“Beauty And The Beast” blasted through box office records to open with $170 million in projected estimated weekend sales.
The film “absolutely obliterates expectations,” said movie analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
The Disney feature is the highest-grossing March film ever, the top-rated PG rated film of all time, and the seventh highest grossing debut in Hollywood history, said the analyst at comScore.
“Kong: Skull Island” was in second place at $29.9 million, and “Logan” placed third at $17.5 million.
Rounding out the 10 most-popular movies in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, as estimated by the studios and gathered by comScore, were “Get Out” ($13.5 million), “The Shack” ($6.1 million), “The Lego-Batman Movie” ($4.7 million), “The Belko Experiment” (premiering at $4 million), “Hidden Figures” ($1.5 million), “John Wick: Chapter Two” ($1.2 million) and “Before I Fall” ($1 million).
–City News Service