In addition to opening at the No. 1 spot in the US with an estimated $41 million (breaking the January opening record), Kung Fu Panda 3’s day-and-date release in China and other key overseas markets has brought in an additional $75.7 million in global box office takings. This may have been due to weak competition in theaters, the holiday surge of awards movies growing stale, a paltry offering of new weekend releases, and a seeming drought of animated films (giving exception to Norm of the North, coined a failure on many different levels).
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The voice cast sees the return of franchise stars Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan and Seth Rogen, while Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda 2) shares directing duties with Alessandro Carloni. Pooling in $10 million on its seventh weekend, the movie has now grossed $1.98 billion worldwide. Star Wars: The Force Awakens added $10.7 million and is nearing $900 million in North America alone.
The latest Star Wars, Fast and Furious and Transformers movies were also very popular in China, but Kung Fu Panda 3 is even more tailor made for China than other American films, CNN said.
Kung Fu Panda 3’s weekend box office performance was a much needed victory for DreamWorks. Newcomer “The Finest Hours” enters the chart at No. 4 with an estimated $10.3 million, while “Ride Along 2” rounds out the top five with approximately $8.3 million.
Exhibitor Relations estimated the film made US$12.4 million its sixth week in theatres.
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The Weinstein Co.is releasing Jane Got a Gun on behalf of the producers, who pulled the film from Relativity Media last summer as Relativity faced bankruptcy. The film now has a total domestic gross of $139 million, a big thanks to that being the Oscar hype around it.
