‘Boss Baby’ isn’t phoning it in at the box office
Tyrannical toddler shows the Smurfs who’s in charge
The Smurfs are feeling a little blue this weekend.
The third installment in Sony’s animated series, Smurfs: The Lost
Village, made its box office debut in third place with $14 million — far behind family-friendly holdovers The Boss Baby and Beauty
and the Beast, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Featuring the voices of Demi Lovato and Joe Manganiello,
Smurfs, which cost $60 million to make, has not charmed critics either. Its earnings were worse than the 2013 opening of Smurfs
2, which went on to gross $347.5 million worldwide despite a $17.5 million debut and a $105 million price tag.
But the fate of the third Smurfs is not necessarily sealed, says ComScore’s senior media analyst, Paul Dergarabedian.
“There are other revenue streams for films like this,” Dergarabedian says, noting international profits and home video potential that could recoup production costs.
In first place, The Boss Baby added $26.3 million in its second weekend in theaters, bringing its North American total to $89.4 million. Sufficient buzz and the benefit of voice star Alec Baldwin’s popular portrayal of President Trump on Saturday Night
Live probably helped the film, Dergarabedian says. Meanwhile, Beauty and the
Beast earned $25 million to take second place at the box office. In four weeks, Disney’s live-action fairy tale has brought in $432.3 million domestically.
While the family films dominated, moviegoers had other op- tions on a relatively quiet weekend. The tepidly reviewed buddy comedy Going in Style, starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin, opened in fourth place with $12.5 million. Ghost in the Shell, the Scarlett Johansson action sci-fi thriller that opened March 31, landed at No. 5 with $7.4 million. The faith-based drama The
Case for Christ also launched with $3.9 million from 1,174 theaters.
In limited release, the Chris Evans drama Gifted took in $476,000 from 56 theaters, and the World War II drama Their
Finest grossed $77,000 from four screens in New York and Los Angeles.
The relative quiet is ending soon. The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in The Fast and the Furious franchise, speeds into theaters next weekend, followed by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 a few weeks later. “There are a lot of box office heavyweights looming on the horizon,” Dergarabedian says. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.