Say whatever you want about the myriad of controversies surrounding the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe but Captain Marvel is sitting on top of the box office for another weekend. The film brought in over $153 million from the domestic market this weekend and is currently sitting at a worldwide total of over $760 million. Captain Marvel did suffer a revenue drop of 54.8% from its opening weekend but still made more than the rest of this week’s Top 10 movies combined. If you still have not seen Captain Marvel and are on the fence about it then be sure to check out Samuel’s review of the film. Will this movie hit the billion dollar mark during its theatrical run? It could probably reach that number in its fourth or fifth week at the box office.
Paramount and Nickelodeon teamed up to bring you Wonder Park – an animated film about a theme park managed by animal characters. There are some familiar voices behind this movie such as Mathew Broderick, Jennifer Garner and Mila Kunis. Despite being saddled with its own controversies the movie came in second place this week with $16 million in domestic box office revenue and another $4 million worldwide. Despite ranking relatively high on the box office charts, that is a painfully low number for a film that played in nearly 4,000 movie theaters. With an estimated production budget of $100 million, I think it is safe to say that we have a box office flop here. Nickelodeon will release a television series based on this franchise and I cannot help but wonder if the movie’s performance will hurt the upcoming show.
The romantic drama Five Feet Apart came in third this week with over $13 million at the box office. In this movie Haley Blu Richardson and Cole Sprouse play terminally ill teens who fall in love after meeting at a hospital. This film was produced with a very modest budget of about $5 million so it is already very close to being profitable for the producers.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World earned domestic revenue of over $55 million during its fourth weekend in movie theaters. The film is sitting at worldwide total of over $466 million which pushes it into the black for Dreamworks Animation and that doesn’t even count the merchandise royalties. I actually reviewed this movie for you and while I was told I was a little harsh on it, I stand by my opinions.
Coming in fifth place this week is Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral. That film brought in about $27 million during its third weekend at the box office and has a worldwide total of nearly $60 million. I have not seen any of these films but with a budget of $20 million this entry has proven itself to be profitable for Tyler Perry.
There are two more films this week I want to look at. The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part was in eighth place this week and has a worldwide total of over $171 million after six weeks at the box office. This movie needed to bring in $300 million to be profitable and it does not look like that is going to happen. A far cry from the first LEGO movie which enjoyed a box office run of almost $470 million. And then we have Alita: Battle Angel which currently has a worldwide total of just under $400 million after five weeks in theaters. This movie will not have a profitable theatrical run but I think it will do pretty well once it reaches the home distribution market (streaming, Blu-rays and digital purchases.) What I find interesting about this movie is how it bucks consumer trends. Most mainstream movies in theaters pull most of their revenue from North American theaters but Alita: Battle Angel made less than 21% of its money from domestic markets. Most of the ticket sales came from movie fans worldwide. We typically do not see big budget films earn such low revenue from American movie goers.
The top five movies this week in list form:
I think that Captain Marvel will stay on top of the box office next weekend as well. There are only two new movies coming to theaters next week. The first one is Us – a horror film written, directed and produced by Jordan Peele. While his previous film, Get Out, did remarkably well in theaters given its tiny budget, I feel that Us with its message of our own inner evils will not be as popular with the average movie goer. I do expect Us to be well received by the horror community though. The other film coming out next week is Hotel Mumbai; this movie has already been released in several markets around the world and is finally coming to the North American market. The film is based on the true story of the 2008 terrorist attacks on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai.
Expect Captain Marvel to remain on top of the box office until Disney releases Dumbo on March 29th.
