On your left.
No better way to begin this box office recap than with a little in-joke for those that have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It was also what Rio 2 said to Steve Rogers and company before Rogers decided to become Steve Prefontaine and leave the competition in this dust over the weekend. Rio 2 proved to be a valiant competitor to dethrone Cap as the number one movie at the box office, but in the end the Marvel sequel emerged victorious.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier landed in number one for the second weekend in a row despite falling 56% from the previous weekend, adding an estimated $41.3 million to its total. In two weeks the sequel has made an impressive $159 million domestically. Factor in its overseas haul and the Marvel Studios production has made $476 million worldwide, easily surpassing Captain America: The First Avenger‘s worldwide total by more than $100 million.
Rio 2‘s $39 million opening was pretty much on par what the original did three years ago when it opened with $39.2 million. Normally, the goal is for a sequel is to outperform the predecessor its opening weekend, but Fox Animation will undoubtedly clean up when the overseas numbers start rolling in. Already the film has opened in first place in thirty-five territories to bring its worldwide weekend total to $125.2 million.
Outside of animated movies aimed for children, horror movies are the best to make solid returns. And that’s just what happened with third-place finisher Oculus. Budgeted around $5 million, the haunted mirror movie with no stars to speak of did a modest $12 million. That was $2 million better than the NFL-endorsed Draft Day. With heavy promotion of ESPN, Lionsgate was hoping its light drama starring Kevin Costner would finish in double-digit territory. Even though I gave it a recommendation my review, the crowd-pleasing film isn’t a must see while in theaters. It will make a good rental when it arrives to Redbox or streams digitally, probably some time around the start of the forthcoming NFL season.
The rest of the box office top 10 was business as usual, though the biggest stories remain the performance of God’s Not Dead ($40 million earned vs. a $2 million budget) and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. While Hotel has quite a way to go before it can dethrone The Royal Tennenbaums domestic haul of $75 million the comedy has rocketed overseas to become Anderson’s best performing movie ever with $103 million worldwide!
In limited release, David Gordon Green couldn’t get viewers to give Nicolas Cage another chance with Joe. I saw it at SXSW this year and thought it could be the start of a “McConnaissance” for the actor who has been picking one bad project after another of late. The Lionsgate release opened on 48 screens but only collected $100k. To compare, Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive did $97k on four screens. The big indie release of the weekend, Sony Pictures Classics’ The Raid 2, expanded to 954 theaters but failed to crack the top 10, with only $1 million in gross receipts.
And for any Frozen lovers out there the film has moved up to become the 8th highest grossing film of all time.
01. Captain America: The Winter Solider – $41.3 million ($476 mil worldwide)
02. Rio 2 – $39 million ($163 mil worldwide)
03. Oculus – $12 million
04. Draft Day – $9.7 million
05. Divergent – $7.5 million ($175 mil worldwide)
06. Noah – $7.4 million ($247 mil worldwide)
07. God’s Not Dead – $5.4 million ($40.7 mil)
08. The Grand Budapest Hotel – $4 million ($103 mil worldwide)
09. Muppets Most Wanted – $2.2 million ($45.6 mil)
10. Mr. Peabody & Sherman – $1.8 million ($105.2 mil)
