Battle at the Box Office 2/18

Everyone’s love of John McClane overtook the traditional Valentine’s Day fare like Safe Haven to take the number one spot at the box office this weekend.  The latest Die Hard made $25 million, and just over $33 million since it came out on Thursday last week.  It’s about $5 million or so off from Live Free or Die Hard’s opening.  Identity Thief dropped down to second with another $23.4 million and just under $71 million total, so it should easily break $100 million in the next week or two.  Safe Haven took third place with $21.4 million and around $30 million for it’s four days out, just under the last Nicolas Sparks adaptation, Dear John, with $33 million.  The first animated kid’s movie of the year, Escape from Planet Earth, took fourth place with $16 million, which is better than similar movies like Sony’s Planet 51 but still nowhere near a Pixar or Dreamworks release.  Warm Bodies rounded out the top 5 with $9 million.  Speaking of Warm Bodies, it handily defeated potential usurper, Beautiful Creatures, which came in at a pretty bad sixth place with $$7.5 million.  It’s nowhere near Warm Bodies $20 million opening weekend and it’s even worse than bombs like Beastly, which made just over $9 million it’s opening weekend.   Everything else on the chart moved down about 3-4 spots to accomodate the new releases.