Insurgent Dominates Globally, Falls Just Short of Divergent Domestically

Exactly one year after Veronica Roth’s bestselling young-adult novel Divergent was brought to the screen starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel Elgort and Miles Teller, Lionsgate’s Summit Entertainment released the sequel The Divergent Series: Insurgent, co-starring Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Jai Courtney, Zoe Kravitz and more. 

It grossed an estimated $21.3 million on Friday including $4.1 million from Thursday previews, both numbers lower than Divergent‘s opening last year, and according to weekend estimates, it ended up with $54 million in its first three days, just slightly below the $54.6 million grossed opening weekend by Divergent. 

Internationally, the movie brought in $47 million from 76 territories with France being the top-grossing market with $5.8 million, followed by the UK with $4.5 million and Brazil with $4.2 million. Although the North American debut was down slightly, many of the other countries saw an increase from the opening of Divergent with Brazil showing the most growth, followed by France and the UK.

$5.3 million of Insurgent‘s $101 million global opening (or 5%) came from IMAX screenings with $3.6 million of that amount coming from 356 IMAX screens, accounting for 8 of the top 10 showings in North America.

Walt Disney Pictures’ Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James, Richard Madden, Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter, dropped to second place with $34.5 million, down 49% from its opening weekend, likely affected by the introduction of another strong movie targeting women. It has grossed $122 million so far. Internationally, it added another $41.1 million, opening in Korea and more Latin American markets, as well as continuing to surpass previous Disney live-action fairy tales in Italy. Its $131 million overseas take brings its global box office to $253.1 million so far.

The next three spots in the Top 10 were taken up by action movies starring three actors all over 50 as last week’s Liam Neeson action film Run All Night, co-starring Joel Kinnaman, Ed Harris, Common, Genesis Rodriguez, took on Sean Penn’s own attempt to become an AARP action star by teaming with Taken director Pierre Morel for The Gunman (Open Road). The latter co-starred fellow Oscar winner Javier Bardem and Ray Winstone, but according to estimates, Neeson’s movie remained slightly ahead to take third place with $5.1 million to The Gunman‘s weak $5 million opening in fourth place.  Run All Night has grossed $19.7 million after ten days, which is less than the opening of both of Neeson’s previous two movies with director Jaume Collet-Sera.

Matthew Vaughn’s action-comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service (20th Century Fox) continues to be the biggest surprise hit of the winter movie season, as it dropped to fifth place with $4.6 million and $114.6 million grossed domestically since opening over a month ago. 

The star-studded Christian drama Do You Believe? (Pure Flix Entertainment), from the producers of last year’s hit God’s Not Dead, opened in 1,320 theaters on Friday. Starring Sean Astin, Mira Sorvino, Madison Pettis, Lee Majors, Cybill Shepherd and Alexa PenaVega, it grossed an estimated $4 million or $3,030 per theater, less than half the opening of God’s Not Dead in the same weekend last year to take sixth place.

The ensemble comedy The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Fox Searchlight) dropped one place to seventh with $3.5 million, down 40% from last year with a total gross of $24.1 million so far. 

It was followed by the Will Smith-Margot Robbie romantic crime-comedy Focus (Warner Bros.) with $3.3 million and a $49.4 million total.

The Top 10 was rounded out by Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi action flick Chappie (Sony) with $2.6 million and $28.3 million total gross, and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (Paramount/Nickelodeon) with $2.3 million and $158.8 million. 

The Top 10 movies grossed an estimated $119 million, which was down $10 million from the same weekend last  year when Divergent won the weekend with $54.6 million and Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted took second place with $17 million.

Bleecker Street’s first release Danny Collins, starring Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale and Christopher Plummer, opened in five theaters in New York and L.A. where it grossed $73,200, or $14,640 per theater.

David Robert MItchell’s horror film It Follows (RADiUS-TWC) added 28 more theaters on Friday and grossed $352,000 (or $11,000 per theater) with $576,000 grossed before its planned nationwide expansion on Friday, March 27.