Kung Fu Panda belts competition

Party loving panda Li (voice of Bryan Cranston) comes to Mr.Ping’s noodle shop looking for his long-lost son in Kung Fu Panda 3. It came in fi rst at last weekend’s box office and made about $41 million.
Party loving panda Li (voice of Bryan Cranston) comes to Mr.Ping’s noodle shop looking for his long-lost son in Kung Fu Panda 3. It came in fi rst at last weekend’s box office and made about $41 million.

LOS ANGELES -- Kung Fu Panda 3 kicked its way to the top of the North American box office with about $41 million, according to Rentrak estimates Sunday.

The DreamWorks Animation film cost a reported $145 million to make and earned a strong A CinemaScore from audiences -- 70 percent of whom were families.

"It's a bold move to take a franchise which has had great success in that summer corridor and move it into late January, which is generally considered a very slow time," Rentrak's senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said. "It also filled a huge void in the marketplace."

The first film opened to $60.2 million in 2008 and the second to $47.7 million in 2011.

For distributor 20th Century Fox, switching up the release was a no-brainer after seeing the successes of The Lego Movie and last year's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water in this time frame.

"DreamWorks needs the film to be a global smash. The studio has been trying to regroup after a series of flops and sizable layoffs. Noting the absence of competition on the animated film front over the next month," Chris Aronson, Fox's president of domestic distribution, said he expected Kung Fu Panda 3 to have a very long and robust domestic theatrical run.

"We know that when the market conditions are right, this business really is a 365-day-a-year business," Aronson said. "We saw an opportunity and we grabbed it. We're thrilled with the results."

There are a number of winter holidays coming up where kids will be out of school and Zootopia, 2016's next big animated release, doesn't open until March 4.

The animated sequel also fared much better than the weekend's other new openers, like Disney's Coast Guard adventure The Finest Hours. Based on a real-life 1952 rescue mission, Hours stars Chris Pine, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster and cost around $80 million to make. It managed only $10.3 million in ticket sales, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data.

The movie, a rare release from Disney that does not rely on synergy with other parts of the company's entertainment empire, was most popular with older ticket buyers. Disney said Sunday that 31 percent of the initial audience was 50 or older.

Dergarabedian thinks the nautical theme might have seemed too similar to the recently released In the Heart of the Sea for audiences.

The opening is similar to last year's high school sports movie McFarland, USA, another fact-based drama from Disney, which opened with $11 million in late February and went on to earn $44.4 million.

The Fifty Shades of Grey parody Fifty Shades of Black, meanwhile, earned a modest $5.9 million, but it cost only a reported $5 million to produce. Marlon Wayans co-wrote, stars in and produced the R-rated takeoff.

Spoof movies and parodies have a very mixed box-office record, Dergarabedian said.

Fifty Shades of Grey was released in February 2015 and its sequel isn't expected until next year.

The Weinstein Co.'s Natalie Portman-led Western Jane Got a Gun misfired out of the gates, bringing in only about $836,000 on a $25 million budget.

Overall, there wasn't much space for newcomers with strong holdovers like The Revenant and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, which took second and third place with $12.8 million and $11 million, respectively.

Notably, Fox's The Revenant, once considered a possible box office disaster with its gritty subject matter and reported $135 million budget, has earned $138.2 million to date in six weeks in theaters, thanks in part to its awards hot streak with multiple wins for star Leonardo DiCaprio and a host of high-profile Oscar nominations.

"It's a marvelous thing for us, for the industry, for filmmaking in general. To have a hold like this is really heartening," Aronson said. "This is a pretty good weekend. There's a very balanced marketplace here. There's something for everyone out there now, and I've always said that's when this business is at its best."

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Rentrak:

  1. Kung Fu Panda 3, 20th Century Fox, $41,282,042, 3,955 locations, $10,438 average, $41,282,042, one week.

  2. The Revenant, 20th Century Fox, $12,779,530, 3,330 locations, $3,838 average, $138,550,898, six weeks.

  3. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Disney, $11,116,684, 2,556 locations, $4,349 average, $895,760,846, seven weeks.

  4. The Finest Hours, Disney, $10,288,932, 3,143 locations, $3,274 average, $10,288,932, one week.

  5. Ride Along 2, Universal, $8,426,610, 2,412 locations, $3,494 average, $70,856,300, three weeks.

  6. Dirty Grandpa, Lionsgate, $7,591,049, 2,912 locations, $2,607 average, $22,837,059, two weeks.

  7. The Boy, STX Entertainment, $7,551,388, 2,671 locations, $2,827 average, $21,185,304, two weeks.

  8. The 5th Wave, Columbia, $7,142,826, 2,908 locations, $2,456 average, $20,330,975, two weeks.

  9. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Paramount, $6,274,244, 2,803 locations, $2,238 average, $42,848,089, three weeks.

  10. Fifty Shades of Black, Open Road, $5,900,528, 2,075 locations, $2,844 average, $5,900,528, one week.

  11. The Big Short, Paramount, $3,063,220, 983 locations, $3,116 average, $60,963,697, eight weeks.

  12. Daddy's Home, Paramount, $3,056,042, 1,718 locations, $1,779 average, $143,036,385, six weeks.

  13. Met Opera: Turandot (2016), Fathom Events, $2,500,000, 900 locations, $2,778 average, $2,500,000, one week.

  14. Brooklyn, Fox Searchlight, $1,761,149, 748 locations, $2,354 average, $30,432,320, 13 weeks.

  15. Room, A24 Films, $1,236,878, 795 locations, $1,556 average, $9,901,663, 16 weeks.

  16. Spotlight, Open Road, $1,200,039, 715 locations, $1,678 average, $34,765,827, 13 weeks.

  17. Norm of the North, Lionsgate, $972,321, 1,506 locations, $646 average, $15,964,838, three weeks.

  18. Jane Got a Gun, The Weinstein Co., $835,572, 1,210 locations, $691 average, $835,572, one week.

  19. The Hateful Eight, The Weinstein Co., $719,694, 505 locations, $1,425 average, $52,368,676, six weeks.

  20. Sisters, Universal, $646,485, 529 locations, $1,222 average, $86,119,480, seven weeks.

MovieStyle on 02/05/2016

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