Weekend Box Office: ‘The Boss Baby’ Takes the Top Spot With $49 Million
You can never count out a silly kids movie at the box office. There’s just no real way to see the big money-makers coming in this arena, though I’m imagining, in the case of The Boss Baby, the central figure being an adorable cartoon tot (voiced by Alec Baldwin) had something to do with it. That might explain how DreamWorks Animation’s latest ended up toppling Disney’s Beauty and the Beast remake from its comfortable seat at number one with an impressive $49 million weekend. Still, as compared to other DreamWorks movies that have premiered at this level – Home, Trolls, etc. – The Boss Baby doesn’t follow any trend beyond the strange, limited sub-genre of films about baby geniuses, which includes a movie literally called Baby Geniuses.
The math in my head looks something like this: the kids-parent(s) contingent saw Beauty and the Beast opening weekend and maybe went to see it again the next weekend, seeing as Power Rangers is a bit more adult in tone and in its sense of humor. Under this thinking, The Boss Baby just picked up the audience that Beauty and the Beast lost over the last two weeks following its massively lucrative opening weekend. Mind you, Beauty and the Beast came in with $47 million this weekend, only losing to DreamWorks’ latest animation by $2 million in its third frame. The Boss Baby gets the win but Beauty and the Beast remains a tremendous property, fiscally speaking.
And then there was poor, poor Ghost in the Shell, a worthwhile but wildly problematic adaptation of arguably the most beloved and popular anime to ever see release, which came in with $19 million off of a $110 million production budget. This puts a severe amount of stress on the international returns for Rupert Sanders ‘latest, which very well could prove to be its saving grace, depending on how the white-washed movie goes over on the other side of the pond and planet. The top five was finished off with Power Rangers at $14.5 and Kong: Skull Island at $8.8 million, and one can only hope that Ghost in the Shell will be able to survive a second frame in the top five. With another kids movie (Smurfs: The Lost Village) and a limited release Pure Flix joint (The Case for Christ) leading next week’s openers, alongside Zach Braff‘s Going in Style, the chances don’t look good but then again, The Boss Baby just won the weekend. Anything could happen.
Movie Weekend Box Office Total Domestic Box Office
01. ‘The Boss Baby’ $49,000,000 $49,000,000
02. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ $47,543,000 $395,459,842
03. ‘Ghost in the Shell’ $19,000,000 $19,000,000
04. ‘Power Rangers’ $14,500,000 $65,062,170
05. ‘Kong: Skull Island’ $8,800,000 $147,848,204
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