000
2. ‘The Monuments Men’ (Sony) – $22,700,000
3. ‘Ride Along’ (Universal) – $9,394,000
4. ‘Frozen’ (Buena Vista) – $6,914,000
5. ‘That Awkward Moment’ (Focus) – $5,540,000
6. ‘Lone Survivor’ (Universal) – $5,293,000
7. ‘Vampire Academy’ (Weinstein) – $4,101,000
8. ‘The Nut Job’ (Open Road) – $3,809,000
9. ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’ (Paramount) – $3,600,000
Shannon Nutt
Yep, I hate it when the American public rewards bad movies with big box office (RIDE ALONG, anyone?), but THE LEGO MOVIE deserved every penny.
charles
They watch movies with the most interesting trailers. I don’t what the problem is right there. After all, they’re not going to know something is bad till they watch it. I know Monuments Men trailer made the movie look good and fun, and it has some great talent in it.
Oh okay, they’re suppose to read reviews instead of making up their own minds.
T.J. Kats
While I agree with your premise that implies the Ride Along trailer was interesting. The next time Kevin Hart says something funny will probably be the first.
EM
This weekend a buddy and I saw two movies at commercial theaters. One of them, The Lego Movie, is #1 on the above list (we saw it in 3D). The other, Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage, isn’t on the list at all. My friend and I were the only two attendees at the screening we went to; perhaps we were the only two people in North America who went to see it. I don’t even remember hearing of it before checking out the weekend listings.