Captain Marvel, Wonder Park hold top spots

Cole Sprouse stars along with Haley Lu Richardson in CBS Films’ Five Feet Apart. It came in third at last weekend’s box office and made about $13.2 million.
Cole Sprouse stars along with Haley Lu Richardson in CBS Films’ Five Feet Apart. It came in third at last weekend’s box office and made about $13.2 million.

As Captain Marvel swooped into its second weekend in theaters last Friday, the question wasn't really whether it would top domestic ticket sales, but by how much.

Disney-Marvel can breathe easily. Its latest superhero origin story, the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe dedicated to a female superhero, sold an estimated $69.3 million in tickets nationwide last weekend, bringing its North American total to about $266.2 million.

That's a higher figure than the lifetime domestic gross of Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($259.8 million), and already makes Captain Marvel the 13th-best-selling film in the current 21-movie Marvel series -- with room to grow.

Captain Marvel has done well internationally, too, with $120 million in overseas sales last weekend, according to the studio, for a global total of $760 million. While the figures aren't earth-shattering, they indicate a solid success for Disney-Marvel.

That success came despite attempts by Internet trolls to derail Captain Marvel. Before its release, the film was the target of efforts at online sabotage by users apparently lashing out against its star, Brie Larson, who has been outspoken in her support of more diverse representation in Hollywood movies. The campaign prompted review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to make major changes to its long-standing rules, including the elimination of audience reviews for movies that have not yet been released.

Free from any targeted online attack was Paramount's Wonder Park, an animated family movie about a young girl who dreams up plans for an amusement park and sees them colorfully brought to life. That movie sold $16 million in tickets domestically last weekend, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. While a far cry from Captain Marvel, the figure was more than enough to land Wonder Park in second place.

Though the computer-animated picture, which cost $100 million to make, came in above analysts' lackluster projections of $10 million to $14 million, it earned well below what is expected for a blockbuster animated feature. The film earned mixed reviews, with a B-plus CinemaScore rating and a 30 percent rotten rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, a rare rotten score for an animated movie.

Wonder Park has no credited director after Paramount fired director Dylan Brown following complaints about inappropriate and unwanted conduct. Brown disputed the claims.

The only other newcomer in the top five was Lionsgate's Five Feet Apart, in third place. The movie, about a couple whose shared genetic disorder forces them to maintain physical distance from each other despite their growing romance, sold $13.2 million in tickets. The tear-jerker romance came in above analyst projections of $6 million to $9 million. The PG-13 film earned an A CinemaScore rating, but mixed reviews, with a 52 percent rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Audiences were overwhelmingly female (82 percent) and young (65 percent under age 25 and 45 percent under 18). That the stars involved, like Cole Sprouse who is in the popular TV show Riverdale, have a strong fan base and social following motivated young women to turn out to the theaters.

"You don't always have to be No. 1 to have a success," Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for Comscore, said. "And Five Feet Apart proves that."

In fourth place, Universal's How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World added $9.3 million in its fourth weekend for a cumulative $135.6 million. It has grossed $466.5 million worldwide.

Rounding out the top five, Lionsgate's Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral added $8 million in its third weekend for a cumulative $59 million.

Also new over the weekend, the studio's Spanish-language No Manches Frida 2 debuted at No. 6 with $3.9 million in just 472 locations for a per-screen average of $8,250.

"In the world of everybody talking about diversity, this is a great example of a diverse lineup. All three films were completely different, which was obviously a strategic distribution decision," said David Spitz, Lionsgate's president of domestic distribution. "Those three films were able to capture an audience even with the 300-pound gorilla of Captain Marvel."

Focus Features' Captive State premiered at No. 7 with $3.2 million, within range of analyst projections of less than $5 million. In limited release, the studio opened The Mustang in four locations with $76,000, for a per-screen average of $19,000.

Fox Searchlight opened The Aftermath in five locations, with $58,000, a per-screen average of $11,600.

A24 expanded Gloria Bell from five locations to 39, earning $394,835, for a per-screen average of $10,124 and a cumulative $584,390.

This week, Universal opens Jordan Peele's latest thriller, Us.

But overall, things are finally looking up for the industrywide box office. The Captain Marvel effect has lowered the year to date deficit nearly 10 percent in a week.

"We're on the right track now. It shows when you're this early in the year, any change can make a significant difference to the bottom line," Dergarabedian said. "But it's going to take more than one big movie to start us toward another record-breaking year in North America."

MovieStyle on 03/22/2019

Upcoming Events