Battle at the Box Office 4/24

Fate of the Furious easily dominated the box office for another week as it closes in on $1 billion worldwide while none of the new releases even made it into the top 5.

Fate of the Furious took in another $38 million, putting it over $163 million domestically for it’s two weeks out and combined with the international gross, it’s over $908 million.  It’s currently the second highest grossing movie of the year behind Beauty and the Beast.

The Boss Baby and Beauty and the Beast stayed in their second and third slots respectively, with the latter crossing over $1.1 billion worldwide and over $470 million domestically.

Going in Style and Smurfs flip flopped spots in fourth and fifth place and both have made about $30 million so far in their three weeks out.

Doing the best of the new releases was Born in China, the latest Disneynature documentary, which made $4.8 million, which is better than the last few Earth Day releases but the fifth best opening overall, behind African Cats.

Unforgettable only brought in $4.7 million, way off from even the moderate predictions for it and way below similar recent movies like The Boy Next Door or When the Bough Breaks.

The Promise is probably the biggest disaster of the weekend, only making $4 million on a budget of $90 million.

Phoenix Forgotten, a found footage alien abduction movie, only made $1.8 million and finished in eleventh place, defeated by the expansion of the critically acclaimed Lost City of Z, which was in about half as many theaters.  Lost City of Z was one of the strongest performers of the weekend, making about $3,455 per theater.

Lastly, Free Fire was a misfire (*rimshot*) with only $994,431 in just over 1,000 theaters and on the list of worst openings of all time, it’s nowhere near the top but it’s sitting between Free Willy 3 and Pawn Sacrifice on the list of wide releases.