Box Office Week: Fifty Shades Freed opens at #1 with $38.5M, which pushes the franchise past $1B worldwide. Meanwhile, Peter Rabbit opens to a good #2 with $25M and The 15:17 to Paris underwhelms at #3 with $12.5M.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Fifty Shades Freed	$38,560,195	$135,060,195	1
2	Peter Rabbit	$25,010,928	$25,023,454	1
3	The 15:17 to Paris	$12,554,286	$18,254,286	1
4	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle	$10,023,344	$883,441,475	8
5	The Greatest Showman	$6,443,343	$314,523,701	8

Notable Box Office Stories:

• Fifty Shades Freed - Despite having the misfortune of having the lowest opening of the series, Fifty Shades Freed still ended the Valentine's weekend on a strong note with $38.5M for the weekend. That pushes the series into the illustrious $1B camp, with the total worldwide gross of the three films currently sitting at $1.08B on a combined budget of $150M for all three films. That's a remarkable return on investment and makes it just the fifth R-rated film franchise to pass $1B (fyi the other four are: The Matrix, The Hangover, Resident Evil, and The Conjuring franchises). The film scored the usual scathing reviews from critics but managed to get the same B+ rating on Cinemascore that Fifty Shades Darker got so it's possible like the others it will just manage to pass $100M domestic. As mentioned the opening is much lower than the previous films (Fifty Shades of Grey scored $85.1M on opening and Fifty Shades Darker scored $46.6M) so it's wise that Universal is getting out while the iron is at least warm. With no replacement in sight it seems Fifty Shades is just going to leave the cinematic world gracefully with its giant bundle of cash. Thankfully this film (and the final Maze Runner film) decided not to split the final book in the trilogy into two films which seems like a wise decision. Fifty Shades isn't leaving any copycats in its wake but it's definitely been an extremely wise purchase for Universal who rode a wave of popular culture excitement and derision long past the point of the original novels relevancy and managed to walk away with a major hit with a solid final outing.

• Peter Rabbit - Despite getting mediocre reviews and a very surprising backlash, Peter Rabbit managed to surpass expectations opening this week to $25M at #2. The film based on the classic novels by Beatrix Potter had a rough road to the box office. First the film faced heavy criticism for its juvenile trailer which film critics derided as a bastardization of Potter's work. Then this weekend many parents of children with allergies complained about a scene involving Peter trying to cause an anaphylactic shock on a human with an allergy to blackberries as well as claiming allergies were made up or psychosomatic. Many parents threatened to boycott the film causing Sony to to publicly apologize yesterday. It's unclear if the film will suffer much in the longtail because at least in terms of opening both these controversies didn't make much of a dent, as the film was expected to open more in the high teens and far surpassed that. Peter Rabbit doesn't carry a huge budget, just $50M, so it should survive any backlash but it is a reminder that parents are the main driver of these films. Times may change but kids still can't call an Uber and take them to the cinema so for now studios need to remember to keep parents happy if they want to see good returns on their kids films.

• The 15:17 to Paris - The latest from Clint Eastwood couldn't translate its unique structure into major interest as the film flopped opening at #3 with $12.5M. Coming in to this weekend it seemed like Clint Eastwood had cornered the market on biopics based on American heroic figures, with major hits like Sully and American Sniper. Not to mention that The 15:17 to Paris had a unique concept, casting the three people (Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos) who stopped a gunman during the 2015 Thalys train attack as themselves. However a February release date didn't bode well and the film received horrible reviews, currently with a 21% on Rotten Tomatoes. The result was a big fat dud of an opening. Even audiences weren't big fans of the film which scored a terrible B- on Cinemascore (any biopic scoring below an A- is shocking). Don't expect good legs for this film. It's unclear why older audiences stayed away (as expected 86% of the audience was over the age of 25) other than disinterest in the subject matter. At very least with the bad reviews and no interest in the gimmick I think this will pretty much kill the idea of real people playing themselves in a film. I think people have enough reality as it is. They just want to see someone way hotter than the real person play "a real person". Or at least someone who can, you know, act.

• Oscar Movie Round-up - No major expansions this week or any significant changes or milestones to any of the Oscar contenders this week as we all just wait for the Oscars at this point.

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 #
Thor: Ragnarok	$314,316,296	$853,135,544	$180M	15
Justice League	$228,561,662	$656,561,662	$300M	13
Coco	$206,172,630	$714,529,373	$175M	12
Star Wars: The Last Jedi	$616,833,692	$1,325,654,234	$200M	9
Paddington 2	$38,533,465	$205,672,745	$50M	5

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross	Worldwide Gross	Budget
Only The Brave	$18,343,983	$23,097,511	$38M

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You can read my latest piece at The Numbers: Why Haven’t There Been Fifty Shades of Grey Copycats?

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 13, 2018 at 06:53AM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2sqe7WP