Box office report: Ride Along 2 dethrones Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ four-week run at the top of the box office has finally ended.
Ride Along 2 took first place over Martin Luther King weekend, debuting to $34 million over three days and an estimated $39.5 million over four. (Check back here tomorrow for full four-day figures.) That was enough to dethrone The Force Awakens, which placed third and only pulled in $25.1 million over three days and $31 million over four.
Scoring a B+ CinemaScore, Ride Along 2 finds Kevin Hart and Ice Cube reprising their roles as brothers-in-law from the 2014 original. The first Ride Along debuted on the same weekend two years ago, earning $41.5 million over three days and $48.6 million over four. At the time, it was the biggest MLK opening of all time, but that record only stood for one year: In 2015, American Sniper earned $89.3 million over three days and $107.2 million over four.
Second place went to The Revenant, which, after briefly upsetting Star Wars on Friday of last weekend, has officially pulled ahead, earning $29.5 million over three days. (It’s expected to earn about $35 million over four days.) After scoring 12 Oscar nominations this week, more than any other film, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s survival drama held up extremely well in its second wide-release weekend, falling only 26 percent. Through Sunday, its domestic total is now at $87.7 million.
As for The Force Awakens, its box office dominance may have come to a close, but it’s still hitting new heights: It is now only the fifth movie in history to cross $1 billion at the international box office, joining Avatar, Titanic, Furious 7, and Jurassic World. Its worldwide total is now at $1.86 billion. The Force Awakens is also still the highest-grossing domestic movie of all time, having crossed $851.1 million over three days and $856.9 million through Monday.
Fourth place went to another new release this weekend, Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Starring John Krasinski, 13 Hours follows six former military operators during the 2012 terrorist attack on an American diplomatic compound in Libya, and it earned an A CinemaScore. According to Paramount, the film overperformed in the southern parts of the United States: 41 percent of its debut came from the South, while other films in theaters generated about 33 percent of their weekend gross in the South.
Daddy’s Home rounded out the top five, earning an estimated $9.3 million. Its domestic total through Sunday is now at $129.3 million, and the Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell-starring comedy is expected to earn $11.4 million over four days.
This weekend’s other new release, Norm of the North, debuted in sixth place with $6.7 million over three days. Starring Rob Schneider and Heather Graham, the animated comedy earned an A- CinemaScore from viewers under 18 and an overall score of B-. It’s projected to earn $8.8 million over four days.
Here are this weekend’s top five at the box office, through Sunday. Check back tomorrow for the full four-day weekend numbers:
1. Ride Along 2 — $34 million
2. The Revenant — $29.5 million
3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens — $25.1 million
4. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi — $16 million
5. Daddy’s Home — $9.3 million