Considering the way that the LEGO Movie was regarded when it was first announced, with plenty of warranted jaded responses and cynicism, you have to love what actually ended up on the screen and the response that it’s getting. The film, with its $60 million budget, did just over $69 million domestically this weekend to take the top spot. It didn’t take the top opener for a February film, which is still Passion of the Christ at $83.8 million, but it definitely did really well for a new property and is on part with a number of the Pixar films out there. Which is why the sequel was pretty much given the go ahead as tracking made it clear this was going to do great numbers.
The other new opening film this weekend, The Monuments Men, did quite well for its type of movie and expected reach as it hit $23 million on its $70 million budget. With a strong advertising campaign over the last several months that has spawned a lot of “real news” pieces on the historical parts of that have raised awareness, the numbers are about as expected and should hold fairly well as time goes on. It’s skewing older to be sure and a little more female oriented, but that’s largely attributed to the cast.
Beyond that, the weekend was largely made up of holdovers doing fairly well, though The LEGO Movie sucked a lot of oxygen out of the environment. We saw that on Sunday afternoon with my kids and it was a large, packed 1pm screening. Similarly, when we saw The Monuments Men on Saturday night, that skewed much older but was still pretty full for a large screening, which was good to see.
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count /Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | N | The LEGO Movie | WB | $69,110,000 | – | 3,775 | – | $18,307 | $69,110,000 | $60 | 1 |
| 2 | N | The Monuments Men | Sony | $22,700,000 | – | 3,083 | – | $7,363 | $22,700,000 | $70 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | Ride Along | Uni. | $9,394,000 | -21.9% | 2,800 | -67 | $3,355 | $105,167,000 | $25 | 4 |
| 4 | 2 | Frozen | BV | $6,914,000 | -22.6% | 2,460 | -294 | $2,811 | $368,678,000 | $150 | 12 |
| 5 | 3 | That Awkward Moment | Focus | $5,540,000 | -36.6% | 2,809 | – | $1,972 | $16,848,000 | $8 | 2 |
| 6 | 5 | Lone Survivor | Uni. | $5,293,000 | -25.4% | 2,869 | -416 | $1,845 | $112,580,000 | $40 | 7 |
| 7 | N | Vampire Academy | Wein. | $4,101,000 | – | 2,676 | – | $1,533 | $4,101,000 | – | 1 |
| 8 | 4 | The Nut Job | ORF | $3,809,000 | -47.7% | 3,004 | -468 | $1,268 | $55,082,000 | $42 | 4 |
| 9 | 6 | Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit | Par. | $3,600,000 | -32.2% | 2,139 | -768 | $1,683 | $44,469,000 | $60 | 4 |
| 10 | 7 | Labor Day | Par. | $3,230,000 | -37.6% | 2,584 | – | $1,250 | $10,172,000 | $18 | 2 |
