Box Office: CAPTAIN MARVEL Dominates with $69 Million Over Second Weekend

Box Office: CAPTAIN MARVEL Dominates with $69 Million Over Second Weekend

Welcome to the Beat’s Weekend Box Office Wrap-Up!
Four new movies opened in wide release this weekend with none of them standing much of a chance of dethroning Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel, which remained atop the box office with an estimated $69.3 million.
The Brie Larson vehicle dropped a fairly respectable 55% in its second weekend considering its huge opening weekend. That’s more of a drop than last year’s Black Panther, but is decent compared to the 58%+ drop of Captain America: Winter Soldier and Iron Man 3 in their second weekends. Even so, both of those movies opened bigger, so their second weekends were over $72 million despite the larger second weekend drops.
With $266 million grossed in just eleven days, Captain Marvel shouldn’t have a problem topping $300 million, but we’ll have to see how it fares over the next few weekends with a number of strong releases like Jordan Peele’s Us and Tim Burton’s Dumbo. The movie’s real challenge may come in three weeks from Warner Bros’ latest superhero movie Shazam. 
Captain Marvel also opened in Japan this weekend with $5.6 million bringing its international total to $494 million and its global total to $760 million in just twelve days. That’s more than the total global take for The Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Suicide Squad, Justice League, Doctor Strange and Captain America: Winter Soldier in their entire global runs.
Opening in second place was Paramount’s animated family film Wonder Park, opening with an estimated $16 million in 3,838 theaters or $4,169 per theater. That was more than most projections, including my own, basically showing that families with kids ignored the movie’s horrible reviews.
Third place went to the CBS Films teen romance Five Feet Apart, which also exceeded most expectations with $13.1 million in 2,803 theaters. The movie starred Cole Sprouse from Riverdale and Haley Lu Richardson as two young people with cancer who fall in love, and it was only expected to make around $9 or 10 million, though it acted as proper counter-programing.
DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World dropped to fourth place with $9.3 million (down 36%) for a four-week domestic showing of $135.6 million. That’s still quite a bit lower than the previous installment even though The Hidden World opened better than both previous movies.  It has also grossed another $330.9 million overseas where it opened a few weeks earlier than in North America.
Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral (Lionsgate) has grossed $59 million with the $8.1 million it made this weekend with a solid 35% hold in its third weekend. It is currently Perry’s sixth highest-grossing movie but it could very well move up to become his third-highest grosser by the time it leaves theaters.
Lionsgate’s LatinX subdivision Pantelion opened the comedy sequel No Manches Frida 2 in 472 locations for a sixth place showing of $3.9 million, and the second best per-theater average in the top 10 with $8,250 per theater. It opened around where expected but still only slightly higher than the 2016 opening of the original No Manches Frida over Labor Day weekend that year.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt’s new sci-fi thriller Captive State, starring John Goodman, Vera Farmiga and Ashton Holmes, tanked this weekend, opening in seventh place with just $3.2 million in 2,548 theaters, ending up behind No Manches Frida 2 with just $1,241 per theater.
Warner Bros’ The LEGO Movie 2 FINALLY crossed the $100 million mark after six weeks in theaters, as it dropped from fourth to eighth place with $2.1 million (down 45%) and $101.3 million total. It’s probably going to be seen as a disappointment, as it was meant to be one of Warner Bros’ early-year tentpoles.
The most significant limited release was Focus Features’ The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s directorial debut starring Matthias Schoenarts, which opened in four theaters with $76,000 or $19,000 per theater with plans to expand it nationwide on March 29.
Fox Searchlight’s historic drama The Aftermath, starring Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgard and Jason Clarke, only brought in $57,500 in five theaters, also in New York and L.A.

This Week’s Top 10:

The top 10 was up 13% from the same weekend last year when Black Panther finally lost the #1 spot to Legendary’s Pacific Rim: Uprising with its $26.8 million opening. The other big wide release this weekend last year was the animated Sherlock Gnomes, also from Paramount, which took third place with $13.8 million.
Check back on Wednesday for The Beat’s Box Office Preview where we’ll look at Jordan Peele’s second movie as a director, the horror film Us.