Weekend Wrap-Up: Birds should be Happy with a $38.16 million

May 24, 2016

The Angry Birds Movie

While each film in the top five on this weekend's box office chart finished in the right place, none of them matched expectations, save for The Jungle Book, which earned fifth place. The Angry Birds Movie debuted on top of the chart with $38.16 million, which is an okay opening for a family film at this time of year and nothing more. Likewise, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising struggled compared to its predecessor, but did well compared to its budget. The Nice Guys will need long legs to break even. The overall box office rose 4.5% from last weekend, reaching $137 million, but fell 11% from the same weekend last year. 2016's lead over 2015 shrank to 5.1% or $200 million at $4.14 billion to $3.94 billion. This is a very impressive figure, but might not be enough to keep 2016 in the lead throughout the rest of the year. Jurassic World came out last June and there's little hope any film this June will match it.

The Angry Birds Movie earned first place with $38.16 million during its opening weekend. This is a good start for a film that cost $73 million to make and inline with expectations, more or less. The reviews slipped to just 43% positive, which is not good, but not so bad that it will really hurt the film's legs either. The film will get to $100 million with ease, but with the buzz for Finding Dory starting to grow, families might save their money for that movie.

Captain America: Civil War slipped to second place with $32.94 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $347.22 million. It's on pace for $400 million domestically, assuming Disney gives it a small boost to get it over the top. Meanwhile, it has made over $1 billion worldwide, making it the first film released in 2016 to get to that milestone. It won't be the last.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising opened in third place with $21.76 million over the weekend. Had this been the first film in the franchise, then a $21.76 million opening on a $35 million budget would have been seen as a strong start. However, its less than half of what Neighbors opened with on a budget that is nearly twice as much. You can't blame the reviews, which are 62% positive, so I think we can chalk this up to the trouble with comedy sequels. That said, we shouldn't dismiss the film's box office run so far. It needs about $100 million worldwide to break even eventually and it is already more than halfway there.

The Nice Guys landed in fourth place with $11.20 million. This is barely more than the lowball $10 million studio prediction and less than a quarter of its $50 million production budget. Its reviews suggests good legs, but I think it will have to wait till the home market to find an audience.

The Jungle Book was right behind with $10.94 million over the weekend for a running tally of $327.42 million after six weeks of release. It is now just over $1 million behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and it will very likely over take that film in just a couple of days.

Looking in on the sophomore class, we find Money Monster in sixth place with $7.02 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $27.04 million. This is as much as it cost to make, so it could break even, eventually. The Darkness fell to seventh place with just $2.27 million for a ten-day total of $8.37 million. The film likely didn't cost a lot to make, but it needed to earn more than this to break even any time soon.

- Weekend Box Office Chart

- The Angry Birds Movie Comparisons
- Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising Comparisons
- The Nice Guys Comparisons
- The Jungle Book vs. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, The Angry Birds Movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Jungle Book, Captain America: Civil War, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, The Nice Guys, The Darkness, Money Monster