The Weekend Report

Twas Beauty killed the Beast to an estimated record-breaking debut of $171.7 million. The frame’s other new wide release, the James Gunn-penned eerie thriller The Belko Experiment was a slim counterprogrammer with a $4 million launch.

Exclusive newcomers included Terrence Malick’s allegorical musical romantic triangle Song to Song with $51,700 from four bookings and the long-gestating sequel T2: Trainspotting that bowed domestically on five screens to $177,000 following two months of overseas exposure that’s injected $34 million.

In international day-and-dates, India took a breather with Malayalam Angamaly Diaries providing a faint pulse of $25,100 from 16 engagements. In Canada, home-grown Punjabi romcom Jindua was off to a solid start of $138,000, while the hockey sequel Goon: Last of the Enforcers followed up followed up on the 2011 hit with an OK slap shot of $521,000.

Revenues for the session climbed close to $260 million and a sharp 58% improvement from last weekend. It was 94% greater than 2015 when the third weekend of Zootopia retained top spot with $37.2 million and new entries Divergent: Allegiant and Miracles from Heaven followed with $29 million and $14.8 million.

The only question surrounding the debut of Beauty and the Beast was: HOW big? The studio initially low-balled it with a $120 million figure that expanded to a still-conservative $145 million prior to opening day. Pundits were more bullish with estimates ranging from $150-$160 million that were shy of the mark but the pool of films of comparable commercial clout is unquestionably shallow.

Aside from setting a new March box office benchmark, the film’s significant records include the all-time biggest opening for a PG-rated movie and the studio’s biggest debut for an essentially live-action movie. It also ranks number seven among all-time domestic film debuts.

B & B’s domestic audience skewed 60% female with 59% of the audience aged 25 and older. Roughly half of viewers identified as families, When queried about the studio’s efforts to sell the movie as a family outing, its distribution president said that “the idea was to take a family animated title and broaden its appeal to a wider audience as we did with Maleficent and The Jungle Book.” The result that the 17-34 corridor accounted for 38% indicates success in that effort , although plus 50s only provided 10% of the audience.

Internationally, Beauty and the Beast opened to an estimated $180 million. Its top-grossing market was China with $45 million, followed by the UK at $23 million, South Korea grossing $12 million and Mexico $11.6 million. Major territories France and Australia open next week and Japan in April.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 
•