After the delivering the best March debut of all time last weekend, Beauty and the Beast is poised to continue dominating the box office in its second frame with what could be the best pre-summer sophomore weekend in history. Disney’s latest blockbuster needs only to top American Sniper‘s $64.63 million second set to achieve that.
While the path to that seems clear, this weekend brings several new releases vying for their piece of the monstrous March box office. The leading candidate of the bunch is Lionsgate’s Power Rangers, which has been trending very well across social media and industry tracking. The latter has shown indicators of interest being in line with last summer’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, while social media buzz has been bolstered by the film’s inclusive themes and stronger interest from girls and women who grew up with the series. However, that’s a shared core audience it will have to fight for against Beauty and the Beast.
The sci-fi thriller Life could be something of a dark horse this weekend. As an R-rated, sci-fi thriller, Sony is hoping early positive reviews will support its ambitions of counter-programming the younger-skewing films in the market. Ryan Reynolds (fresh off Deadpool success), Jake Gyllenhaal, and Rebecca Ferguson (of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation fame) round out an appealing lead cast that has helped drive interest to levels hovering between 25 to 35 percent behind Arrival‘s pre-release metrics back in November.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros.’ CHiPS adaptation is unfortunately looking to draw the short end of the stick this weekend. The film’s modest $25 million production budget is important to keep in mind, but marketing hasn’t scored many points with audiences up to this point. In a crowded market, it will be a challenge for the flick to stand out despite the fact that comedy fans are growing hungry in a year that hasn’t seen many offerings from that particular genre so far.
Check out our weekend forecast in the table below.
| Title | Distributor | Weekend | Domestic Total through Sunday, March 26 | % Change |
| Beauty and the Beast (2017) | Buena Vista | $81,000,000 | $307,110,000 | -55.00% |
| Power Rangers | Lionsgate | $36,000,000 | $36,000,000 | NEW |
| Life | Sony/Columbia | $16,500,000 | $16,500,000 | NEW |
| Kong: Skull Island | Warner Bros. | $13,920,000 | $132,060,000 | -49.99% |
| Logan | Fox | $8,910,000 | $199,730,000 | -49.99% |
| Get Out | Universal | $8,730,000 | $147,270,000 | -35.03% |
| CHiPS | Warner Bros. | $8,250,000 | $8,250,000 | NEW |
| The Shack | Lionsgate/Summit | $3,600,000 | $48,440,000 | -40.06% |
| The LEGO Batman Movie | Warner Bros. | $2,760,000 | $171,440,000 | -40.03% |
| The Belko Experiment | BH Tilt | $1,860,000 | $7,540,000 | -55.04% |
Shawn Robbins and Alex Edghill contributed to this report.
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