Weekend Box Office

It might be a tale as old as time, but audiences have proven there’s still a few petals left on that old flower. Despite being projected to open at somewhere between $214–245 million worldwide, Beauty and the Beast knocked the pants off those projections, eclipsing $350 million at the international box office and setting a March record for domestic releases along the way. Let’s take a look at how things shook out this past weekend with some of the expected grosses.

Propelled by great trailers, strong buzz, and a supremely rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Get Out easily took the number one spot at the box office this weekend, dethroning The LEGO Batman Movie. Will the positive reaction to Get Out help it overcome the second week slump that so many horror movies suffer? We’re in uncharted waters here — critics and audiences rarely like a genre movie this much.

After of a month of the weekend box office being dominated by Split, the arrival of three new major releases has finally given the top 10 a thorough shake-up. As expected, The LEGO Batman Movie led the pack, with Fifty Shades Darker and John Wick: Chapter 2 following. And while each film opened strong, only two of them feel like unqualified successes.

When M. Night Shyamalan’s Split exceeded expectations and became the first big hit of 2017, box office prognosticators wondered if this was the result of a killer marketing campaign or if audiences actually liked the movie. The second weekend made it definitive: Split’s small drop-off indicated positive buzz and strong word-of-mouth, both of which allowed the film to remain on top of the charts for the third weekend in a row, narrowly edging out all newcomers, specifically Rings.

Last week, Split had a huge opening and everyone noted that M. Night Shyamalan was unquestionably back. But now, in week two, it feels a little more official. The second weekend saw the film holding onto its spot at the top of the box office charts, but it also did so while dropping a percentage most movies would kill for. In other words, people like Split and are telling their friends to go see it.

Is it safe to say that M. Night Shyamalan is back? He got his foot in the door a few years ago when The Visit opened to $25 million and went on to make $65 million against a budget of only $5 million, but with the release of Split, he’s officially sitting on the couch, eating your chips and drinking your beer. However, the same could not be said for xXx: Return of Xander Cage, which opened to more lackluster numbers.

It has long been a fine American tradition to escape the awkward enclosure of your parents’ house over your holiday vacation and spend a few hours in the local movie theater, where everyone can shut up about politics and stop swapping passive aggressive comments on each other’s lifestyle for a few hours. 2016 was no different, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Sing drawing in the big crowds while La La Land and Fences impressed in limited release. Not so impressive: Passengers, Why Him?, and Assassin’s Creed, each of which underperformed.

Consider this the calm before the storm. Next weekend, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will open and dominate both the box office and every headline, drowning out each and every other movie currently screening in theaters. In the meantime, Moana took advantage of this quiet window to win one more strong weekend while Office Christmas Party got off to a pretty good start.

It looks like the general public reacted to one of the most stressful weeks in living memory by flocking to the movies for a few hours of escape. Both Doctor Strange and Trolls, which debuted to solid numbers last week, held on strong. Arrival, the biggest newcomer of the bunch, also opened well, proving that it’s entirely possible to open in third place and still be a winner at the box office.

Did anyone want a third Robert Langdon thriller? While The Da Vinci Code was a gigantic hit back in 2006, Angels and Demons made significantly less on both the domestic and international charts. And now, Inferno looks to answer that question with a painful whimper. No, nobody wanted a third Robert Langdon movie, and the film’s opening weekend makes that abundantly clear.