Warner Bros.’ “The Lego Batman Movie” and Universal’s “Fifty Shades Darker” had strong starts to their second week at the box office, finishing first and second respectively in the Friday totals.
“Lego Batman” made $7.5 million on Friday from 4,088 locations, while “Darker” made $6.7 million from 3,714 locations.
That left the weekend’s newcomers — including Matt Damon‘s pricey epic “The Great Wall” and director Gore Verbinski’s ‘The Cure for Wellness” — sputtering in their wide-release debuts.
“Lego Batman” is expected to have a mammoth President’s Day weekend thanks to kids who will have Monday off from school. Independent analysts tell TheWrap that they expect the stop-motion film to make $40 million over the four-day weekend following last week’s opening weekend total of $53 million.
“The Great Wall” finished third on Friday with $5.9 million from 3,325 locations and is expected to make $19 million on the weekend. The film has already made $225 million internationally, with $171 million of that coming from China. But with a Chinese record budget of $150 million and Matt Damon on the marquee, third place in North America isn’t going to cut it for the first English language film shot entirely in China.
“John Wick: Chapter 2” came in fourth on Friday with an estimated $4.2 million at 3,113 locations. Lionsgate is expecting a second weekend total of $17 million, which would bump the film’s total domestic haul above $60 million against a budget of $40 million. For comparison, the first “John Wick” made $88 million worldwide, meaning that the sequel is on track to to outperform its predecessor. Lionsgate will definitely be looking forward to making this series into a trilogy.
The Ice Cube/Charlie Day comedy “Fist Fight” came in fifth with $3.8 million from 3,185 locations. New Line Cinema is anticipating a return of roughly $15 million for the three-day weekend. For the four-day weekend, analysts are anticipating the film to gross in the $18 million-to-$21 million range.
At the bottom is “A Cure For Wellness,” which made a mere $1.5 million from 2,704 locations. The $40 million film has seen its opening weekend projects drop to as little as $5 million, which could leave it out of the top ten after a rocky run-up to release that included a 38 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and backlash for creating fake news sites as part of a viral marketing strategy.