'Insurgent' Leads the Way at the U.S. Box Office This Past Weekend
The second movie in the Divergent series took first position at the U.S. box office this past weekend, but it's dragging its heels after coming up short of its predecessor's opening weekend numbers.
The second film based on Veronica Roth’s dystopian adventure came in with $54 million of this weekends takings, according to studio estimates. That number is slightly behind Divergent, which brought $54.6 million when it opened last year. It's hardly a huge drop but does signify that interest in this franchise isn't growing, which tends to be a common trend when a franchise is nearing the end of their series of movies. Popularity notably grown with every Hunger Games release, and the same was seen when the Harry Potter franchise released all their movies. Having said that, Lionsgate will be fairly happy with those numbers with nothing needing to be changed as they head into production on the closing two films in the Divergent series — 'Allegiant' Parts One and Two — which will be released over the next two years.
Disney's live-action retelling of Cinderella dropped down into second place dropping 49 per cent to earn $34.4 million in its second weekend of release. Liam Neeson's Run All Night had a solid outing landing the third position and bringing with it $5.1 million.
The biggest disappointment came in the form of Sean Penn's The Gunman which opened this weekend in fourth place, mustering just over $5 million of this weekends takings. Although its trailers were strong, it looks as though audiences may be tiring of this well played out genre.
top 10 U.S. weekend BOX OFFICE (March 20-22, 2015)
1. Insurgent $54,025,000
2. Cinderella $34,492,000
3. Run All Night $5,115,000
4. The Gunman $5,009,000
5. Kingsman: The Secret Service $4,600,000
6. Do You Believe? $4,000,000
7. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel $3,450,000
8. Focus $3,300,000
9. Chappie $2,650,000
10. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water $2,350,000
