Overall business should rocket ahead of the same weekend from last year.
Zootopia opened stronger than expected, with $19.5 million on Friday. That beats The Lorax ($17.5 million) for the biggest opening Friday ever for an animated movie in the month of March. Disney's latest also outperformed Frozen ($15.2 million opening Wednesday) and Big Hero 6 ($15.8 million opening day) to become Disney Animation's biggest non-holiday opening Friday. Critics have been giving the film major acclaim (98% on Rotten Tomatoes), while the CinemaScore is a major "A". I'm not sure if this will play like Lorax as that film didn't have Thursday night previews (Zootopia earned $1.7 million on Thursday nigh), but regardless, its looking fairly likely this will wind up around $70 million (if not slightly higher) for the weekend.
London Has Fallen did decently in second place, opening to $7.6 million. That's off from the $10.3 million opening day gross of Olympus Has Fallen, but its still a fairy decent drop-off from the previous movie. Audiences gave the Gerard Butler action flick a promising "A-" CinemaScore despite negative reviews (27% on Rotten Tomatoes). Look for a $21 million weekend, in line with expectations.
Deadpool was (expectedly) dethroned, and was down 47% from last Friday to $4.7 million. Ryan Reynolds' antihero should make its way to around $16 million for the weekend, passing the $300 million milestone in the process.
Opening in fourth place with disappointing results was R-rated comedy Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Not benefiting from an odd title, the Tina Fey-Margot Robbie flick opened to just $2.4 million on Friday, in the midst of decent reviews (61% on Rotten Tomatoes) and a "B" CinemaScore. Look for a weekend of around $7 million.
Gods of Egypt rounded out the Top 5, but the floor came out from underneath it, as it plunged 72% to $1.3 million, in what will be a weekend of just $4.5 million. The rest of the holdovers were all negatively affected by the new competition, but I will talk about those on the weekend report tomorrow.
