SpongeBob was expected to claim the top spot over the past weekend, however it made a much bigger splash than anyone anticipated. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water debuted in first place with a $56 million dollar opening to kick off the month of February. The franchise is now re-energized in live-action, so we should get ready, because it seems that the SpongeBob era was not just a phase.
American Sniper continues to perform remarkably well, only losing a little over 20% of its audience from the previous weekend. The war drama made another $24 million dollars bringing its total to over $282 million dollars and climbing.
The Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending was finally released after a long post-production that saw the film’s release date pushed almost a year. The movie made an estimated $19 million dollars over the weekend, however when the budget is at least $176 million, this can be classified as a huge box-office bomb. Fortunately Warner Bros has American Sniper offsetting the loss, while Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman are guaranteed money-makers for the studio next year, so there won’t be many feeling sorry for WB.
Seventh Son is another movie that the studio was afraid to release. The much troubled production was originally slated to be released February 2013, but ran into financial and creative differences that reportedly left a mess of a film. In its first week of release it made an estimated $7.1 million dollars. Between this movie and R.I.P.D., Jeff Bridges has had a tough time getting into genre movies after his early success in Iron Man.
Narrowly edging out Project Almanac for the fifth spot was Paddington. The family film made another $5.3 million and there are whispers that there will be a sequel on its way.
Check out the complete box-office breakdown for the weekend of February 6th-8th:
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count /Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | N | The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water | Par. | $56,000,000 | – | 3,641 | – | $15,380 | $56,000,000 | $74 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | American Sniper | WB | $24,165,000 | -21.2% | 3,885 | – | $6,220 | $282,265,000 | $58.8 | 7 |
| 3 | N | Jupiter Ascending | WB | $19,000,000 | – | 3,181 | – | $5,973 | $19,000,000 | $176 | 1 |
| 4 | N | Seventh Son | Uni. | $7,101,000 | – | 2,875 | – | $2,470 | $7,101,000 | – | 1 |
| 5 | 3 | Paddington | W/Dim. | $5,365,000 | -35.1% | 2,888 | -415 | $1,858 | $57,268,000 | – | 4 |
| 6 | 2 | Project Almanac | Par. | $5,330,000 | -35.9% | 2,900 | +7 | $1,838 | $15,759,000 | $12 | 2 |
| 7 | 7 | The Imitation Game | Wein. | $4,881,000 | -2.6% | 1,963 | -439 | $2,487 | $74,740,000 | – | 11 |
| 8 | 6 | The Wedding Ringer | SGem | $4,800,000 | -15.6% | 2,138 | -682 | $2,245 | $55,100,000 | $23 | 4 |
| 9 | 4 | Black or White | Rela. | $4,520,000 | -27.3% | 1,823 | – | $2,479 | $13,123,000 | – | 2 |
| 10 | 5 | The Boy Next Door | Uni. | $4,101,000 | -32.6% | 2,193 | -422 | $1,870 | $30,850,000 | $4 | 3 |
What did you catch over the weekend? Was it any good? Let us know on the comment boards, , , and !
Source: Box Office Mojo