It was a good news/bad news kind of weekend for Fifty Shades of Grey. The R-rated drama managed to maintain its dominant stance on top of the box office charts with $23.2 million, easily holding off the weekend’s newcomers, but it suffered a tremendous drop from last weekend’s $85.1 million opening. That’s down a hefty 73% and doesn’t exactly spell success in terms of long legs at the domestic box office, but when counting in its gigantic $280.5 million international total, the film has now grossed over $400 million worldwide.
Elsewhere, the spectacular Kingsman: The Secret Service remained in second place overall, falling 52% to a $17.5 million take, bringing its domestic total to a respectable $67.1 million. That's solid, especially for an R-rated actioner. Say what you will about Fifty Shades’ box office success, but it’s kind of neat to see two R-rated movies taking the top spots for two weekends in a row. It’s further proof that, despite Hollywood’s tendency towards four-quadrant tentpoles, adults are still turning out for adult-centric films.
That being said, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water still took the third place spot with $15.5 million, while the Disney’s sports drama McFarland, USA narrowly took the fourth slot with $11.3 million, edging out the well-received comedy The DUFF, which exceeded expectations with $11 million.
It was bad news only for the comedy sequel Hot Tub Time Machine 2, which managed a mere $5.8 million for the weekend after suffering brutal reviews. Audiences didn’t seem to take to the film any better, as it received a C- Cinemascore. The silver lining is that it only cost $14 million to make, but still, that’s a mighty low opening weekend performance.
In specialty box office, Argentina’s Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee Wild Tales picked up a swell $85,131 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, riding a wave of buzz for the anthology dark comedy.
Check out the full Top 10 below.
Title |
Weekend |
Total |
|
1. |
Fifty Shades of Grey |
$23,246,000 |
$130,148,000 |
2. |
Kingsman: The Secret Service |
$17,525,000 |
$67,106,000 |
3. |
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water |
$15,500,000 |
$125,172,000 |
4. |
McFarland, USA |
$11,315,000 |
$11,315,000 |
5. |
The DUFF |
$11,025,000 |
$11,025,000 |
6 |
American Sniper |
$9,650,000 |
$319,607,000 |
7 |
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 |
$5,800,000 |
$5,800,000 |
8. |
Jupiter Ascending |
$3,660,000 |
$39,517,000 |
9. |
The Imitation Game |
$2,565,000 |
$83,921,000 |
10. |
Paddington |
$2,289,000 |
$67,661,000 |