The Boss Baby Wins The Box Office Again As Smurfs Get Lost And Going In Style Looks OK

It was a quieter weekend this frame, probably the most subdued box office weekend we've had in all of 2017 thus far as The Boss Baby was number one for the second weekend in a row, taking in another $26.3 million, a 47% drop from last weekend that's bigger than the second-weekend drops for March DreamWorks Animation releases The Croods and How To Train Your Dragon but slightly better than the second weekend drop of Home. The Boss Baby has now grossed $89.3 million in ten days. Meanwhile, in second place, Beauty And The Beast grossed $25 million, a 45% drop from last weekend that gives it the tenth biggest fourth weekend of all-time. Beauty And The Beast has now grossed $432.3 million and is currently the fifteenth biggest movie of all-time.

While we've had a number of family movie box office hits this year (The LEGO Batman Movie, Beauty And The Beast and The Boss Baby), not everything with a PG MPAA rating attached to it is gonna make tons of cash. The Smurfs: The Lost Village proved that this weekend by debuting to a dismal $14 million, below the opening weekend of both past Smurfs movies (the second of which burned off demand by opening on a Wednesday), the lowest opening weekend ever for a Sony Pictures Animation release that wasn't tied to Aardman and the first time a computer animated movie from one of the six big American movie studios opened to under $20 million since The Book Of Life in October 2014. Sony/Columbia has had a pretty dismal year so far and this new Smurfs movie that will struggle to clear $45 million domestically only adds more bad news to the pile.

Going In Style beat out weekend projections that didn't even have it clearing $10 million by debuting to $12.5 million, garnering a slightly bigger per-theater average ($4,084 vs. $3,882) than The Smurfs: The Lost Village. That $12.5 million bow isn't as strong as the $16.3 million debut of Last Vegas (another "elderly people get into wacky antics" comedy starring Morgan Freeman) and it still needs to make way more to cover its $25 million budget, but it's an OK debut that's better than the bows of the other two major comedies this year (Fist Fight and CHiPS).

Ghost In The Shell rounded out the top five by grossing another $7.3 million, a 60% drop from last weekend that brings its domestic cume to only $31.5 million in ten days. With The Fate Of The Furious on the way next weekend, it'd be shocking if this movie cracked $50 million domestically. Continuing to fall heavily after its opening weekend was Saban's Power Rangers, which grossed only $6.2 million, a 56% drop from last weekend, which shows this one is strictly resonating with family audiences and it's having trouble competing with Boss Baby and Beauty And The Beast. Saban's Power Rangers has grossed $75.1 million in eleven days and will likely end its domestic gross just under or over $90 million.

A March 2017 blockbuster holding way better right now is Kong: Skull Island, which went down only 32% to gross another $5.8 million, bringing its domestic gross to $156.5 million. Kong has also not also cracked $500 million worldwide but also surpassed the final $529.1 million worldwide cume of Godzilla, an impressive feat for the monkey business movie. Logan also continued to hold on well, adding another $4 million (a 33% dip from last weekend), bringing its domestic cume to $218 million, taking it past the $214.9 million domestic cume of X2: X-Men United. Adding another $4 million this weekend was Get Out, a tiny 29% dip from last weekend that brings its domestic cume to an amazing $162.8 million.

Per usual one weekend before Easter, a new Christian movie debuted, with this year's entry being The Case For Christ, which debuted to an OK $3.9 million, about 10% better than the Spring 2015 Pure Flix (the studio behind The Case For Christ) title Do You Believe? and slightly below the $4 million debut of fellow Pure Flix movie Woodlawn. This one should probably make a little over $10 million domestically, an alright total in terms of Christian movies.

The Zookeeper's Wife held well as it expanded into 806 theaters, grabbing another $2.8 million for a $3,584 per-theater average for a 10-day domestic total of $7.6 million. Could this get past $20 million domestically? I wouldn't be shocked! International box office phenomenon Your Name. finally debuted here domestically and actually opened to a solid $1.6 million at 303 theaters for a per-theater average of $5,281. That's the ninth biggest domestic bow for an Anime-Animated feature film and sixth biggest if you discount the Pokemon movies. No word yet on if Funimation has plans to expand the movies theater count in the weeks ahead.

Alright. now let's get to the other newbie limited releases. Bowing in 56 theaters this weekend was Gifted, which grossed $476,000 for a per-theater average of $8,500. Also debuting was Colossal, which took in $125,809 from 4 theaters for a per-theater average of $31,452. But those two weren't the only limited releases bowing this weekend, as Their Finest also premiered to $77,000 at 4 theaters for a per-theater average of $19,250. The Ticket, the first major movie from Shout! Factory as a theatrical distributor, also premiered this weekend, but I have no box office data for it yet. Finally, in bewildering developments, Before I Fall re-expanded into 268 theaters this weekend for no reason I can discern and grossed another $65,169 for an abysmal per-theater average of only $243. Before I Fall has now grossed $12.1 million.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed only $114.5 million, a middling total for an early April weekend and one of the lowest fourteenth weekends in any given year in recent memory (in this decade, the only fourteenth weekend to fare worse as in the box office dead zone of the first four months of 2011). This entire top 12 total will likely be exceeded by The Fate Of The Furious alone next weekend.