March 26, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
The Croods and Olympus Has Fallen prevented a three-peat by holdover Oz the Great and Powerful at the domestic box office over the crowded weekend as both of the pair of newcomers opened strongly. DreamWorks Animation’s latest family adventure debuted in first place with numbers more typical of the studio’s more popular films in the past and turned its previous stumble, when Rise of the Guardians was gobbled up by the final Twilight and Skyfall, into ancient history.
Meanwhile, Olympus Has Fallen accomplished what The Call did the previous weekend and further bucked the recent trend of weak debuts for R-rated action movies. Antoine Fuqua’s White House shoot-’em-up thriller, which stars Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman, also topped the opening take of A Good Day to Die Hard, which owned the previous high for an action film this year.
Finally, Admission opened weakly in fifth place behind holdover The Call. The Tina Fey and Paul Rudd comedy was nearly beaten by Spring Breakers, which jumped from 27th to 6th as the controversial Disney-girls-gone-wild dramedy expanded nationwide over the weekend to about half the number of theaters that Admission played in.
This week it’ll be interesting to see how receptive moviegoers will be when G.I. Joe: Retaliation is finally released after being delayed in the 11th hour last summer to incorporate 3D. Here were the weekend’s top five via BOM:
- The Croods — Weekend Gross: $43.6 million — Total Gross: $43.6 million (new)
- Olympus Has Fallen — Weekend Gross: $30.4 million — Total Gross: $30.4 million (new)
- Oz the Great and Powerful — Weekend Gross: $21.6 million — Total Gross: $177.1 million (#1 last week)
- The Call — Weekend Gross: $8.9 million — Total Gross: $31.1 million (#2 last week)
- Admission — Weekend Gross: $6.2 million — Total Gross: $6.2 million (new)
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