Disney's Zootopia dominated once again this weekend, bringing in an estimated $50 million in its sophomore session, pushing the film over $140 million domestically in its first ten days of release. Leading the weekend's four new wide releases is 10 Cloverfield Lane with a strong opening weekend performance while The Perfect Match, The Young Messiah and The Brothers Grimsby settled in slots six through eight in the weekend top ten.
Dropping only 33.4%, Zootopia is the #1 film for the second weekend in a row as its domestic cume has now climbed to $142.6 million. Internationally the animated feature took in an additional $83.1 million, which is actually up 25% from last weekend. The jump is largely due to the estimated $56.5 million it brought in this weekend in China, an increase of a whopping 139% as its global cume now stands at $431.3 million.
As far as the weekend's new releases are concerned, 10 Cloverfield Lane entered its opening weekend with incredibly strong reviews. The film got off to a great start with $1.8 million in Thursday previews and ended the weekend with an estimated $25.2 million. Scoring a "B-" CinemaScore, it played to an audience that was 61% male vs 39% female and 68% of the audience was over the age of 25. In addition to its domestic opening, it also brought in an estimated $1.5 million from six international territories, most of which came from Australia where it brought in an estimated $1 million.
10 Cloverfield Lane's opening is similar to that of M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit last September, which opened with $25.4 million on its way to a solid $65.2 million domestic run.
We go down to sixth position for the weekend's next new wide release, Lionsgate and Codeblack's The Perfect Match, which brought in an estimated $4.1 million from 925 theaters. It's a decent enough opening, though the smallest of director Bille Woodruff's career as it wasn't able to over perform as Mojo's forecasts thought it might. However, it did manage to top the weekend's next two wide releases, both of which were in significantly more theaters. As a matter of fact, when it comes to theater counts for these three films, the fewer the better.
First to Focus' The Young Messiah, which finished seventh with an estimated $3.4 million from 1,761 theaters. As far as faith-based features go, they can't all strike gold, and the timing of this one certainly didn't seem to help it.
Sony's Risen did decent business a few weeks ago and the studio is on the verge of having another hit on their hands next week with Miracles from Heaven, but Young Messiah simply wasn't able to attract a large portion of that audience. For those that did make it to the theaters this weekend to see it, they liked what they saw as it scored an "A-" CinemaScore. The film played to an audience that was 56% female vs. 44% male and 86% of overall attendees were 25 years or older.
The true flop of the weekend is Sony's The Brothers Grimsby. The Sacha Baron Cohen comedy scored a wimpy $3.2 million from 2,235 theaters. The film, which has been playing overseas for a couple weeks now, opened in 13 new international markets this weekend, including Russia and Germany, and grossed another $3.2 million, bringing its international cume to an estimated $11.2 million.
Limited releases this weekend saw Bleecker Street's drone drama Eye in the Sky win the per theater crown taking in an estimated $117,050 from five theaters for an average of $23,410 per theater. Roadside's Hello, My Name is Doris, however, is hot on its heels with an estimated $85,240 from four theaters for a $21,310 per theater average.
IFC's City of Gold brought in an estimated $64,000 from four theaters and A24 began the limited release of Remember starring Christopher Plummer in two theaters where it brought in an estimated $20,000.
Elsewhere in the top ten, Deadpool brought in another $10.8 million as its cume has now grown to an impressive $328 million domestically. It has now grossed more domestically than 2008's Iron Man ($318.4m) and is just $5.1 million away from passing Guardians of the Galaxy ($333.1m). Internationally the film added another $11.3 million this weekend as its global cume has now climbed over $708 million.
Finally, Spectre is now only $45,499 shy of $200 million as it brought in an estimated $47,000 this weekend from 16 theaters, several of which Sony reports were drive-in theaters that are showing good returns this weekend.
Next week Miracles from Heaven begins hitting theaters on Wednesday while The Divergent Series: Allegiant will begin playing in over 3,700 theaters on Friday after jump-starting its international release this weekend with an estimated $26.7 million from 45 markets.
