For the third weekend in a row, The Lego Movie dominated the North American box office by a wide margin. The Warner Bros. Studios smash hit easily surpassed the tepid openings of the new Kevin Costner thriller 3 Days to Kill and the Titanic-esque Pompeii starring Kit Harrington from Game of Thrones. Lego aside, the top ten was filled with leftovers doing very little business and overall it was down a steep 40% from last weekend, but up 12% from last year at this time.
Showing its across-the-board appeal yet again, The Lego Movie withstood the post-holiday weekend blahs to earn an estimated $31.45 million from 3,890 screens. After three weeks of release the smash hit has earned a spectacular $183.1 million domestically. The film’s $8,085 per screen average was easily the best in the top ten. With adults checking it out as much as kids, Lego should be around well into the spring. This longevity should help push the movie well past the $250 million mark with foreign markets having contributed $52 million thus far.
Kevin Costner, i.e. Pa Kent from Man of Steel for you young ones, returned to multiplexes this weekend for the second time this year in the action thriller 3 Days to Kill. Produced and co-written by Luc Besson and directed by McG, Kill was marked for death by the critics (27% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and ignored by the public. More interested in animated building blocks than aging actors shooting bullets at each other, ticket buyers mustered a weak $12.3 million on 2,872 screens for 3 Days to Kill. The $28 million Relativity Pictures release also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Amber Heard and Connie Nielsen.
In third place was the other wide release of the weekend, TriStar’s $100 million production Pompeii, starring Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Kiefer Sutherland and Carrie-Anne Moss. The romantic disaster film, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, was dead on arrival thanks to a 29% approval rating from the nation’s critics and a pathetic $10 million from 2,658 screens. An additional $22 million was contributed this weekend from overseas markets, which may help the film recoup some of its production costs down the road.
Fourth place went to the one film to open during the President’s Day holiday weekend not to drop more than 60% this weekend: Sony/MGM’s RoboCop. The pricey remake lost 57% of its opening weekend audience to earn an estimated $9.4 million from 3,372 theaters. Its domestic total stands at $43.6 million and could finish between $60-65 million. Overseas markets are picking up the domestic slack. So far, RoboCop has earned $100 million from overseas markets.
In regards to the trio of romantic features that opened last weekend to cash in on Valentine’s Day, not a single one showed any sort of longevity (kind of like most romantic relationships hatched these days during the month of February). About Last Night was so last weekend as the Kevin Hart-headliner lost 71% of its opening round crowd. The movie dropped from second to sixth place to earn $7.4 million from 2,253 screens. To date, the film has earned $38.1 million and should finish around the $50 million mark. Endless Love dropped 68% to earn $4.3 million in ninth place. Its total stands at $20 million and will be lucky to reach $30 million, while Warner’s Winter’s Tale may not even last long enough in theaters to see the end of this current season. Off 71%, the Akiva Goldsman bomb earned $2.1 million from 2,965 theaters. To date, the movie has earned a terrible $11 million and should wind down its brief run with $15 million in the bank.
The remainder of the top ten had Sony’s The Monuments Men in fifth place with $8.1 million from 3,064 screens and an overall total of $58 million. George and the boys should finish their domestic mission with approximately $75 million in the bank. Universal’s Ride Along cruised along in seventh place while adding another $4.6 million to its large total, which now stands at $123.1 million. $135-140 million is looking like a good possibility for the comedy’s final haul.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a top ten report without mentioning Disney’s Frozen. The long-running smash hit had the best hold of any film in the top ten (-30%) and added another $4.3 million to its grand domestic total of $384 million. Overseas, the movie has pulled in $596 million to bring its global haul to the $980 million mark. Frozen should cross the magical one billion mark within the next week or so, just in time for the Oscars.
Next weekend, Liam Neeson is “Taken” on a plane in the action feature Non-Stop while Fox will release the religious feature Son of God. The former has the best odds of dethroning The Lego Movie, though that happening is by no means a certainty.
