Weekend Box Office: Get the Flock Out - Angry Birds Tops Captain America: Civil War

By Chris Kavan - 05/22/16 at 09:50 PM CT

It was a good weekend for families and a so-so weekend for comedies. Captain America had to take the back seat to some Angry Birds, while Neighbors 2 and The Nice Guys fought over the remaining scraps. All in all, most of the new films had good openings - not too many fireworks, but good enough to avoid the dreaded bomb designation. On the international front, X-Men Apocalypse made waves 10 days ahead of its domestic debut opening in 75 markets and topping 71 of those markets for a fantastic $103.3 million opening. That should bode well for its U.S. opening over Memorial Day - but we'll see how that turns out when it gets here.

1) ANGRY BIRDS

While I may have dismissed Angry Birds as missing the bandwagon on its release (since the game reached its peak like four years ago), never discount the power of families. As such, Angry Birds opened in the top spot with a very healthy $39 million. That's good news for Sony (Rovio provided most of the $73 million budget themselves) as it was the third-best animated opening for the studio behind the two Hotel Transylvania films (at $42 and $48 million respectively). Worldwide the film is already approaching $150 million. On a sadder note, the $39 million opening makes it the second-best video game opening of all time, behind only the $47 million of Tomb Raider. Even with average reviews and a "B+" Cinemascore, it is likely to outpace that film's $131 million total making it the highest-grossing (domestic) video game film of all time. Hopefully Warcraft won't drop the ball and take that crown back itself. I'm vehemently against any mobile game being on top of any video game list. It's looking like these Angry Birds are likely to hit around $135-$140 million, as they have the family audience locked until Finding Dory comes along in four weeks.

2) CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

Our Avengers 2.5 superheroes had to settle for runner-up in their third weekend, bringing in $33.1 million for a new total of $347.4 million. The drop of 54.4% was a bit steeper than the third-weekend drops for previous Marvel films, but considering the film hit $1 billion worldwide and is currently the fifth highest-grossing superhero film of all time (and 19th on the worldwide total list, period) I don't think Disney is sweating a slightly-larger than average third-week drop. It also passed both Batman v Superman and Zootopia to move up to the second spot in the 2016 movie charts, trailing only Deadpool ($362 million), which it should still have no problem catching on its way to $400 million in the U.S. Worldwide it sits at $1.03 billion, topping the likes of The Dark Knight, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Even with X-Men: Apocalypse coming in hot, I don't think Civil War is going is going to suffer too much and should still be able to top the $409 million of Iron Man 3 to move up to third on the all-time Marvel Cinematic Universe list.

3) NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING

I, along with many others, thought this comedic sequel would deliver a bigger hit than it did. Opening at $21.79 million, Neighbors 2 opened 55.5% lower than the original film's $49 million back in 2014. The film was pretty much evenly split between male and females, did skew younger (61% under 25) and earned a "B" Cinemascore, also the same as the original. Perhaps marketing just didn't do a good enough job presenting this as a worthy sequel (though I thought the spots looks pretty funny), in any case this is closer to Hot Tub Time Machine 2 than 22 Jump Street and the long-term prospect of the film are going to have to be based on whether the younger crowd decides to keep supporting this passed its opening weekend. Granted, it has a pretty low $35 million budget, so even if it only manages to hit $55 million stateside, it should pick up at least double overseas for a $100 million plus total. It's not a home run by any means, but it's not a swing-and-a-miss either. I do have a feeling this is going to temper any rumors of a Neighbors 3.

4) THE NICE GUYS

The week's other new wide-release film, Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling mismatched 70's era detective comedy, opened to $11.2 million in the fourth spot. That's also probably a little lower than most expectations, but given it was up against some pretty good competition, I would say that total also isn't too bad at all. It did, as expected, draw a more adult audience (85% over 25) and garnered a so-so "B-" Cinemascore. The film is likely to top out at around $30 million or so but with a production cost around $50 million, it will need some international help to get out of the red.

5) THE JUNGLE BOOK

In the face of direct family competition, The Jungle Book still managed to hold on to spot in the top five, topping out with just over $11 million and raising its total to $327.5 million. That is a still-impressive drop of just 35.6% in its sixth weekend. It will pass Batman v. Superman sometime in the next week on the 2016 charts. With $857 million worldwide, it is also nipping at the heels of $870 million total for Dawn of Justice as well and is likely to surpass it on the global tally as well.


Outside the top five: Money Monster dropped over 52% and brought in about $7.1 million (6th place) for a new total of $27.1 million - essentially matching its production budget. This one is likely going to stall out quickly and will probably wind up with under $50 million.

Next week brings us X-Men: Apocalypse, in which we'll find out if another group of superheroes can conquer the box office and just how impressive it will be. Disney also looks to make yet another mark on the 2016 movie season with the sequel Alice: Through the Looking Glass. It will be a long Memorial Day weekend, we'll see what films audiences decide to support.

Comments

smeagol - wrote on 05/28/16 at 09:27 AM CT

strange place that no one speaks. wont get more here if no one speaks.
not sure whats the point of any of it

smeagol - wrote on 05/24/16 at 06:39 AM CT

the best movie comes 4th behind the rubbish neighbours. what a crazy world we live in
these animation films should have their own charts i dont class them as real movies
cartoons afterall

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