Once again, 'Boss Baby' and 'Beauty' battle for box office dominance
Baby is still the boss, for now.
The family-friendly animated feature starring Alec Baldwin's voice remained atop the box office charts for the second weekend in a row -- and the second since it was released. Domestic weekend estimates point to a $26.3 million weekend for The Boss Baby.
Trailing closely behind at No. 2 is Disney's live-action re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, which is projected to make $25 million in the U.S. this weekend. Estimates for both movies are close enough right now that the top-two could easily switch once final weekend figures come in on Monday.
It's a repeat of last week, when Baby opened against Disney's then-three-week-old competition. Estimates pointed to a $1.5 million divide between the two -- $49 million versus $47.5 million -- and the gap only widened with the final tally: $50.2 million for Baby and $45.4 million for Beauty.
The tight weekend race is an illusion, however, and overall numbers tell the story more clearly. In the four weeks since Disney's latest live-action remake arrived, Beauty and the Beast has earned -- including the latest estimate -- a massive $432.3 million domestically. Baby, only two weeks in with $89.4 million in U.S. ticket sales, has little hope of catching up.
It's certainly not a bad performance, especially when you add in the additional $110.4 million (and counting) from foreign ticket sales. But it's not the billion-dollar movie that Beauty -- with a worldwide total of $977.4 million -- is days away from becoming.
Baby benefits most for being the first family-friendly animated feature to surface since The Lego Batman Movie opened on Feb. 10. It also brings a star-studded cast that includes Lisa Kudrow, Jimmy Kimmel, Steve Buscemi, and Tobey Maguire,
That family-friendly bump didn't help the weekend's current third-place finisher, Smurfs: The Lost Village. Sony's third Smurfs feature is looking at a $14 million opening weekend, based on current estimates.
The previous two movies combined for just shy of $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, but U.S. figures notably accounted for just a quarter of that total. The bulk of the series' success to-date has come from foreign markets
That is likely to be true once again for The Lost Village. It's already been released in more than 30 foreign markets, and China -- which rivals the U.S. as one of the largest film markets in the world -- is still to come.
Expect big changes in the box office landscape next week as The Fate of the Furious and The Lost City of Z both hit theaters.
All current estimates provided by comScore and all historical figures come from Box Office Mojo.
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
