For the second straight weekend, the tie-wearing toddler of “The Boss Baby” nosed out Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at North American box offices, while the new “Smurf” movie came in a distant and disappointing third, according to industry estimates.
“Baby,” the animated tale about a cuteness competition pitting babies against pets, took in $26.3 million for the three-day weekend, Exhibitor Relations reported, bringing its two-week total to $89.4 million. Alec Baldwin voices the chief baby in the DreamWorks production, distributed by Fox.
“Beauty” showed continuing strength, netting $25 million in its fourth week out for an impressive North American total so far of $432.3 million. With its intricate production and rich musical score, the Disney film, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, is the year’s highest-grossing film so far.
But Sony, which had been banking on the cuddly appeal of the blue munchkins in “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” faced disappointing numbers. The film’s $14 million opening weekend was “one of the worst starts in recent memory for an animated offering from a major Hollywood studio,” said the Hollywood Reporter website.
The original film in the series, “The Smurfs,” earned much of its $563.7 million gross on overseas ticket sales, and Sony appears to be hoping this film will follow form.
“Going in Style,” a Warner Bros. comedy starring Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin and Michael Caine as an octogenarian trio determined to rob a bank after their pension money goes up in smoke, placed fourth in its opening weekend, taking in $12.5 million. That beat expectations for a film aimed at an older audience. It cost just $24 million to produce.
And fifth was Paramount’s “Ghost in the Shell,” starring Scarlett Johansson in an adaptation of a Japanese manga tale. It had weekend revenues of $7.4 million.
Rounding out the top 10 are:
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