• Box Office

World Box Office, March 28- April 3

After dominating the charts last weekend, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice showed itself to be not quite as invincible as its namesakes. The Zack Snyder superhero romp handily took both the domestic and international top spots, though it dropped a heavy 68% across its markets. The domestic second frame haul was worth $52.4 million, compared to $170.1 million last week, while overseas it followed its $254 million debut with a return take of $85 million.  It caught a tough break in China where the national Tomb Sweeping holiday favored local films moving into more screens and led BvS to a poor fourth place finish with $12.4 million.  In Mexico it reached $29.7 million and became Warner Brother’s biggest film of all time in that market, and reached the same milestone in Brazil after coming to a $21.7 million cumulative. It has reached $39.7 million in the UK, $17.2 million in Australia, and $14.5 million in North Korea.

It's hard to call a movie that has made $682 million in just ten days a disappointment, but for a picture that generated nearly half a billion dollars out of the gate from its title and trailers alone BvS certainly hasn’t lived up to its potential. Most of the fault comes down to plain bad reviews and a disappointing B Cinemascore. The only other superhero film to have approached a 70% return frame drop was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and even then it ended up with a decent 2.11x domestic multiplier and went on to earn $373.4 million globally.

Zootopia on the other hand showed no sign of slowing down as it took second place on both the domestic and international charts at the close of its fifth week in theatres.  It made $30 million in 52 overseas markets, including $12.8 million in China, where it beat BvS, and even rose 11% in South Korea to reach $23.4 million in that market. It also earned $20 million on the domestic front, reaching a US and Canada cume of $275.9 million. Its combined worldwide gross is now $787.6 million, which puts it at 12th on the all time animated films chart.

Another film that flexed its legs this frame was My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which came in 3rd on $11.1 million after dropping just 38% from its opening week. It made $5.6 million overseas, including $2.2 million in Australia, the original’s biggest foreign territory. It has now reached a worldwide cumulative of $54.8 million from a reported $18 million budget.

Another follow-up to a runaway hit has yet to show whether it will surpass the original’s success. God’s Not Dead 2 opened to $8.1 million at the US box office this weekend, slightly lower than the first film’s $9.2 million. The 2014 faith-based phenomenon drummed up $62.6 million from a $2 million budget and left Hollywood wondering whether evangelical Christians were its next silver-platter demographic. Its sequel earned an A Cinemascore, something that isn’t uncommon for pictures with such a specific target audience, and could still go on to pull relatively massive sums in the coming weeks. To round up the top five was Miracles from Heaven, another faith-based picture, which took $7.6 million and, after three weeks, stands at a domestic total of over $ 46 million.

Next weekend we’ll see how well BvS holds out against this current crop of holdovers, and against Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts in Demolition.