'Boss Baby' Dethrones 'Beauty and the Beast' as 'Ghost in the Shell' Underperforms
It's close, but Fox and DreamWorks Animation's The Boss Baby narrowly beat Disney's Beauty and the Beast and delivered a #1 finish this weekend as it vastly over performed pre-release industry expectations. Meanwhile, Paramount's Ghost in the Shell debuted with the opposite result, finishing in third position and well below expectations. Elsewhere, Lionsgate's Power Rangers dropped over 60% in its second weekend while WB's Kong: Skull Island, Fox's Logan and Universal's Get Out delivered the best holds within the top ten.

Finishing atop the weekend box office, Fox and DWA's The Boss Baby brought in an estimated $49 million from 3,773 theaters. It currently stands as the tenth largest opening for a DreamWorks Animated title, but could find itself leap-frogging How to Train Your Dragon 2 should actuals come in just a bit higher. The result is also just a few million shy of the $52.1 million Home opened with over the same weekend in 2015 before it went on to gross over $175 million domestically and $386 million worldwide. It's worth noting, however, Home didn't face any animated competition for nearly three months following its release while Boss Baby will have to contend with the release of Smurfs: The Lost Village next weekend followed by Open Road's Spark after that.

Working in its favor, Boss Baby scored a solid "A-" CinemaScore from opening day audiences with moviegoers under the age of 18 scoring it an "A+". Of the opening weekend audience, 53% were female vs. 47% male with 62% of the audience coming in under the age of 25. Additional demographics show 52% of the audience was Caucasian, 19% Hispanic, 14% African American and 9% Asian. 67% of all audiences were families.

Internationally, Boss Baby opened in five markets last weekend and brought in $17.5 million, this weekend it added 37 markets and brought in an estimated $36.2 million bringing its international cume to $59 million. This result included DWA's best opening ever in Mexico with an estimated $6.5 million along with a $5.9 million opening in Russia and $5.3 million in France. The Boss Baby still has 44 additional international markets where it has yet to be released, including the UK and Sweden next weekend.

Finishing second is Disney's Beauty and the Beast with an estimated $47.5 million as its domestic cume climbs to $395.5 million after 17 days in release, putting it on a similar pace to 2008's The Dark Knight, which finished with $533.3 million domestically. Internationally, Beauty added another $66.5 million this weekend from 55 markets, which brings the film's global cume to over $875 million.

GET MORE: Compare the domestic performance of Beauty and the Beast versus The Dark Knight here!!

In third is Paramount's Ghost in the Shell, which brought in an estimated $19 million from 3,440 theaters. This is below industry expectations and well below Mojo's weekend forecast. Opening day audiences gave the film a "B" CinemaScore and of that audience 61% were male versus 39% female. While speculation as to why Ghost in the Shell under performed is sure to be a topic du jour, the opening weekend demographics provide a quick and easy indicator when compared to Scarlett Johansson's previous solo actioner Lucy, which debuted with $43.8 million and featured an opening weekend audience that was 50% female.

Lucy was also an R-rated feature compared to Ghost in the Shell's PG-13 adding to a case that could be made suggesting the action genre may not have to depend as much on the more audience-friendly PG-13 rating. Recent films such as Lucy, Deadpool; John Wick and it's sequel and Logan (just to name a few) have proven there are more than enough moviegoers ready to fill the seats for well made, R-rated genre actioners. As a matter of comparison, not only will it be interesting to track the final results for Ghost in the Shell opposite Johansson's Lucy, but as well to the upcoming release of Atomic Blonde, a hard-R actioner led by Charlize Theron that has already wowed festival audiences and the CinemaCon crowd this past week ahead of its late July release.

Internationally, Ghost in the Shell delivered an estimated $40.1 million from 50 international markets led by Russia where if finished #2 with an estimated $5.3 million. Additional performances include a third place opening in South Korea with $4.2 million; $3.1 million in France; $2.8 million in the UK; $2 million in Germany; $2.1 million in Mexico; $1.9 million in Brazil; $1.8 million in Australia; $1.3 million in Spain and $1.2 million in Hong Kong. Looking ahead, the film will soon open in Japan along with an April 7 bow in China.

Lionsgate's Power Rangers finished in fourth place with an estimated $14.5 million signaling a 64% second weekend drop, the worst among the top ten. While the film's $40 million opening was noteworthy, the $100 million price tag and such a steep drop doesn't necessarily help its sequel chances. That said, it did add $8.1 million internationally this weekend from 70 markets bringing its worldwide cume to just shy of $100 million with openings in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Finland and Sweden next week followed by a late April release in South Korea, May release in China and a July release in Japan.

Rounding out the top five is WB and Legendary's Kong: Skull Island, which dropped 40% this weekend, delivering an estimated $8.8 million as its cume now stands at $147.8 million to go along with a $329.5 million international gross for a worldwide total approaching $500 million.

Also dropping 40% was Fox's Logan, which finished in sixth with $6.2 million as its domestic total now stands at $211.8 million and it was Universal's Get Out with the best hold among the top ten once again, finishing with an estimated $5.8 million for a domestic cume that's now approaching $160 million on a $4.5 million budget.

Rounding out the top ten is Focus Features's The Zookeeper's Wife, which opened strong in just 541 theaters, bringing in an estimated $3.3 million. Lisa Bunnell, President of Distribution at Focus Features provided a quote saying, "We're very happy with our opening weekend, having a more limited title open in the top ten is a great accomplishment! The film played extremely well with our core audience - exit polls were huge with over 90% of the audience rating the film in the top two boxes - as a result we've decided to expand faster than originally planned. Adult audiences are looking for films with a great story and strong performances and The Zookeeper's Wife delivers." Look for Zookeeper's Wife to go wide next weekend, adding 200-300 additional locations.

Elsewhere, in limited release China Lion's The Devotion of Suspect X brought in an estimated $330k from 43 theaters ($7,674 PTA); Arrow Films' re-release of Donnie Darko brought in $53,200 from 21 theaters; and Janus Films' release of David Lynch: The Art of Life brought in $12,126 from one theater.

Next weekend sees the release of New Line's Going in Style in 3,000+ theaters, Sony's Smurfs: The Lost Village will debut in ~3,400 theaters and Pure Flix will release The Case for Christ in ~1,100 theaters. In limited release Fox Searchlight will be releasing Gifted in ~50 theaters and STX will release Their Finest at just four locations.

You can check out all of this weekend's estimated results right here and we'll be updating our charts with weekend actuals on Monday afternoon.

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