BOX OFFICE REPORT February 14-16, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)
TOP 51. The LEGO Movie ($48.8 million)2. About Last Night ($27.0 million)3. RoboCop ($21.5 million)4. Monuments Men ($15.0 million)5. Endless Love ($13.3 million)
The LEGO Movie’s strong hold on the box office couldn’t be knocked over, even by four new competitors. The film dipped less than 30 percent in its second week, bringing in an estimated $48.8 million, proving strong word-of-mouth and repeat business. It’s already the frontrunner for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2015.
Kevin Hart continues to be one of the most valuable actors in Hollywood. His presence in a wholly unnecessary remake of About Last Night brought in $27 million and will easily surpass the original ($38.7 million) before February is over. It’s also now that we have to have our regularly scheduled conversation that films aimed at African-American audiences almost always do well, yet Hollywood continues to make far too few of them and movies like these are “surprise hits” instead of expected successes.
That’s even better than the better-advertised, bigger-budgeted RoboCop remake, which only took in $21.5 million over the weekend and $26.4 million since opening late Tuesday. That’s not a great opening and the movie deserves to be seen instead of dismissed. You’d think Hollywood would look at these cold hard numbers and realize what movies they should be making more of, but we all know which one they’ll throw their weight behind.
The Monuments Men continued to put up respectable numbers ($15 million) for an older crowd while Endless Love did well enough for Valentine’s Day weekend ($13.3 million) but will be forgotten just as quickly as the 1981 original.
Outside the top 5: - This Weekend’s Indie Champ: The multi-generational Valentine Beijing Love Story, which averaged $14,222 on each of its nine screens.
- Winter’s Tale, which had reviews ranging from “really bad” to “so bad it’s good,” opened weakly with $7.7 million. The adaptation of the novel had languished in development hell for decades. Apparently this version won’t win over fans of the book or those coming in with no frame of reference.
- Frozen finally fell out of the top 5, in its 12th week of wide release. It also finally surpassed Despicable Me 2 to become the No. 1 animated film of 2013. And don’t be surprised if it sticks around a little longer, thanks to Sing-a-long Versions that opened this weekend.
Next week: It will look a lot like this week, as The LEGO Movie will easily vanquish the Kevin Costner-starring hitman thriller 3 Days to Kill and the historical romantic epic Pompeii. $5 million for the former would be generous while the latter could make $12 million. Flops either way.
