“Kung Fu Panda 3” debuted this weekend and proved the irresistible power of panda at the North American box office.
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DreamWorks Animation’s first co-pro with Shanghai’s Oriental DreamWorks is delivering on Jeffrey Katzenberg’s investment in opening up avenues to the Chinese theatrical audience.
Recently released The Finest Hours starring Chris Pine and Casey Affleck opened with $10.3 million. The newest Kung Fu Panda film performed a bit lower than the opening weekends of the first and second installments of the franchise, but still came out relatively well. The film releases in US theaters on January 29, 2016.
Ride Along 2 rounded out the top five, earning $8.3 million in its third weekend.
“‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ truly filled a void in a marketplace that has been chock-full of adult dramas, awards-season contenders and other R-rated fare, and capitalized on this with a move from the typical summer release date”, says Rentrak senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
Directed by Craig Gillespie, Finest Hours recounts the real-life story of the Coast Guard’s heroic efforts to save the crew of two oil tankers sheared in two during a fierce storm off Cape Cod in 1952.
Fifty Shades of Black, on the other hand, barely managed to scrape ninth place.
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The “Fifty Shades of Grey” parody “Fifty Shades of Black” earned around $6.2 million, but it only cost a reported $5 million to produce, while The Weinstein Company’s Natalie Portman-led Western “Jane Got a Gun” misfired out of the gates, bringing in less than $1 million on a $25 million budget. IM Global and Wayans previously partnered on the spoof A Haunted House, which debuted to a pleasing $18 million. That’s impressive for a three hour, R-rated movie. The Leonardo DiCaprio hit earned an estimated $12.4 million to bring its domestic total to $138.2 million. The film has got 895.4 million dollars in total ticket sales in North America.
