Warner Bros.’ Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dramatically declined by 68 percent in its second weekend out – scoring just $52.4 million from 4,256 compared to last week’s epic $166 million.
Directed by Zack Snyder, the superhero title has accumulated $261.5 million domestically and $681.3 million worldwide. The poor reviews and B CinemaScore is surely catching up to the superhero battle between Superman (Henry Cavill) and Batman (Ben Affleck), although Warner’s domestic distribution chief Jeff Goldstein said they aren’t concerned with the drop.
“No matter how you slice it,” explained Goldstein, “to get to $52 million on any given weekend is an enormous accomplishment. We’re most focused on where we are in total. And our global number is huge.”
Holdovers for the weekend included Disney’s Zootopia and Universal’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which secured the second and third spot at the box office, respectively. The animated film fell only 17 percent in its fifth weekend with $20 million, gathering $275.9 million domestically and $787.6 million worldwide. The latter romantic comedy sequel, starring Nia Vardalos, dipped 38 percent and grossed an additional $11.1 million and has earned $36.5 million domestically after 10 days.
Faith-based drama God’s Not Dead 2, debuted over the weekend to only $8.1 million from 2,419 theaters – securing the fourth spot on the charts. The film centers on a teacher (played by Melissa Joan Hart) who gets involved in a legal controversy after bringing up Jesus in class.
Trailing closely behind in fifth place is Sony’s religious title Miracles From Heaven, which took in $7.6 million in its third weekend from 3,155 theaters. Domestically, the film has accumulated $46.2 million.
Falling outside of the top five is the weekend’s other new release Meet the Blacks. The film, starring Mike Epps, is a parody of the movie The Purge, and it took in $4.1 million from 1,011 theaters.
“We were thrilled with the gross,” said Mark Borde, co-president of Freestyle Releasing. “The core audience came out in force. We had a very high per-screen average and we expect this picture to continue to perform extremely well.”
Top 10 Films at Weekend Box Office: April 1-3
- Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice — $52.4 million
- Zootopia — $20 million
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 — $11.1 million
- God’s Not Dead 2 — $8.1 million
- Miracles From Heaven — $7.6 million
- Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1 — $5.7 million
- 10 Cloverfield Lane — $4.8 million
- Meet The Blacks — $4.09 million
- Eye In The Sky — $4.06 million
- Deadpool — $3.5 million
