Box Office Week: BLACK PANTHER is #1 for the 4th consecutive weekend and surpasses $1 billion in worldwide box office, A WRINKLE IN TIME opens to $33.3 million, THE SHAPE OF WATER surges 63% in box office post-Oscars, and TOMB RAIDER opens in Asia to $14.1 million.
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Opening next weekend: the Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander.
Notable Box Office Stories
Aided (slightly) by a $66.5 million opening weekend in China, Black Panther surpassed $1 billion in worldwide box office on Saturday, joining an elite club of less than 40 films (without adjusting for inflation) that have achieved this. As /r/boxoffice pointed out, it is the first MCU film that does not have an appearance by Tony Stark to reach $1 billion worldwide. The domestic gross of Black Panther is now 7th overall and exceeds that of The Dark Knight ($534,858,444), as well as the combined domestic gross of Justice League and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($228,977,297 and $330,360,194, respectively). Black Panther came in second place behind A Wrinkle In Time on Friday ($9,972,000 vs $10,214,000, respectively) but regained the lead for the weekend, with a weekend domestic box office of $41,136,000. This was also Black Panther's fourth consecutive weekend at #1, and while we still have a long way to go before we see something like Titanic's 15 consecutive weekends at #1 again, Black Panther could be the first film since 2009's Avatar to spend five consecutive weekends at #1 if it beats Tomb Raider (the only new major release) next weekend (more on that later).
Currently sitting at 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, the mixed critical reception for A Wrinkle In Time may have contributed to its second place opening at the domestic box office this weekend, with $33,316,000. Forbes speculates that the "unexpected post-debut strength" of Black Panther and the lack of time between its release and that of AWIT's may have hindered AWIT's ability to take the top spot on its opening weekend. The similarities between AWIT's opening weekend and that of two other famous Disney fantasy/sci-fi underperformers from recent history are hard to ignore; John Carter opened to $30,180,188 on the same weekend as AWIT in 2012, while Tomorrowland opened to $33,028,165 on the Memorial Day long weekend in 2015. Both of those films grossed less than $300 million worldwide, and both had budgets in the $200-250 million range. I had previously listed the budget of AWIT as in the same range but redditors have rightly pointed out that that is only the case when you include prints and advertising; AWIT's production budget was $100 million, significantly less than that of the other two films mentioned. Deadline points out that the most encouraging prospect for AWIT's next two weeks is the fact that K-12 schools will be on spring break over part/all of the next two weeks.
With a domestic box office of $3,150,000, The Hurricane Heist did not manage to blow anyone away (heh) with its opening weekend performance. Its title immediately draws obvious parallels to last year's Geostorm, which opened to $13,707,376 in November of last year and ended up grossing $221,400,160 worldwide, even before the questionable quality of both films is taken into account (although it's worth noting The Hurricane Heist has more than double the RT percentage of Geostorm - 29% vs 13%!). It seems Hollywood is going to keep churning out disaster movies in the hopes of stumbling across another San Andreas, which opened to $54,588,173 in late May 2015 (this was one weekend after Tomorrowland opened - see my second bullet point). As for those of you who love bad movies and are lamenting the fact The Hurricane Heist will probably leave cinemas soon - fear not, for God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness will be released on March 30!!
After taking home Best Picture and Best Director last Sunday at the Academy Awards, The Shape of Water grossed $2,407,000 this weekend at the domestic box office, an increase of 62.8% from last weekend's gross of $1,478,754. An additional 720 cinemas in North America chose to play the film, no doubt a result of its success at the Oscars. The winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Chile's A Fantastic Woman, also opened in an additional 77 North American cinemas this weekend and grossed $287,277, an increase of 130% from last weekend's gross of $125,005. Despite taking home two of the acting awards, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri actually played in 218 fewer cinemas this weekend compared to last weekend, and saw a corresponding 45.2% drop in box office to $705,000 (compared to $1,287,401). Finally, not an Oscar film, but Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin opened in the United States this weekend - but only in four cinemas nationwide. Nonetheless, the outcomes of the Five-Year Plan were exceeded because each cinema grossed an average of $45,327! Let us hope the glorious Presidium bestows their comedic genius upon the entire nation soon!
Most of the planet won't be able to watch the film until next weekend, but the reboot of Tomb Raider starring Alicia Vikander opened to $14.1 million this weekend in select Asian markets - including South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines. Notably absent from this list is China which is getting the movie next weekend as well. In June 2001, the first Lara Croft: Tomb Raider opened to $47,735,743, while its 2003 sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life opened to less than half of that with $21,783,641. Barring a very unlikely second weekend increase in box office for A Wrinkle In Time, Tomb Raider is the largest obstacle standing in the way of a fifth consecutive weekend at #1 for Black Panther, so I'm sure many of us will be paying attention to how well the film does next weekend domestically.
Films Reddit Wants to Follow
This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. This week we have added Annihilation to the list at the request of /u/numb3red and /u/tahubob .
If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.
Title Domestic Gross (Cume) Worldwide Gross (Cume) Budget Week # Thor: Ragnarok $315,034,103 $853,865,561 $180M 19 Coco $208,831,333 $745,259,970 $175M 16 Star Wars: The Last Jedi $619,463,731 $1,331,429,897 $200M 13 The Greatest Showman $167,475,401 $388,578,795 $84M 12 Annihilation $26,094,514 info not available $40M 3After twelve weeks, The Greatest Showman finally fell out of the domestic box office Top 10 this weekend, grossing $1,775,000 and landing at #13. On the list of films that never made it to #1 in the domestic box office, it is in the top 20. Mainly I just wanted to link to this list so we can all be reminded again that one of the greatest Bond movies of all time (if not the greatest) never reached #1 because George Miller made a movie about dancing penguins.
Notable Film Closings
Title Domestic Gross Worldwide Gross Budget The Disaster Artist $21,120,616 $29,020,616 $10 million Molly's Game $28,780,744 $53,398,240 $30 million Pitch Perfect 3 $104,897,530 $183,897,530 $45 millionYou can read /u/mi-16evil's latest piece at The Numbers: What Gives a Marvel Movie Legs?
As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news; you can also view the archive of all Box Office Week posts at /r/moviesboxoffice.