Black Panther eats Red Sparrow

Forest Whitaker is among the stars of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther. It came in first again at last weekend’s box office and made $66.3 million.
Forest Whitaker is among the stars of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther. It came in first again at last weekend’s box office and made $66.3 million.

Black Panther is keeping its grip on the top spot at the box office for the third-straight week, beating new movies featuring Jennifer Lawrence and Bruce Willis.

The Marvel superhero film from Walt Disney Co., which has been breaking sales records, collected about $66 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, ComScore Inc. said. It was the third-best third weekend for any movie ever. Lawrence's Red Sparrow and the remake Death Wish featuring Willis placed second and third.

Globally, Black Panther generated sales of $121.9 million this weekend for a total $897.7 million to date, ComScore said.

21st Century Fox's Red Sparrow earned about $17 million. Lawrence stars as a honey trap and spy targeting a CIA agent.

But the R-rated Red Sparrow, which cost Fox at least $100 million to make and market, divided critics and received a lukewarm B grade from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls. Red Sparrow had the hardest time attracting young adults; 79 percent of its audience was over the age of 25, according to Fox.

Lawrence, one of Hollywood's most popular and highest-paid actresses, was last seen in Darren Aronofsky's Mother! Released in the fall by Paramount, Mother! failed in wide release. Before that, Lawrence co-starred with Chris Pratt in Columbia's expensive Passengers, which arrived to a wobbly $14.9 million in 2016. Columbia ultimately pushed Passengers to about $100 million in domestic ticket sales.

The weekend's other new wide-release movie, Death Wish (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), sold about $13 million in tickets, according to ComScore. A remake of the 1974 movie of the same name, Death Wish, starring Bruce Willis, cost at least $30 million to produce and received withering reviews. The film, which celebrates a vigilante shooter, arrived in the wake of the school massacre in Parkland, Fla.

In other box office news, Hollywood's awards season came to a close on Sunday with mixed results. Of the nine movies nominated for best picture at the 90th Academy Awards, seven were released during the last four months, Hollywood's traditional awards corridor. Steven Spielberg's newspaper drama The Post (20th Century Fox) did the best, collecting about $80 million in 11 weeks.

Then came the evening's winner, The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight), with $57.4 million in total domestic ticket sales; Darkest Hour (Focus Features) with $55.5 million total; and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri with $52 million total. Lady Bird (A24) followed with $48.3 million total.

The least-seen were Phantom Thread (Focus), which collected about $20 million, and Call Me By Your Name (Sony Pictures Classics), which put together roughly $17 million.

By art house standards, all were quite successful. But none of these prestige-minded movies was widely embraced by mainstream ticket buyers -- as when the 2011 best picture nominee Black Swan collected about $120 million, after adjusting for inflation; or Spielberg's Lincoln reached nearly $200 million in 2013.

The other two films nominated for best picture at Sunday's Academy Awards arrived outside of the awards corridor and were both domestic blockbusters. Get Out, which was released a year ago, generated $176 million in ticket sales. Dunkirk, a summer release, had $188.4 million.

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 comScore:

  1. Black Panther, Disney, $66,306,935, 4,084 locations, $16,236 average, $501,706,972, 3 weeks.

  2. Red Sparrow, 20th Century Fox, $16,853,422, 3,056 locations, $5,515 average, $16,853,422, 1 week.

  3. Death Wish, MGM, $13,010,267, 2,847 locations, $4,570 average, $13,010,267, 1 week.

  4. Game Night, Warner Bros., $10,412,496, 3,502 locations, $2,973 average, $33,240,262, 2 weeks.

  5. Peter Rabbit, Columbia, $10,005,177, 3,607 locations, $2,774 average, $84,065,553, 4 weeks.

  6. Annihilation, Paramount, $5,607,902, 2,112 locations, $2,655 average, $20,594,644, 2 weeks.

  7. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Columbia, $4,438,090, 2,313 locations, $1,919 average, $393,139,443, 11 weeks.

  8. Fifty Shades Freed, Universal, $3,400,505, 2,614 locations, $1,301 average, $95,689,965, 4 weeks.

  9. The Greatest Showman, 20th Century Fox, $2,703,357, 1,407 locations, $1,921 average, $164,644,800, 11 weeks.

  10. Every Day, Orion Distribution Company, $1,542,354, 1,669 locations, $924 average, $5,243,159, 2 weeks.

  11. The Shape of Water, Fox Searchlight, $1,461,602, 832 locations, $1,757 average, $57,455,578, 14 weeks.

  12. The 15:17 to Paris, Warner Bros., $1,413,755, 1,803 locations, $784 average, $34,961,971, 4 weeks.

  13. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Fox Searchlight, $1,274,194, 770 locations, $1,655 average, $52,044,383, 17 weeks.

  14. The Post, 20th Century Fox, $937,658, 671 locations, $1,397 average, $80,392,627, 11 weeks.

  15. Call Me By Your Name, Sony Pictures Classics, $783,227, 914 locations, $857 average, $16,909,289, 15 weeks.

  16. Darkest Hour, Focus Features, $696,160, 913 locations, $762 average, $55,550,377, 15 weeks.

  17. Phantom Thread, Focus Features, $628,525, 715 locations, $879 average, $20,162,689, 10 weeks.

  18. Lady Bird, A24, $568,742, 710 locations, $801 average, $48,321,868, 18 weeks.

  19. I, Tonya, Neon Rated, $552,389, 511 locations, $1,081 average, $28,941,484, 13 weeks.

  20. Winchester, Lionsgate, $516,392, 576 locations, $897 average, $24,545,230, 5 weeks.

MovieStyle on 03/09/2018

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