Boss Baby relies on the comic incongruity of a cute baby talking like an adult, a cheap trick, but one which never seems to lose its fascination for audiences given the popularity of wretched films like Look Who’s Talking, and the long term success of Family Guy on TV. Boss Baby, which is based on a popular children’s picture book by Marla Frazee, opened well above expectations, and managed to post the fourth biggest non-sequel debut for Dreamworks Animation behind only Kung Fu Panda ($60 million), Monsters vs. Aliens ($59 million) and Home ($52 million).
Families made up 67% of opening weekend audiences for Boss Baby, and the question is, will it continue to dominate in the face of competition for the family audience from Smurfs: The Lost Village, which opens next weekend followed by another animated feature, Open Road’s Spark, which bows on April 13? Working in Boss Baby’s favor is an “A-“ CinemaScore from an audience that skewed female (53%) and younger (62% under 25). Caucasians made up 52% of the crowd with Hispanics accounting for 19%, African-Americans 14%, and Asians 9%.
Meanwhile Beauty and the Beast dropped just 47.4% as it earned $47.5 million to bring its domestic cumulative to $395.5 million. A $500 million+ domestic run does not seem out the realm of possibility, and Beauty and the Beast will almost certainly become 2017’s first billion dollar movie worldwide, since its global haul is already over $875 million. Beauty and the Beast is a mammoth hit, and may end up as the #1 box office film of 2017, though it is way too early to do anything more than speculate about how this year’s box office race will end up.
Third place went to the Scarlett Johansson-starring Ghost in the Shell, a $110 million production, which underperformed expectations with just a $19 million opening. Contrast that figure for the “PG-13” rated Ghost in the Shell with the $44 million debut of the Scarjo-starring, R-rated Lucy in 2014. With the success of R-rated action films like Lucy, Deadpool, Logan, and John Wick, one wonders if the harder rating (and bloodier action) is just what audiences want, but it is also true that when Lucy opened in July of 2014 there was less box office competition than we have seen so far in March.
Obviously the "whitewashing controversy" surrounding Scarjo’s casting (see "Mid-June Geek Film Casting Round-Up") did not help, and the fact that the Ghost in the Shell IP is little known outside of American anime and manga fans, who are perhaps most likely to take offense at the racially-insensitive casting, may have amplified the effect.
Opening weekend audiences for Ghost in the Shell skewed heavily male (61%) and very much older (76% over 25). Especially telling when comparing the demographics with Lucy, was that 50% of the audience for that Scarjo action film was female versus just 39% for Ghost in the Shell.
The mediocre “B” CinemaScore that audiences gave the live-action Ghost in the Shell doesn’t portend well for the film’s future—breaking $50 million here in North America could be a stretch. Overseas its prospects may be better—it has already earned $40 million from 50 International markets, but its only chance to avoid “bomb” status would appear to ride on how it fares in China and Japan where it opens later this month.
|
Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): March 31 - April 2, 2017 |
||||||
|
Film |
Weekend Gross |
Screens |
Avg./Screen |
Total Gross |
Wk# |
|
|
1 |
The Boss Baby |
$49,000,000 |
3,773 |
$12,987 |
$49,000,000 |
1 |
|
2 |
Beauty and the Beast |
$47,543,000 |
4,210 |
$11,293 |
$395,459,842 |
3 |
|
3 |
Ghost in the Shell |
$19,000,000 |
3,440 |
$5,523 |
$19,000,000 |
1 |
|
4 |
Power Rangers |
$14,500,000 |
3,693 |
$3,926 |
$65,062,170 |
2 |
|
5 |
Kong: Skull Island |
$8,800,000 |
3,141 |
$2,802 |
$147,848,204 |
4 |
|
6 |
Logan |
$6,200,000 |
2,323 |
$2,669 |
$211,867,637 |
5 |
|
7 |
Get Out |
$5,813,715 |
1,844 |
$3,153 |
$156,887,675 |
6 |
|
8 |
Life |
$5,625,000 |
3,146 |
$1,788 |
$22,369,239 |
2 |
|
9 |
CHiPs |
$4,055,000 |
2,464 |
$1,646 |
$14,367,366 |
2 |
|
10 |
The Zookeeper's Wife |
$3,349,475 |
541 |
$6,191 |
$3,349,475 |
1 |
Another film in trouble is Lionsgate’s “franchise-establishing” Power Rangers film, which got off to a solid, if unspectacular start last weekend with a $40 million bow, but which dropped a whopping 64% as it earned just $14.5 million in its second frame.
Kong: Skull Island, Logan, and Get Out all continue to demonstrate solid “legs.” Skull Island dropped 40% as it earned $8.8 million to bring its domestic total $148.8 million, and it has been doing even better overseas where it has made $329.5 million. With a global total nearing $500 million, Skull Island, which cost a whopping $185 million to produce, is finally approaching profitability.
Fox’s R-rated Wolverine finale Logan also dropped 40% as it earned $6.2 million to bring its domestic total to $211.9 million. With a worldwide total of $585.4 million, Logan, which cost just $97 million to produce, is already a big moneymaker for Fox.
But in terms of pure rate of return on investment, all of 2017’s releases so far pale in comparison to Jordan Peele’s socially conscious horror film Get Out, which cost just $4.5 million to make and dropped just 34.3% in its sixth week in theaters as it earned $5.8 million to bring its domestic haul to $156.8 million.
Sony’s Alien-like science fiction horror film Life continued its downward spiral, dropping 55% as it earned $5.6 million to bring its domestic total to $23.4 million. It will need a strong showing overseas to offset its $58 million production cost, and so far it hasn’t happened.
Another film in big trouble is Dax Shepard’s CHiPs, which dropped 47.4% from its miserable opening and fell to #9 in its second weekend of release.
Claiming the #10 spot was the World War II period drama, The Zookeeper’s Wife, which stars Jessica Chastain in the title role as a Polish woman, who managed to hide hundreds of Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Opening in just 541 theaters, The Zookeeper’s Wife managed a solid $6,191 per venue average as it earned $3.3 million, and could be on a similar course as another period drama, The Woman in Gold, which managed to corral $33 million here in North America in 2015.
Be sure to check back here next week to see what happens when the geezer heist comedy Going in Style opens along with the animated Smurfs: The Lost Village, which should provide direct competition for Boss Baby.
