Well well well, looks like we have our second box office hit of the month, as Kong: Skull Island managed to surpass expectations and opened to a strong $61 million. That’s an opening weekend 12% above the opening weekend of the 2005 King Kong movie, the eleventh biggest opening weekend ever in March, the eighth biggest opening weekend ever for an Adventure film in a period setting, the fourth biggest opening weekend ever for what Box Office Mojo defines as a Creature Feature (films starring monsters or creatures), the fourth biggest opening weekend ever for a movie set in the 1970’s and the tenth biggest opening weekend ever for a Legendary Pictures film. It’s also already the third biggest movie Brie Larson’s ever appeared in, the biggest live-action opening weekend ever for John Goodman and for Tom Hiddleston, Kong: Skull Island is only behind War Horse in terms of being his biggest movie ever where he’s not playing a certain God Of Mischief.
Before this weekend, many were predicting Kong: Skull Island to outright flop due to middling tracking and heavy duty competition from Logan. How did this big ape manage to outpace expectations? Well, Warner Bros. did put together a great marketing campaign for the feature that emphasized new monsters, big name actors (like Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman and John C. Reily), and the 1970’s setting to help differentiate it from past Kong movies. Strong reviews helped boost its presence as did last minute marketing boosts from Warner Bros. like a well-received final trailer and viral marketing stunts. With a $185 million budget, Kong isn’t out of the clear yet, it’s gonna need significant overseas box office to make a profit. For now though, this is actually a nice debut for Kong, especially given how the movie was far from front-loaded, suggesting strong word-of-mouth for the monster movie.
Logan fell to second place in the presence of a king, but it still managed to take in $37.8 million, a 57% drop from last weekend, which is the third best second-weekend drop of the franchise behind X-Men (56.9%) and X2 (53.2%). Logan has now taken a massive $152.6 million in ten days, already putting it past the entire domestic cume of The Wolverine and X-Men: First Class and it’ll overtake the domestic totals of X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men sometime during the week. Call me crazy, but it does look like Logan and Kong seem to be coexisting just fine at the domestic box office, providing some hope for future March 2017 prospective blockbusters like Power Rangers and Ghost In The Shell hoping to break into this marketplace.
Having yet another great weekend was Get Out, which went down a teeny tiny 25% from last weekend to add $21 million to its domestic cume that now stands at a massive $111 million. Don’t forget, Get Out cost only $4.5 million to make, so they may just make their money back on this one. yet! Since it looks like Get Out is actually going to cross $150 million domestically (how crazy awesome is that???), it actually does look like this one is about to become one of the biggest horror movies of all-time domestically and one of the year’s biggest box office success stories.
The newest film starring Jai Courtney, The Shack, took in $10 million this weekend, a 38% drop from last weekend that brings this Christian movies domestic cume to $32.2 million, making it already the fifteenth biggest Christian movie of all-time. Rounding out the top five was The LEGO Batman Movie, which added another $7.8 million (a 33% dip from last weekend) to its domestic cume that now stands at $159 million. In its second frame, Before I Fall actually had a strong second-weekend hold, going down only 33% to add $3.1 million to a domestic gross that now stands at $9 million. Since this one cost only $5 million to make, let’s chalk this one up as a minor win. Continuing to astound in how it keeps sticking around at the domestic box office was Hidden Figures, which in its tenth weekend of wide release took in another $2.7 million (a 27% dip from last weekend), meaning it’s now grossed $162.8 million domestically. That’s an absolutely incredible box office run that’s still got some cash yet to make!
John Wick: Chapter Two kept on avenging things in eighth place, grabbing another $2.7 million (a 44% drop from last weekend), bringing its domestic gross up to $87.4 million. Adding a sing-along version of La La Land to many movie theaters didn’t boost that Oscar winners box office much, as La La Land fell another 40% from last weekend. No matter, it still took in another $1.7 million, meaning it’s now grossed an outstanding $148.4 million domestically. Rounding out the top ten was Fifty Shades Darker, which fell 54% to add another $1.6 million to a domestic gross that now stands at $112.9 million.
Right outside the top ten in eleventh place was Lion, which eased 36% and added $1.3 million to its domestic cume that is now at $48.6 million. Worth mentioning is that Moonlight grossed another $1 million, bringing its domestic gross up to $26.9 million, meaning it’s now the highest-grossing release ever for mini-studio A24. Impressive stuff for the most recent Best Picture Oscar winner. In its second weekend of wide release, Table 19 dropped 47%, grossing another $850,000. It has now grossed $2.9 million in ten days.
In terms of new limited releases, Indian rom-com Badrinath Ki Dulhania grossed a solid $850,000 at 152 locations for a per-theater average of $5,592. The Kristen Stewart vehicle Personal Shopper debut to a solid $92,516 at 4 locations for a per-theater average of $23,129, which is the fourth biggest per-theater average for any movie in 2017 so far. The Sense Of An Ending took in $42,000 at 4 locations for a per-theater average of $10,500, while the cannibal motion picture Raw grossed $25,230 at 2 theaters for a per-theater average of $12,615, the biggest per-theater average ever for indie-studio Focus World.
The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $152.4 million, the second biggest tenth weekend ever in any given year.