Disney has found a winning formula turning their animated classics into live-action features as Cinderella continues the trend started with Alice in Wonderland back in 2010 and Maleficent last year. Budgeted at $95 million, Cinderella scored $67.8 million this weekend to go along with an “A-” CinemaScore as it topped the weekend box office.
The $67.8 million edges close to the $69.4 million brought in by Maleficent last year and that film had a whopping $180 million budget, not to mention a 3D upcharge on ticket sales. Overseas, Cinderella was also a hit, generating an additional $62.4 million in box office. One more thing, that opening is director Kenneth Branaugh‘s biggest yet. Yes, even bigger than Thor ($65.7m). The question now is how big will Cinderella go? Maleficent ended its worldwide run at $758.4 million. You predicting higher than that? It does have The Divergent Series: Insurgent hitting theaters next weekend, could that hurt it?
Not fairing so well at the box office was Liam Neeson‘s latest actioner, Run All Night. While the CinemaScore reads “A-” it appears there weren’t that many answering the poll takers as the film made only $11 million, which is even worse than the $12.7 million brought in by A Walk Among the Tombstones last September. Before that you would have to go all the way to 2011’s Unknown to find a lesser result for one of Neeson’s action films, and that one brought in $21.8 million. What happened?
After opening with a soft #1 last weekend, Chappie dropped 57% this weekend, bringing in $5.7 million as its cume climbs to $23.4 million. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel added 449 theaters, pushing it all the way to 2,022 and added $5.68 million to its total, dropping 33% from last weekend as it has now grossed $18 million in two weeks, already $4 million more than its predecessor.
Finally, while I was originally under the impression Radius was going to go day-and-date theatrical and On Demand with David Robert Mitchell‘s It Follows, they went theatrical only, which proved successful. The film generated $163,453 in only four theaters, for a $40,863 per theater average. Hopefully that means word of mouth will continue to get around as it expands next weekend.
