Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is #1

For the weekend of May 5-7, 2017, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was the easy, obvious winner. It out-opened the original one by a significant margin, and the MCU just keeps rolling out the hits. We're now 15 movies in, and the only one that wasn't profitable was the Edward Norton-led Incredible Hulk in 2008. GotG2 was the fifth-highest opener for the MCU, behind only Avengers 1 & 2, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: Civil War.

Beauty & the Beast and The Fate of the Furious have both grossed over $1.1 billion worldwide.

Opens May 12
SNATCHED with Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Ike Barinholtz and Joan Cusack.
KING ARTHUR with Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Eric Bana and Astrid Berges-Frisbey.

Beauty & the Beast - Movie Review

Starring Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Written by Stephen Chbosky & Evan Spiliotopoulos.
Directed by Bill Condon.

★★★

This movie for the most part balanced that fine line between being faithful to the original but finding parts where it can be its own thing. If anything, it's too faithful to the original, so that variances stuck out more.

Emma Watson is Belle, our French bookworm who longs for adventure. Dan Stevens is the Beast, a spoiled prince living in a cursed castle. One element they added that I appreciated was an explanation on why the townspeople didn't seem to know about this castle or this alleged prince.

The "Be Our Guest" number was a highlight, no small thanks to Ewan McGregor's capable vocals. Luke Evans as Gaston does the best among the human actors.

Boss Baby still #1, Smurfs #3

For the weekend of April 7-9, 2017, The Boss Baby won again. I wonder if its success can be credited to appealing to adults who wouldn't begrudge taking their kids to it (how many kids will get a Glengarry Glen Ross reference?), as opposed to Smurfs: The Lost Village, which looks more like kids-only fare.

It managed to hang on to #1 over Beauty & the Beast thanks to adding a handful of screens while Beauty lost a handful.

Going in Style performed about as expected, just a pleasant cliched movie to appeal to seniors.

The Case for Christ scaled back its screen count, but this allowed its per-screen average to look good. It's also one of the few PureFlix titles to score at least 70% at RottenTomatoes.

Your Name made over $300 million overseas but it's getting its US release now.

Opens April 14
FATE OF THE FURIOUS with Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron and Kurt Russell.

Boss Baby Bests Beauty at Box Office

For the weekend of March 31-April 2, 2017, The Boss Baby was the big winner. It had been tracking to be close with Ghost in the Shell two weeks ago, but it overachieved. Big-studio animation continues to be a cash cow.

Ghost in the Shell might have suffered some last-minute backlash due to the "whitewash" controversy. Taking a popular manga and 1995 animated movie and changing the races of some of the characters from Japanese to Caucasian might have turned some people off. On the other hand, I don't think this movie gets greenlit with this budget unless they had a big name to headline it. Catch 22.

The Zookeeper's Wife went with a smaller opening and managed to best Ghost in the Shell in the per-screen average category.

Beauty & the Beast should cross $400 million domestic tomorrow, and I'd say passing the $1 billion mark worldwide is guaranteed.

Power Rangers had the biggest drop in the top ten. Those who wanted to see it, saw it, and it should plummet quickly in weeks 3, 4 and so on.

Opens April 7
SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE with the voices of Mandy Patinkin and Demi Lovato.
GOING IN STYLE with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Alan Arkin and Matt Dillon.
THE CASE FOR CHRIST with Mike Vogel, Faye Dunaway and Robert Forster.

Beauty & the Beast still #1, Power Rangers #2

For the weekend of March 24-26, 2017, Beauty & the Beast held strong. It's very rare a movie can open that huge and then have less than 50% dropoff in its second week. It looks guaranteed to pass $400 million domestic and getting to $1 billion worldwide is very doable. This movie is about as big as Rogue One. Disney is having an amazing run right now.

Of the new releases, Power Rangers did the best. Strong opening, justifies a sequel.

Life couldn't overcome it looking like an Alien ripoff, despite some star power. It baffles me why the final TV ads for the movie shows one of the movie stars getting killed.

CHiPS bombed. Maybe there's a limit on making R-rated romps out of harmless 1970's TV fare. I don't think we can expect an R-rated Little House on the Prairie anytime soon.

Opens March 31
GHOST IN THE SHELL with Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche and Takeshi Kitano.
THE BOSS BABY with the voices of Alec Baldwin, Lisa Kudrow and Steve Buscemi.
THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE with Jessica Chastain, Daniel Bruhl and Johan Heldenbergh.

Beauty & the Beast sets March box-office record

For the weekend of March 17-19, 2017, Beauty & the Beast had the largest March opening of all time and actually the seventh largest opening of any month ever. When final numbers come out it could slip behind the $169.18 million set by the final Harry Potter movies. (Emma Watson can now claim she is in two of the ten highest openers of all time.) It's the highest opening ever for a non-sequel. It's the highest opening ever for a PG movie.

The Belko Experiment was an after-thought on 1341 screens.

Logan and Kong: Skull Island had expected drops, when facing such a juggernaut.

La La Land dropped 70%, finally out of the top ten.

Opens March 24
POWER RANGERS with Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Elizabeth Banks and Bryan Cranston.
LIFE with Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and Hiroyuki Sanada.
CHIPS with Dax Shepard, Michael Pena, Jessica McNamee and Vincent D'Onofrio.