The Fate Of The Furious Wins The Weekend With Solid Debut That's Below Furious 7's Bow

If it's April, that can mean only one thing.....both the Easter Bunny and a new Fast & Furious adventure are speeding your way! This year, the newest entry in the series was The Fate Of The Furious, which managed to gross about $100 million exactly over the weekend, good for the third biggest opening weekend ever in April behind the $147 million bow of Furious 7 and the $105 million debut of The Jungle Book from last year. It's also now only the second movie of 2017 to crack $100 million in its opening weekend, joined only by Beauty And The Beast.

It's no shocker this new Fast & Furious movie fell about 32% from the opening weekend of Furious 7 given how that one became a special event due to its being Paul Walker's last movie. I'd imagine Universal would have loved for this one to hold on a tad bit better and you can explain some of that drop due to a marketing campaign that couldn't quite come up with as big of a villain or threat to make the movie seem like an event (Vin Diesel becoming evil may have seemed like too much of a gimmick even for this series in the context of being explained in 15 second ads). However, this thing managed to nab the biggest worldwide box office opening weekend of all-time, beating out Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so I doubt Universal even cares what the series does domestically at this point. Look for Fate Of The Furious to close out its domestic run with about $235-240 million (below Furious and Fast & Furious 6) and well over a billion dollars internationally alone.

The Boss Baby finally relinquished the top spot at the box office in its third weekend of release, grossing another $15.5 million, a 41% drop from last weekend that brings its 17-day domestic total to $116.3 million, about 10% below the domestic haul of Home at the same point. Beauty And The Beast took in another $13.6 million in its fifth weekend of release, a 42% drop from last weekend that brings its domestic total to $454.6 million. By Friday, this one will enter the top ten biggest films ever domestically. In fourth place, Smurfs: The Lost Village grossed $6.5 million, a 51% drop from its opening weekend that's bigger than the second weekend drops of animated family movies whose second weekends fell over Easter weekend, such as the 39% dip of The Croods, 44% decline of Rio 2, the 45% drop of Monsters vs. Aliens and the 48% drop of Home. All of those had far bigger debuts than this newest Smurfs movie. In ten days. Smurfs: The Lost Village has grossed only $24.7 million, about 66% of what the first Smurfs movie made in its first three days alone.

Going In Style lost 47% in its second weekend, a drop that gave it only $6.3 million in its second frame. In ten days, this one's grossed only $23.3 million, though it'll surpass the $26.7 million domestic cume of Garden State sometime this week to become the biggest movie ever for Zach Braff as a director. Expanding into 1,146 theaters this weekend was Gifted, which grossed $3 million, an OK result that's not nearly as great as past Springtime arthouse movies expanding into wide release. Last year, Eye In The Sky did 30% better despite playing in 10% less locations. More mixed reviews and an abundance of arthoure options (odd thing to typically say in the springtime for sure, but it's true) might have kept this one back. It'll be interesting to see if Fox Searchlight keeps this one around in enough locations in the coming weeks to get it past $10 million domestically.

Last weekend, Get Out became the biggest movie ever directed by an African-American filmmaker (something it will relinquish to The Fate Of The Furious in the coming weeks). It further impressed this week by moving up to the seventh place on the charts after being in eighth place last weekend. Going down only 28%, this horror movie phenomenon grossed another $2.9 million this weekend and brought its domestic total to an incredible $167.5 million. On the other hand, continuing its poor holds since its opening weekend was Power Rangers, which dropped another 54% to gross another $2.8 million, meaning its only grossed $80.5 million in 24 days. Not good there, especially given its poor overseas figures. The Case For Christ gathered another $2.7 million this weekend, which is a 31% dip from last weekend, slightly better than the 36% drop Do You Believe? had over its second weekend over Easter weekend two years ago. The Case For Christ has grossed $8.4 million in ten days. Rounding out the top ten was Kong: Skull Island, which dropped 52% to gross another $2.6 million, meaning its now grossed $161.2 million. Will this one be able to surpass the $170.6 million domestic cume of Chicago to become John C. Reilly's second-biggest live-action movie (only behind The Perfect Storm's $182.6 million) ever? Only time will tell!

The third time was not the charm for Ghost In The Shell, or, technically, the third weekend was not the charm, as the movie plummeted another 67% to gross only $2.4 million this frame, giving it a 17-day total of only $37 million, $3 million below what Lucy managed to gross in 3 days. The Zookeeper's Wife expanded into 1,057 theaters and grossed another $2 million for a per-theater average of $1,954. The Zookeeper's Wife has managed to gross a solid $10.6 million domestically. Meanwhile, Logan dropped 52% to gross another $1.9 million, bringing its domestic cume to $221.6 million.

OK, we've got a LOT of cover in limited releases this weekend, so let's get right down to it. Colossal went into 98 theaters this weekend, resulting in a $462,869 weekend and a per-theater average of $4,723 and a 10-day domestic total of $616,344. Their Finest also widened its theater count, though it only went into 52 locations. It scrounged up $360,000 and a per-theater average of $6,923 and a current domestic haul of $470,000. T2: Trainspotting went into its widest theater count ever, 331 locations, but failed to attract business, grossing only $230,000 (a 14% decline from last weekend when it was playing in 174 less locations) and averaging per-theater only $695. This one's grossed an abysmal $1.9 million after a month of release, only about 12% of the originals lifetime domestic gross.

The United Kingdom golfing drama Tommy's Honour got off to a lackluster start with only $218,920 from 167 theaters for a per-theater average of $1,311. Faring much better in its limited release debut was The Lost City Of Z, which grossed $112,633 from 4 locations for a $28,158 per-theater average. Meanwhile, Spark: A Space Tail absolutely bombed with only $112,352 from 365 theaters, resulting in a per-theater average of only $308. The only other American computer-animated movies to open below $1 million are Delgo and The Ten Commandments, not exactly great box office company. Meanwhile, Richard Gere's new drama Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer debuted to a solid $103,664 from 5 locations and a per-theater average of $20,733. The new GKIDS film My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea grossed $15,215 from 3 locations for a per-theater average of $5,072. Finally, the documentary Finding Oscar debuted to $3,000 at one location.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $160.8 million, by far the biggest fifteenth weekend of any given year and a 22% improvement over the previous biggest fifteenth weekend on record (which would be the fifteenth weekend of 2014). Thus far, April 2017 has accumulated $509 million and could make a run for dethroning April 2011 (which grossed $792.6 million) as the biggest April of all-time, though the lack of potential new hits in the last two weeks of the month do put that into question.