April 21, 2014 by Vinnie Leduc
Despite yesterday being Easter and 4/20, Christians and stoners couldn’t prevent Captain America: The Winter Soldier from becoming the third film of 2014 to three-peat at the domestic box office, although the former group of moviegoers did much better than the latter.
The second Captain America feature and ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which set an opening record for April earlier this month, joins Ride Along and The Lego Movie as 2014 back-to-back-to-back champs and also crossed the $200 million mark in North America.
Continuing the strong trend of faith-based movie releases so far this year, Heaven is For Real‘s impressive debut of $22.5 million was just about $3 million shy of the third weekend take of The Winter Soldier, our #3 most anticipated movie of the year, and barely enough to dislodge holdover family flick Rio 2 from the runner-up spot. If not for an early Wednesday release, Heaven is For Real might have been able to pull off the stunning upset over Captain America.
Stoners helped lift horror parody sequel A Haunted House 2 to fifth place in its opening, just behind Transcendence, which flopped in fourth place. The sci-fi thriller reportedly cost $100 million to make but only grossed $10.9 million in its first weekend, and it’s the third consecutive big-budget bomb in North America for Johnny Depp.
Bears, Disneynature’s annual Earth Day release, opened in tenth place with $4.8 million, the lowest debut ever for the studio. However, Frozen just won’t “let it go” as it keeps on lighting up the global box office. Disney’s hit 3D animated musical passed both the third Lord of the Rings and third Transformers to grab the number six spot of all time, where it’ll ultimately settle behind the third Iron Man feature.
This upcoming weekend, The Winter Soldier will likely do what The Avengers couldn’t and become the first movie since the first Hunger Games to four-peat at the domestic box office when a trio of major releases joins the mix. It includes action remake Brick Mansions, comedy The Other Woman, and horror story The Quiet Ones.
Here are the numbers for the top five of the domestic box office over the weekend via BOM:
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier — Weekend Gross: $25.6 million — Total Gross: $200.5 million (#1 last week)
- Heaven is For Real — Weekend Gross: $22.5 million — Total Gross: $25.6 million (new)
- Rio 2 — Weekend Gross: $22.2 million — Total Gross: $75.0 million (#2 last week)
- Transcendence — Weekend Gross: $10.9 million — Total Gross: $10.9 million (new)
- A Haunted House 2 — Weekend Gross: $8.8 million — Total Gross: $8.8 million (new)
