Box Office: ‘Cars 3’ Beats ‘Wonder Woman’ With $53.5M; ‘All Eyez on Me’ Nabs $27M
In a surprise upset, Mandy Moore shark thriller ’47 Meters Down’ beats the R-rated female comedy ‘Rough Night,’ starring Scarlett Johansson; ‘Wonder Woman’ approaches $600 million globally.
Despite signs of franchise fatigue, Pixar and Disney’s Cars 3 dominated the road at the North American box office over the weekend.
The threequel opened to an estimated $53.5 million from 4,256 theaters, enough to beat ruling champ Wonder Woman. It is anticipating a brisk Sunday, thanks to Father’s Day (the movie is skewing slightly male). Overseas, Cars 3 debuted to $21.3 million from its first handful of territories for a global start of $74.8 million.
Make no mistake, Wonder Woman continues to impress, falling a scant 30 percent in the U.S. to $40.8 million for a domestic cume of $274.6 million. The Warner Bros. movie, directed by Patty Jenkins, enjoyed one of the best third weekends in history for a superhero film. Internationally, Wonder Woman’s hold is almost as good, earning another $39.5 million for a foreign total of $297.2 million and worldwide tally of $571.8 million.
In the coming days, Wonder Woman will eclipse 2008’s Mamma Mia! ($609.8 million) to become the top-grossing female-directed film of all time, not accounting for inflation.
Cars 3 nabbed an A CinemaScore. That means all 18 Pixar films have received some variation of the top grade. It is also the 16th Pixar movie to open at No. 1.
At the same time, Cars 3 came in 19 percent behind the $66.1 million domestic debut of Cars 2 in 2011, which went on to earn $562.1 million worldwide. The original Cars, which hit theaters in 2006, opened to $60.1 million in its North American bow before topping out at $462.2 million worldwide. Overall, Cars merchandise is a huge revenue generator for Disney.
The threequel follows the legendary Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) as he’s pushed out of the sport he loves by a new generation of blazing-fast racers. He enlists the help of a young race technician (voiced by Cristela Alonzo) to help him get back in the game.
The other big headline of the weekend was the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me, directed by Benny Boom. The movie, landing at No. 3, came in ahead expectations with $27.1 million from 2,471 theaters.
Lionsgate’s Codeblack Films partnered with Lionsgate on the movie, which was released on what would have been the late iconic rapper’s 46th birthday. Named after Shakur’s fourth studio album, the film includes over a dozen songs from his music catalog.
The biopic, starring Demetrius Shipp Jr., grabbed an A CinemaScore. The cast also includes Kat Graham, who plays Jada Pinkett-Smith, who was close to Shukur. (Pinkett-Smith says the movie is “deeply hurtful.”) More than half of the audience was African-American (52 percent), followed by Caucasians (22 percent), Hispanics (19 percent) and Asians/Others. That’s on par with the audience breakdown for Straight Outta Compton, which debuted to more than $60 million two summers ago.
Universal’s The Mummy followed at No. 4 with $13.9 million from 4,034 locations for a 10-day domestic total of $56.6 million through Sunday. While the Tom Cruise starrer might be lagging in the U.S., it continues to do solid business overseas, where it won the weekend with $53 million from 68 markets for a foreign total of $239.1 million and global cume of $295.6 million.
In North America, the news was rough for Sony’s raunchy female comedy Rough Night. The R-rated movie fell flat with $8.1 million from 3,162 theaters. The $20 million film stars Scarlett Johansson, Ilana Glazer, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell and Zoe Kravitz as a group of friends who gather for a weekend-long bachelorette bash.
In a surprise upset, Rough Night was beaten by the femme-centric shark thriller 47 Meters Down, starring Mandy Moore and Claire Holt. The film, the first major title from Byron Allen’s distribution venture Entertainment Studios, grossed $11 million from 2,270 theaters to land at No. 5.
Rough Night received a C+ CinemaScore, while 47 Meters garnered a C.