Jennifer Lawerence’s ‘Red Sparrow’ debuts to $17 million, while Bruce Willis-starrer ‘Death Wish’ takes in an estimated $13 million; select Oscar nominees enjoy a last-minute surge before Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.
Movies from Jennifer Lawrence and Bruce Willis were no match for Disney and Marvel’s Black Panther, which amassed another $65.7 million in its third outing to leap past the $500 million mark in North America and earn nearly $900 million worldwide.
Black Panther — now the 10th biggest pic of all time domestically, not adjusted for inflation — nabbed the third biggest weekend in history behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($90.2 million) and Avatar ($68.5 million) after passing Avengers: Age of Ultron ($459 million) to become the second biggest Marvel title of all time in North America behind The Avengers ($623 million), not adjusted for inflation.
Overseas, the superhero tentpole earned another $56.2 million for a foreign tally of $396.6 million and global haul of $897.8 million.
Two new films opened opposite Black Panther — Red Sparrow, an action-thriller starring Lawrence, and Willis’ Death Wish remake.
From Fox and Chernin Entertainment, Red Sparrow beat Death Wish with an estimated $17 million from 3,056 theaters. The action thriller reunites Lawrence with her Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, and debuted to more than double what her last film, mother!, made in its first weekend. It also opened ahead of Lawrence’s Passengers ($14 million).
Based on the novel by Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow tells the tale of a Russian ballerina who, after suffering a career-ending injury, becomes a seductive and cunning intelligence operative. Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeremy Irons, Mary-Louise Parker and Charlotte Rampling co-star in the film, which reportedly cost a net $69 million to produce.
Death Wish, a remake of the 1974 revenge thriller, opened to an estimated $13 million from 2,847 locations. In the film, Willis stars as a doctor who takes the law into his own hands after an attack on his wife and daughter. The cast also includes Elisabeth Shue, Vincent D’Onofrio, Camila Morrone, Dean Norris and Mike Epps.
The movie, costing a reported $30 million to produce after tax rebates and incentives, marks the first release from MGM since the indie studio re-entered the domestic distribution business.
Red Sparrow currently has a 51 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Death Wish was crushed by critics with a 15 percent score (MGM didn’t lift the review embargo until the Thursday before opening). Both films, however, earned a B+ CinemaScore from audiences.
At the specialty box office, select movies competing in the Oscar race that are still in theaters benefited from a last-minute boost of interest before Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony. Guillermo del Toro’s frontrunner The Shape of Water, for example, was up 19 percent from last weekend, grossing an estimated $1.4 million from 832 theaters for a domestic total of $57.4 million.
Also, Sony Pictures Classics opens the Israeli film Foxtrot, which is up for best foreign-language feature, in select cinemas timed to the Oscars.
March 4, 8:35 p.m. An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Death Wish‘s gross. THR regrets the error.
More to come.
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