Having fallen a bit out of Disney’s CG animated side in the last couple of years outside of Big Hero 6, Zooptopia wasn’t on my radar a lot, especially after having the Sloth based teaser frontloaded with a whole lot of movies I’d seen for the last few months. That didn’t make an impact in a negative way on others, however, as the film opened to a $73.7 million weekend. That marks it as Disney’s biggest three-day opening for their animation studio ever and it tops the biggest March animated opening with Lorax. It did so well that it’s the 9th largest animated opening ever. Suffice to say, there’s likely a good run left ahead of this film with little animation competition in the coming weeks. With the film opening earlier overseas, that total is now at $158.8 million before adding in the new domestic debut.
Also opening this weekend was London Has Fallen, which I caught in a Thursday preview and enjoyed even if it was essentially a big 80’s movie with far too much of a Call of Duty sequence of implausible survival elements. The film did a $21.7 million opening for Focus Features, which is right along with expectations. I don’t expect that it will do as well as Olympus Has Fallen did a couple of years ago as they had just under $100 million domestic and was a kind of surprise hit for audiences.
Also opening this weekend was Whiskey Tango Foxtrot from Paramount and that film did a meager $7.6 million, which is just under half of original projections for the $35 million film.
For films out previously, Deadpool continues to do strong number as it cross the $300 million mark to $311 million, which gives it the honor of the only R-Rated film to ever do that. Suffice to say, the pressure is most definitely on for the sequel. Gods of Egypt eked out another $5 million on top of meager weekday grosses and has now reached $22.8 million. Fox’s Eddie the Eagle added another $3 million to bring it to just under $11 million, which is disappointing since it’s such a fun film. Pretty much everything from last weekend that opened has fallen significantly and won’t rebound considering what’s on the horizon.
Next week is a kind of odd duck release and it’s one where I’m not expecting much to do big, giving Zootopia a chance to shine again. 10 Cloverfield Lane should do well as it opens in 3,200 screens but not massive. Sony has The Brothers Grimsby coming out on over 2,000 screens but I just see flop written all over this one. Lionsgate is going cautious with The Perfect Match, a new romantic comedy, with just 850 screens. And Focus Features is going for the historical drama The Young Messiah on 1,600 targeted screens and regions.
| WEEKEND REVENUE | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RANK | TITLE | DISTRIBUTOR NAME | REVENUE | # OF LOCATIONS* | LOC AVG | CUME REVENUE |
| 1 | Zootopia | Disney | $73,700,000 | 3,827 | 19,257 | $73,700,000 |
| 2 | London Has Fallen | Focus Features | $21,714,000 | 3,490 | 6,221 | $21,714,000 |
| 3 | Deadpool | 20th Century Fox | $16,400,000 | 3,624 | 4,525 | $311,158,132 |
| 4 | Whiskey Tango Foxtrot | Paramount | $7,600,000 | 2,374 | 3,201 | $7,600,000 |
| 5 | Gods Of Egypt | Lionsgate | $5,000,000 | 3,117 | 1,604 | $22,848,320 |
| 6 | Risen | Sony | $3,885,000 | 2,507 | 1,549 | $28,650,923 |
| 7 | Kung Fu Panda 3 | 20th Century Fox | $3,525,000 | 2,700 | 1,305 | $133,831,833 |
| 8 | Revenant, The | 20th Century Fox | $3,325,000 | 1,488 | 2,234 | $175,976,921 |
| 9 | Eddie The Eagle | 20th Century Fox | $3,100,000 | 2,044 | 1,516 | $10,861,132 |
| 10 | Witch, The | A24 | $2,509,453 | 1,715 | 1,463 | $20,920,027 |
| 11 | Triple 9 | Open Road | $2,128,347 | 2,205 | 965 | $10,239,381 |
| 12 | How To Be Single | Warner Bros. | $2,115,000 | 1,602 | 1,320 | $43,318,465 |
