In a market filled with action films, \u00ab\u00a0Ready Player One\u00a0\u00bb is doing better with audiences<\/b>
\nWarner Bros.\/Village Roadshow\u2019s \u201cReady Player One\u201d is off to a solid start at the box office this Easter, posting a four-day domestic start of $53 million from 4,234 screens and a worldwide box office start of $181 million.
Prior to the weekend, trackers were split on how the film was going to perform, with some being more pessimistic with $40-42 million while others projected $55-60 million. \u201cReady Player One\u201d is hitting the upper end of that range, thanks in large part to an aggressive marketing campaign by WB that included a maze for fans of Ernest Cline\u2019s book on Hollywood\/Vine and a massive world premiere and VR installation at SXSW.
Unveiling the film at SXSW ended up being a smart move, as the film has since enjoyed a wave of positive word of mouth that has continued to this weekend with a 76 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and an A- from audiences on CinemaScore. With a $175 million budget, \u201cRP1\u201d will need that good word of mouth to keep it afloat at the box office through April.
Overseas, China did much of the heavy lifting as expected with $61.7 million, the highest ever opening for a WB release in that country and accounting for 48 percent of the film\u2019s $128 million international start. Globally, \u201cRP1\u201d made $19.1 million from IMAX screens, with $6.6 million coming from 405 domestic locations and $7.2 million from China.
In second place is \u201cTyler Perry\u2019s Acrimony\u201d with $17 million from 2,006 screens, a good start for the Lionsgate release that\u2019s slightly above projections. Opening night audiences were 75 percent female according to CinemaScore, with a grade of A-. While Perry is mostly known for his comedies, \u201cAcrimony\u201d is a thriller starring Taraji P. Henson as a wife striking back at her unfaithful husband.
\u201cBlack Panther\u201d takes third place with $11 million in its seventh weekend, pushing its enormous domestic cume to $650 million. This week, it will pass \u201cJurassic World\u201d on the all-time domestic charts, as well as \u201cTitanic,\u201d which has an unadjusted total of $659 million.
Globally, \u201cBlack Panther\u201d has $1.27 billion, passing last year\u2019s \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d remake on the all-time charts. This week, it will pass the $1.277 billion made by \u201cFrozen\u201d to become one of the top ten highest grossing films of all time.
In fourth place is Roadside Attractions\/Lionsgate\u2019s \u201cI Can Only Imagine,\u201d which has won the Easter battle among faith-based films despite being in its third weekend. With $10.7 million this weekend, the film now has a total of $55.5 million. That\u2019s a new studio record for Roadside Attractions, passing the $47.6 million it earned last year for the Oscar-winning \u201cManchester By The Sea.\u201d
\u201cI Can Only Imagine\u201d was in approxmiately 1,000 more screens than its competitor for evangelical moviegoers, \u201cGod\u2019s Not Dead: A Light In Darkness.\u201d Pure Flix\u2019s third installment in the \u201cGod\u2019s Not Dead\u201d trilogy is falling flat this weekend with an opening of just $2.6 million from 1,693 screens. That\u2019s a third of what \u201cGod\u2019s Not Dead 2\u201d made in its opening weekend two years ago and puts it twelfth on the charts this weekend. It even fell below Affirm\u2019s \u201cPaul, Apostle of Christ,\u201d which finished tenth this weekend with $3.5 million from 1,493 locations.
Completing the top five is Universal\/Legendary\u2019s \u201cPacific Rim: Uprising,\u201d which has taken a hard fall in its second weekend with $9.2 million, a 67 percent drop from its $28 million opening. The sequel now has a global total of $232 million, with just under $90 million made in China, where Legendary East is distributing.
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