Pacific Rim: Uprising Tops The Box Office With So-So Results While Sherlock Gnomes Is Left Clueless

Black Panther's reign at the top of the domestic box office came to a close this weekend as Pacific Rim: Uprising managed to be the number one movie in North America. With $28 million, this sequel was down 25% from the opening weekend of the first movie. That's a slightly better than usual retention for sequels coming more than three years after their predecessor, but it's still a disappointing bow for a big-budget blockbuster (for comparison sake, fellow March-released blockbuster Jack The Giant Slayer debuted to $27.2 million five years ago and was considered a massive bomb). The fact that it didn't go lower can be attributed to its distributor, Universal, going all-out with its marketing, including rampant ads during the Winter Olympics. This one took in $122 million overseas this weekend, a decent sum that still feels under expectations given how this project was made almost primarily for foreign audiences. With Ready Player One inbound and a B CinemaScore from audiences, expect Pacific Rim: Uprising to struggle to get past $70 million domestically.



In second place we find Black Panther, which dipped another 37% this frame to gross another $16.6 million for a $630.9 million. This means T'Challa and pals have surpassed the domestic haul of the first Avengers movie to become the biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever domestically as well as the biggest superhero movie ever domestically. That's an outstanding achievement and this thing's still got plenty of gas in the tank. I'm currently projecting a final domestic haul of $680 million, let's see if it can surpass that mammoth figure.

Having by far the smallest weekend-to-weekend dip this weekend was I Can Only Imagine, which went down a tiny 19% to add another $13.8 million to its domestic cume. This $7 million budgeted title has now grossed $38.3 million, making it already the thirteenth biggest Christian movie in history and the tenth biggest music biopic in history. With the lucrative Easter weekend coming up, I'd expect this one to crack $60 million domestically at least.

The pre-Easter weekend has delivered a number of animated family movie hits over the years but Sherlock Gnomes was certainly not one of them. Bowing to only $10.8 million, this feature opened to 57% less than the opening weekend of Gnomeo & Juliet seven years ago and had the second-worst opening weekend in history for a computer-animated film opening in over 3,500 theaters. This is an all-around dismal bow for a project whose marketing could never justify to audiences why they needed to revisit the world of Gnomeo & Juliet.

In the face of Pacific Rim: Uprising, Tomb Raider fell 56%, grossing $10.4 million in the process and bringing it up to a domestic total of $41.7 million. Meanwhile, A Wrinkle In Time fell another 50% to gross another $8 million for a $73.8 million domestic haul. Meanwhile, Love, Simon had one of the best second-weekend drops of any title in the top 12 this weekend, as it dipped only 33% (a better second-weekend hold than Everything, Everything) in its second weekend to add $7.8 million to a domestic total that now stands at $23.6 million.

While I Can Only Imagine thrived, fellow Christian movie Paul, Apostle of Christ was struggling to get anywhere as it grossed only $5 million. Even by Christian movie standards, that's not a great bow, though since the film only cost $5 million, it won't be a money loser for its producers. Meanwhile, Game Night continued it's impressive box office run as it dipped only 25% to gross another $4.1 million. This sleeper hit comedy has now grossed $60.8 million domestically. Romantic drama newcomer Midnight Sun opened to only $4 million, an anemic bow way below other similar films based on popular romantic drama novels. It remains to be seen whether or not this one can cross $10 million domestically.

And now we come to the last of this weekend's new wide releases, Unsane. This Steven Soderbergh joint grossed $3.8 million in its opening weekend, by far the worst wide release opening weekend of Soderbergh's career. Luckily, this was also one his cheapest films ever as it cost only $1.5 million to make. Fingerprint Releasing/Bleecker Street were obviously hoping for more when they released Unsane into 2,023 theaters, but given the cheap nature of Unsane, this is an alright opening weekend that's actually above other microbudget horror films like The Green Inferno or Incarnate with less unorthodox premises.

Meanwhile, the real impressive newcomer this weekend was Isle of Dogs, which played in only 27 theaters but grossed an outstanding $1.57 million for a per-theater average of $58,148. That's by far the biggest per-theater average for any title (limited release or otherwise) in 2017 so far and also the biggest opening weekend for any Wes Anderson movie. To boot, this is the biggest opening weekend ever for a Fox Searchlight movie opening in less than 100 locations. It looks like Isle of Dogs is poised for a strong domestic box office performance and it'll be intriguing to see how it performs when it goes into wide release on April 6th.

Expanding into 140 theaters this weekend, The Death of Stalin drummed up solid results as it gross $1 million this frame for a per-theater average of $7,573 and a domestic total to date of $2 million. This one's only about $300,000 away from surpassing the lifetime domestic gross of prior Armando Iannucci feature In The Loop. In its second weekend, 7 Days in Entebbe fell 59% to gross another $655,000 for a $2.9 million domestic gross to date. Expanding into 117 locations this weekend was The Leisure Seeker, which grossed $315,427 for a per-theater average of $2,696 for a domestic total of $717,024. Fifty Shades Freed became only the third movie of 2018 to gross over $100 million domestically this frame, as it's $300,000 gross this frame brought it's domestic total to $100.2 million. Meanwhile, in it's second weekend, Flower grossed $125,767 from 57 theaters for a middling per-theater average of $2,206 and a domestic total to date of $190,679.

Debuting in 60 theaters this weekend was Getting Grace, which grossed $107,676 for a per-theater average of $1,795. In it's fourth weekend of release, Foxtrot expanded into 26 theaters and grossed $76,529 for a per-theater average of $2,943 and a domestic total of $270,056. The Stanley Tucci directorial effort Final Portrait debuted this weekend to $28,214 at 3 locations for a per-theater average of $9,500. Also bowing in limited release this weekend was Ismael's Ghost, which grossed $19,000 from 2 locations for a per-theater average of $9,500.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $115 million, a weaker than usual sum for a late March weekend (only two other times in the 2010's have we seen weaker results than this at this time of the year). March 2018 has grossed $717.8 million so far and, depending on how Ready Player One does this week, may be able to surpass the $832.3 million haul of March 2010 to become the fourth biggest March in history.