Will Smith and Margot Robbie are about to become very familiar with each other on film sets. They have the David Ayers’ led Suicide Squad coming next year – wherein Smith will play the DC anti-hero Deadshot, and Robbie will play the psychotic Harley Quinn – and they also starred in this weekend’s box office winner, Focus. The constantly twisting and turning story lead by the two charismatic leads took in $19.1, firmly putting a stop to FIfty Shades of Grey and its two week streak of box office toppers.
For the second week in a row, Kingsman: The Secret Service was left in second place at the weekend box office, this time around bringing in $11.8 million as it narrowly beat out The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water‘s $11.2 million. That relatively small total was enough to push Kingsman over its $81 million production budget, as the film’s domestic gross now sits at $85.7 million.
Falling fast from its previous number one spot is Fifty Shades of Grey, which continues to bring in substantially less money week-over-week as we get further away from Valentine’s Day. Fifty Shades has been the endless butt of jokes since it debuted in February, and last night even SNL got in on the action. Despite a weak $10.9 million weekend, the film’s total domestic gross of $147.8 million means that no one is walking away empty-handed.
Rounding out the top of five of this weak box office weekend was The Lazarus Effect. The cheaply-made horror film took in $10.6 million for the weekend, already blowing past its $3.3 million production budget. It features a star-studded cast consisting of Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass, and Donald Glover, but none of them are stars you’d normally expect in a horror movie. This, along with what critics are calling paper thin characters and “recycled plot points” are primary reasons the film has received generally unfavorable reviews. It currently sports a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Following Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar win for Best Actor, The Theory of Everything saw a boost in theater presence over the weekend. It brought in $649,000 in 611 theaters, 66 more locations than it was showing in a week earlier.
In similar fashion, the biggest winner at the Academy Awards, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, was shown in 806 additional theaters and brought in $2 million over the weekend. This was the Oscar-winning film’s best weekend since it brought in $2.5 million back in mid-November, and to date it has made in $40.3 million.
Other Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated films such as Big Hero 6 and Whiplash also received small boosts to theater locations.
Historically, this last weekend of February leading into March is a relatively weak one, with gross profits struggling to get above $100 million most years. The big exception was 2012 when The Lorax and its $70 million gross revenue lead the way to a $152.4 million weekend at the box office.
To date, this weekend’s $95 million is the second slowest such weekend of the still young 2015. The only slower weekend was the last one in January when American Sniper ruled the day with $30.7 million and nothing else made above $9 million. The box office only took in $84.6 million at that time.
[button type=”link” link=”http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=09&p=.htm” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: Box Office Mojo[/button]
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
