Weekend box office: Beauty and the Beast has a monster opening
There was never any doubt that Disney’s live action BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was going to be successful, but I don’t think even the most optimistic Disney executives would have guessed it would take in $175 million at the weekend box office. That’s a summer blockbuster type of a number and it’s the middle of March. If you were sick of the live action remakes of classic animated movies before Beast, then you should probably stay away from the movie theater for the next decade because you can bet that on Monday morning, Disney is going to greenlight every animated movie in their vault. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST should end up with the biggest March opening and the biggest opening for star Emma Watson and director Bill Condon. And don’t forget that Watson had the Potter films and Condon had the Twilight films.
Next weekend should be an interesting one. Obviously, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST will take the top spot, but we have a slew of new movies that feel like their respective studios don’t know what to do with them. First up is the POWER RANGERS reboot. I never got into the Power Rangers the first time around and I haven’t seen anything in the trailers to make me jump on board this time. I’m curious to see if they still have an audience in a world where people can go see A-list superheroes instead. Next up is LIFE, with Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal. It has the right star power, but I feel like we should be hearing better things about it this close to the release date. Finally, there’s the terrible looking CHIPS. I’m not even sure what to say about that one. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.
1. Beauty and the Beast $174.8m
2. Kong: Skull Island $25.7m
3. Logan $17m
4. Get Out $12.8m
5. The Shack $5.8m
6. The LEGO Batman Movie $5m
7. The Belko Experiment $3.4m
8. Hidden Figures $1.5m
9. John Wick: Chapter 2 $1.1m
10. Before I Fall $1m
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