Box Office Bounces Back After Slow Weekend Thanks To Cinderella's $70.1 Million

The first weekend of March wasn’t kind to the box office, with its $78.3 million income being the lowest since last December, but it bounced back this week thanks to a giant debut. Disney’s live-action Cinderella brought in $70.1 million for the weekend, $24 million of which came during its opening night on Friday. Also airing before the latest Disney film was a brand new short based on the mega-hit Frozen, titled Frozen Fever.
Top 5 Domestic Grossing Films:  March 13-15 ($132.6 million total)

1. Cinderella ($70.1 million)
2. Run All Night ($11 million)
3. Kingsman: The Secret Service ($6 million)
4. Focus ($5.8 million)
5. Chappie ($5.8 million)

Another new debut, Run All Night, didn’t perform as well as expected. Among mixed reviews, Liam Neeson’s latest action vehicle brought in only $11 million, but still managed to beat out everything not named Cinderella. That total is still the lowest nationwide debut for Neeson since 2010’s The Next Three Days, which took in only $6.5 million in its opening weekend.
Following that was Kingsman: The Secret Service, which comes in as the third highest grossing film, after being fourth last week. The films total gross has now passed the $107 million mark, making it more than profitable given its $81 million budget. While nothing is set in stone for a sequel, this profitibility could help one be greenlit, and screenwriter Matthew Vaughn already has an idea that involves setting the film in America to “celebrate Americana.”

Rounding out the top five were last week’s number two and number one films. Focus brought in $5.8 million, for a 42% drop week-over-week, and last week’s big debut Chappie brought in a meager $5.8 million as well, for a 56% drop from last weekend. Reviews for the Neill Blomkamp film have been less than positive, with many critics citing the same issues that have plagued Blomkamp films post-District 9. It currently sits with a 31% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Even with its dwindling theater presence, American Sniper continues to make money, bringing in another $3 million and putting its total domestic gross at $341.5 million. Globally the film has made $504.5 million.
The big per-theater winner this week is a horror film that first debuted in 2014 in the UK where it has made over $1 million to date. It Follows took in an impressive $163,000 in only four US theater locations for a $40,750 per-theater average.
Again, almost entirely on the back of Cinderella, this weekend’s $132.6 million take is the highest for a second weekend of March since 2010 when Alice in Wonderland stole the show.
Last year at this time was a strong weekend at the box office with four different films taking in more than $10 million. Mr. Peabody & Sherman brought in $21.8 million, 300: Rise of an Empire took in $19.2 million, Need for Speed took in $17.8 million, and Non-Stop brought in $10.6 million for Universal Pictures. It was also the weekend that the crowd-funded Veronica Mars debuted in theaters, taking in $2 million in 291 theater locations.
[button type=”link” link=”http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=11&p=.htm” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: Box Office Mojo[/button]

Last Updated on November 27, 2018.