Captain America: The Winter Soldier demolished the box office this weekend and set a new record for an April opening, pulling in $96 million over the three day frame. The movie was helped by good reviews and earned an "A" Cinemascore, so it should obviously do well going forward, especially now that studios are starting to take a chance on their tentpoles doing blockbuster business in the spring rather than summer. Looks like they're right to be confident, as Captain America should have little direct competition until the next Spider-Man comes out on May 2nd. The latest Marvel entry beat the the opening of the last Thor sequel ($86 million) and has already grossed $200 million worldwide- quite a success story for this comic book universe Marvel has created on screen.
In other news, that "C" Cinemascore took its toll on the second place Noah, which fell off a cliff this weekend, earning just $17 million for a $72 million total. It will cross $100 million easily but will need stronger overseas numbers to make its expensive budget back. In third was Divergent, which also suffered a big drop, but crossed $100 million this week for $114 million total- it's still a slight underperformer for the studio compared to other YA sensations like Hunger Games and Twilight, but it also cost less to produce. Incredibly, God's Not Dead took fourth place and now has the chance to be the top grossing indie of the year, despite little to no mainstream attention (it's barely been reviewed by the top critics), and The Grand Budapest Hotel rounded out the top five, continuing to do well, now having earned $32 million overall.
Top 5:
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier- $96.2 million
- Noah- $17 million
- Divergent- $13 million
- God's Not Dead- $7.7 million
- The Grand Budapest Hotel- $6.2 million
In limited release, Scarlett Johansson's other film, Under the Skin, earned $140,000 from just four screens, allowing her to have two movies with the highest per screen average of the weekend. Coming up next week it's the Kevin Costner football comedy Draft Day and Rio 2 for the kids, which will probably be big. Until then!
