Box office report: Fifty Shades of Grey scores biggest February debut ever
Fifty Shades of Grey already took the crown for biggest Valentine’s Day debut ever, and now the erotic drama can add biggest Presidents Day debut ever to its list of honors: The book adaptation ended the four-day weekend with $94.4 million—over $30 million more than the previous record-holder, 2010’s Valentine’s Day.
Fifty Shades had a strong opening thanks to fans of the book, and thanks to the hype surrounding the film—one that people aren’t seeing thanks to its reviews. (The film has a 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s not exactly Oscar bait.) These factors helped give Sam Taylor-Johnson’s movie the biggest Februrary debut yet: With an $85 milllion three-day total, Fifty Shades just barely beat out previous record-holder The Passion of the Christ, which made $83.9 million in 2004.
Kingsman: The Secret Service didn’t make as much as Fifty Shades, but it still had an impressive weekend. The Matthew Vaughn-directed action flick brought in $42 million over the four days and $36.2 over the three days—considerably more than Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, a film also based on a relatively obscure comic that opened with $19.8 million in 2010.
In other milestones, American Sniper reached a big one this weekend: The Clint Eastwood-directed war movie crossed $300 million at the domestic box office after just a month in theaters. The Oscar-nominated film is now one of just 50 movies to cross the $300 million mark, and is on its way to climbing further up the list: So far, Sniper’s grossed an estimated $307.2 million domestically.
1. Fifty Shades of Grey — $94.4 million
2. Kingsman: The Secret Service — $42 million
3. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water — $40 million
4. American Sniper — $19.5 million
5. Jupiter Ascending — $10.7 million