Everything is awesome for Warner Bros.' toybox spectacle, The LEGO Movie, which crushed the competition with $69M. That's the second largest February bow in history and the largest in the studio's history, surpassing Happy Feet's $47M. The strong word of mouth, led by an 'A' Cinemascore, should carry over into next week's holiday weekend, meaning we may see LEGO build a bigger stack of cash than the Robocop remake. And with a sequel already in the works, it looks like Warner Bros. has the pieces for their next big franchise.
2. The Monuments Men- $22.7M
George Clooney's star power overcame a troubled production and middling reviews for The Monuments Men, which grossed a healthy $22.7M. That's the biggest open for Clooney behind the camera, beating out the weak $12M debut of Leatherheads in '08, and it's possible the film saw the benefit of moving away from the Oscar race when it would have been lost in the shuffle. It's still got some ways to go to hit the reported budget between $60-$70M, but the subject matter should make it a decent buy overseas.
3. Ride Along- $9.3M/$105.1M
4. Frozen- $6.9M/$368.6M
5. That Awkward Moment- $5.5M/$16.8M
6. Lone Survivor- $5.2M/$112.5M
7. Vampire Academy $4.1M
No matter how you slice it, $4.1M is an awful start for a wide release, and Vampire Academy now has the distinction of having the lowest debut for a major YA adaptation. Bravo! It's kind of surprising how little buzz there's been surrounding it and the general lack of support by The Weinstein Company, who didn't bother to screen it for press. And unlike most other films based on popular YA novels, they didn't offer a Thursday midnight premiere for the die-hard fans. It's not as if this was a tough film to market because a number of angles could have been taken. They might have been wise to play up the Heathers/Mean Girls connection, two cult hits that still get a lot of play with audiences young and old. Whatever, the film died and any chance of seeing the rest of the books brought to the big screen has died with it.
8. The Nut Job- $3.8M/$55M
9. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit- $3.6M/$44.4M
10. Labor Day- $3.2M/$10.1M
