smurfs-the-lost-village

Following a record-breaking March, but prior to the release of next week’s ‘The Fate of the Furious’, it looks as though the major studios sat this weekend out with ‘Smurfs: The Lost Village’ and ‘Going In Style’ being the only major releases to enter the Top Five.  Unfortunately, they were at #3 and #4 respectively. Dreamworks’ ‘The Boss Baby’ featuring Alec Balwin and Disney’s juggernaut ‘Beauty and the Beast’ held on to the top two spots, but even they didn’t do phenomenally.  ‘The Boss Baby’ added $26.3 million to its overall take, while ‘Beauty and the Beast’ made an additional $25M.

‘Smurfs’ made $14M, while ‘Going In Style’ made $12.5M.  The controversial ‘Ghost In The Shell’ rounded out the Top Five, with $7.35M.

‘Smurfs’ seems to have lacked star power, even with Julia Roberts providing a voice.  This was the first fully-animated ‘Smurfs’ movie and that seems to have taken its toll.  And it doesn’t have the comedic draw of, say Adam Sandler in ‘Hotel Transylvania’ or Steve Carell in ‘Despicable Me’.  Roberts isn’t like, a thing to the elementary school crowd and this film lost Katy Perry who used to voice Smurfette.  Demi Lovato replaced her but… well, she’s no Katy Perry.

‘Going In Style’ was marketed to the over 50 crowd and the ones that showed up loved it, but that audience is also not the crowd that has to show up opening weekend either.  It may have some legs if positive word of mouth spreads.  Not surprisingly, the biggest audiences showed up to 7pm screenings, with 5pm screenings coming in second.  After that, it’s Nanna and Pop-Pop’s bedtime.

Here are the numbers:

  1. The Boss Baby (20th Century Fox/Dreamworks Animation) – $26.3M
  2. Beauty and the Beast (Disney) – $25M
  3. Smurfs: The Lost Village (Sony) – $14M
  4. Going In Style (Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow) – $12.5M
  5. Ghost In The Shell (Paramount/Dreamworks Animation) – $7.35M

You may have noticed that ‘Saban’s Power Rangers’ has already dropped out of the Top 5.  Not great, considering it’s the kick-off to a franchise for Lionsgate.

As ho-hum as ‘Smurfs: The Lost Village’ did, it will probably still do better than next week’s ‘Spark: A Space Tail’.  Not sure how to explain the absolute glut of family movies over the past few months, but they really seem to be cancelling each other out.  (Then again, the studios are probably hoping to cash in on the Spring Break season, although that’s mostly over now.)

As stated, also opening next week is ‘The Fate of the Furious’, the eighth in this blockbuster franchise.  That should dominate for a few weeks, since no other huge movies are scheduled to come out for a while.

But check back to see how it and the other movies do!

Source: Deadline