While the winter storm that rocked the northeast U.S. clearly affected theater attendance, the overall ranking of the weekend’s top 10 films shook out about as expected, with The Revenant and The Force Awakens leading the pack and a trio of new releases enjoying decent — but not amazing — opening weekends. And despite the second-place finish for the Star Wars sequel, the film’s weekend earnings nudged The Force Awakens that much closer to the elusive $2 billion worldwide mark, which it now stands just $60 million shy of reaching.
With The Revenant riding high on Oscar buzz and The Force Awakens cruising along on a potent mix of nostalgia and spectacle, it was Ride Along 2 that suffered the biggest week-to-week drop after winning the box-office race last weekend. The sequel to Ride Along saw its ticket sales fall by more than 63 percent in its second week in theaters, which suggests that the film’s big premiere might not be followed by a long run.
| # | Title | Weekend | U.S. Total | Worldwide Total |
| 1. | The Revenant | $16M | $119.2M | $223.6M |
| 2. | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | $14.2M | $879.3M | $1,940M |
| 3. | Ride Along 2 | $13M | $59.1M | $69.5M |
| 4. | Dirty Grandpa | $11.5M | $11.5M | $11.5M |
| 5. | The Boy | $11.3M | $11.3M | $11.3M |
| 6. | The 5th Wave | $10.7M | $10.7M | $38.1M |
| 7. | 13 Hours | $9.7M | $33.5M | $33.5M |
| 8. | Daddy’s Home | $5.3M | $138.8M | $198M |
| 9. | Norm of the North | $4.1M | $14.3M | $14.3M |
| 10. | The Big Short | $3.5M | $56.7M | $87.4M |
Of the new releases hitting theaters over the weekend, the raunchy odd-couple comedy Dirty Grandpa had the best premiere of the bunch — likely owing to the multigenerational draw of co-stars Zac Efron and Robert De Niro. Even so, the film’s poor reviews aren’t going to help it stick around in theaters.
Meanwhile, creepy horror film The Boy enjoyed a respectable $11.3 million opening that should please its studio, given the film’s meager $10 million production budget. On the flip side, sci-fi series-starter The 5th Wave only managed to bring in $10.7 million for a film budgeted at more than $38 million, so it remains to be seen whether we’ll see the rest of the young-adult series that inspired the film brought to the big screen.
As for the rest of the weekend’s highest-grossing films, Michael Bay’s politically charged thriller 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi continued to underperform at the box office, while Oscar contender The Big Short enjoyed another decent weekend due in no small part to the award buzz surrounding the film.
Next weekend brings a few notable new releases, including the animated sequel Kung Fu Panda 3, the parody film Fifty Shades of Black, and Disney’s Coast Guard drama The Finest Hours.
