Black Panther became the first movie since Star Wars: The Force Awakens two years ago to top the American box office for four weeks straight. Grossing another $41.1 million, a 38% dip from last weekend, this Ryan Coogler directorial effort had third biggest third weekend in history, only Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens had better third weekends. The film has grossed $562 million in 24 days and now looks all but guaranteed to surpass the $623 million cume of The Avengers to become the biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe title ever and the biggest superhero movie in history. Can it become only the third movie to ever gross over $700 million at the domestic box office? We shall see how it holds over the Spring holidays over the next few weeks. At the very least, I’d say it still has about $100 million left in the tank.
In second place was fellow Disney tentpole A Wrinkle In Time, which served up a decent $33.3 million bow, slightly ahead of the opening weekends of fellow fantasy family movies Where The Wild Things Are ($32.6 million), Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief ($31.2 million) and Into The Woods ($31 million). That’s also on par with the $33 million bow of Tomorrowland three years ago. That one was a big money-loser for Disney three years ago, but it also cost almost twice as much as the $103 million budgeted A Wrinkle In Time, so this opening, while far from ideal for Disney, is still a decent debut, though a B CinemaScore rating indicates it might not have strong word-of-mouth in the weeks ahead.
Strangers: Prey At Night managed to beat expectations this weekend with a $10.4 million bow. That’s down from the opening of its predecessor from ten whole years ago, but considering the large amount of time between installments, this isn’t a bad debut at all and I can’t imagine this was a costly project to put together. Chalk this one overperforming to solid marketing and a lack of horror movies in the marketplace. This is the second sleeper hit to open to over $10 million for Aviron Pictures, a new studio label that’s off to a great start at the domestic box office.
Going down 51% after a middling opening weekend was Red Sparrow, which grossed another $8.1 million this weekend for a domestic cume that now stands at $31.1 million. Looks like this one won’t cross $50 million domestically. Meanwhile, Game Night continued to hold well as it dipped only 24% to gross another $7.9 million for a domestic haul of $45 million to date. Also holding on nicely was Peter Rabbit, which, in the face of new family movie A Wrinkle In Time, went down only 32% to gross another $6.8 million for a $93.4 million domestic cume. Death Wish dropped 49% this frame, giving it another $6.6 million and bringing its domestic gross to an underwhelming $23.8 million.
The new Jean-Luc Godard movie The Hurricane Heist kicked off its domestic run with only $3.1 million. On a $35 million budget (how did this thing cost that much to make??), that’s a disastrous bow and it’s highly unlikely this disaster movie gets past $10 million domestically. The Hurricane Heist is currently tied with Annihilation, which also grossed $3.1 million this weekend, a 43% drop from last weekend and bringing this Alex Garland up to a $26 million domestic haul, putting it past the $25.4 million domestic cume of Garland’s last movie, Ex Machina. Still playing in over 2,000 theaters in its twelfth weekend was Jumanji: Welcome to The Jungle, which grossed another $2.7 million (a 38% drop from last weekend) for a $397.2 million domestic cume. Expect this one to crack $400 million at the domestic box office any day now.
Our final new wide release can be found right outside the top ten in the form of Gringo, which grossed only $2.6 million. That’s the biggest opening weekend ever for an Amazon Studios movie (though it’s only the second movie for the studio, following The Neon Demon, to open in wide release) and also already the seventh biggest Amazon Studios movie ever, but it’s also the worst wide release opening weekend ever for STX Entertainment (STX distributed the project for Amazon Studios). This is the kind of dark comedy that rarely resonates with general moviegoers and a combination of mixed reviews & lackluster marketing ensured Gringo’s fate at the domestic box office.
Best Picture winner The Shape of Water went back into 1,552 theaters to gross another $2.4 million, giving it a domestic gross to date of $61 million. Moviegoers kept on going to The Other Side by seeing The Greatest Showman, which grossed another $1.7 million, a 34% drop from last weekend (that it’s biggest weekend-to-weekend drop yet) for a domestic total of $167.4 million. Debuting to decent numbers in just barely not wide release was Thoroughbreds, which grossed $1.2 million from 549 theaters for a per-theater average of $2,228, a better per-theater average than fellow newcomers The Hurricane Heist and Gringo despite opening in nearly 2,000 less theaters than both of those titles. Meanwhile, the newest winner for Best Foreign Language Film A Fantastic Woman expanded into 166 theaters and grossed $287,277 for a per-theater average of $1,731 and a domestic total to date of $1.1 million.
The Death of Stalin became the first big limited release hit of 2018 that wasn’t entitled Padmaavat as it grossed $181,308 from 4 theaters for a per-theater average of $45,327. That’s the seventh biggest opening weekend ever for IFC Films and indicates this one could parlay its opening weekend into a solid domestic run. The Leisure Seeker finally debuted domestically and grossed $119,573 from 28 theaters for a middling per-theater average of $4,270. In its second weekend of domestic release, Foxtrot grossed another $29,757 (a 6% dip from last weekend) from 6 theaters for a per-theater average of $4,960 and a domestic total of $112,569. Bowing this weekend in limited release was Claire’s Camera, which grossed $11,843 from a single location while Itzhak also bowed this weekend as it grossed $7,221 from 2 theaters for a per-theater average of $3,611.
The top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $128.4 million, the seventh biggest tenth weekend of any year and down 16% from last year when Kong: Skull Island beat out expectations and won the weekend. Eleven days into March 2018, the mont has grossed $347.8 million right now and it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of March 2018 performs without a colossal Beauty & The Beast level blockbuster on the horizon.