Box Office Week: For four day weekend LEGO Batman is #1 again with $42.5 mil, The Great Wall flops at #3 with $21.6 mil, Fist Fight barely registers at #5 with $14.5 mil, and A Cure for Wellness bombs with $5 mil at #11. Also John Wick 2 has surpassed the lifetime gross of original in just 8 days.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	The LEGO Batman Movie	$42,500,000	$179,166,314	2
2	Fifty Shades Darker	$23,268,290	$279,164,745	2
3	The Great Wall	$21,651,060	$266,251,060	1
4	John Wick: Chapter Two	$19,100,000	$93,092,083	2
5	Fist Fight	$14,515,000	$16,015,000	1

*all numbers are for the four-day weekend

Notable Box Office Stories:

• The LEGO Batman Movie was the only film to really stand its ground this week, even outpacing its previous competitor 50 Shades Darker this weekend coming in a #1 with $33 mil for the three-day weekend and $42.5 mil for the four-day. The most obvious comparison in terms of legs would of course be The LEGO Movie, where LEGO Batman is once again not performing as well. LEGO Movie also opened in February and had its second weekend be a four day holiday and it saw an impressive 27% drop for the three day weekend totals while LEGO Batman dropped 37% for its three day. Now 37% isn't bad, in fact it's pretty standard for a kid's film and great compared to most films that open over $50 mil. However this decline in both openings and drops is certainly a bit of a concern. Predictors were clearly hoping this film would boost up from the original and outpace it in many regards. However now the film is performing more like a good sidequel, a film with a spin-off character not expected to make as much. The film is also just not catching fire overseas outside of Mexico and the United Kingdom. It does see a release in China in two weeks which should be an interesting test for the brand as the original didn't open there. Ultimately LEGO Batman is a success. It's already doubled its budget in just two weeks and has incredibly good reviews. I don't think WB is looking at this film as failure at all but I wouldn't be shocked to see frantic meetings trying to figure out why they can't seem to translate those good reviews into a growing business model.

• It's very clear that The Great Wall exists for one reason, for China to be on the other end of the stick and make a big budget action film that does incredibly well overseas. This is pretty obvious from the controversial casting of Matt Damon who's face dominates the US posters far more than the titular wall. Well if that was the plan and US was the goal then The Great Wall is a great failure, opening at #3 with $18.4 mil for the three-day weekend and $21.6 mil for the four-day. In comparison A Dog's Purpose had a better three day opening weekend and that was coming off the heals of animal abuse claims. The Great Wall feels in many ways like China's answer to American blockbusters by hiring one of their most acclaimed directors, Zhang Yimou, and sporting the highest budget ever for a Chinese film and distributed by the biggest US film company owned by China, Legendary Pictures. But it seems American audiences had little interest, as the film earned scathing reviews in the US and a middling B rating on Cinemascore. Now of course while Great Wall wanted to conquer the US market its "domestic" market as it were is China where it has made a very good $170 mil, with a total $244.6 mil in international markets alone. However even for Chinese numbers that isn't the best. Look at recent export xXx: Return of Xander Cage. That film has already made $125 mil in China so far and could easily outpace The Great Wall by the time it closes in that country. And that film isn't even a Chinese co-production, so it gets far less time in the theaters than Great Wall did. As a normal blockbuster The Great Wall is mostly an underperformer. However as an attempt for China to break into international cinema the way US films have it's a complete disaster.

• While Charlie Day seems to be Hollywood's new comedy it-boy, it seems he isn't quite ready to lead a film as Fist Fight opened to a very weak #5 with $12.2 mil for the three-day weekend and $14.5 mil for the four-day. Not only is this a weak lead premiere for Day, it also represents the worst wide-release opening for Ice Cube since 2008's The Longshots. While the film carries a small budget of only $25 mil, it still will struggle to pass it by the time it closes and its B rating on Cinemascore certainly doesn't help. The film just failed to find an audience and feels like a classic February release, with a weird premise that doesn't quite fit into counter-programming slots in Christmas or summer.

• Speaking of films where the studio has no idea what to do with them, A Cure for Wellness the latest horror from Gore Verbinski of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Ring fame opened to a miserable $5 mil at #11. Not only does that represent Verbinski's worst wide release opening but it also is the 23rd worst opening ever for a film in over 2,500 theaters. It's not like Fox didn't try, as Cure was the only film to run two ad spots at the Super Bowl (costing them $10 mil in the process) but it did little good. It's not surprising the marketing was so conflicted as the film received wildly ranging reviews and a terrible C+ from Cinemascore. Even the positive reviews noted how squeamish and intense the body horror is in the film so it's no wonder the film had such a hard time defining itself. This is a classic February film, one that a director with a lot of clout got too big a budget for and when he turned it in the studio had no clue what to do with it. They tried their best but audiences can tell when a film just isn't for them.

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Your Name	N/A	$331,336,802	Unk	25
Moonlight	$21,252,308	$23,234,181	$5 mil	18
Doctor Strange	$232,417,391	$673,623,522	$165 mil	16
Arrival	$99,952,270	$195,306,334	$47 mil	15
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them	$232,927,738	$811,427,738	$180 mil	14
Moana	$244,859,962	$573,759,962	$150 mil	13
La La Land	$134,404,066	$340,504,061	$30 mil	11
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	$528,791,468	$1,049,686,380	$200 mil	10
Sing	$266,917,335	$528,617,335	$75 mil	9
Split	$124,910,455	$194,410,455	$10 mil	5

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
The Bye Bye Man	$22,395,806	$24,595,806	$7.4 mil

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at /r/moviesboxoffice.

Submitted February 21, 2017 at 03:55AM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2m1E1fu