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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: Cinderella is the Belle of the Ball at the Weekend B.O.

March 17, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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Proving that big-budget, live-action reboots of animated classics like Snow White (Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman) and Sleeping Beauty (Disney’s Maleficent) can still cast a pretty potent spell on audiences both young and old, Disney’s sweeping, revisionist take on the Cinderella fable danced it’s way to the top of the weekend B.O. with a staggering $67.8M debut.

Starring Downton Abbey’s doe-eyed Lily James as the titular glass slipper wearer, Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother, and two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett as a Shakespeareanly-wicked Lady Tremaine, Cinderella was directed by Kenneth Branagh – who is no slouch in the Shakespeare department himself, having cut his teeth directing acclaimed big-screen adaptations of Hamlet, Henry V, and Much Ado About Nothing. Cinderella also generated much pre-release buzz from rabid Frozen fans eager to see Disney’s new short, Frozen Fever, which played before each screening of the film.

Taking the second spot at the box office with $11M was Liam Neeson and Ed Harris’ dark, revenge thriller Run All Night (Warner Bros.). Falling a bit short of such recent Neeson ventures as Taken 3, Non-Stop and A Walk Among the Tombstones (all of which opened well north of $12M) Night is getting great word of mouth from audiences, so, expect to see Neeson and Harris dueling it out for weeks to come.

On the specialized front, writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s indie horror sensation It Follows (Radius/TWC) raked in an impressive $160K on just four screens over the weekend as well. Already well on it’s way to cult, midnight movie status after scaring the pants off audiences at Sundance and last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the film’s plot centers around a sexually transmitted curse that unleashes a spooky, shapeshifting bad guy on the victim.

And if that sounds like a teenager’s worst nightmare come vividly to life, there’s a reason for that – It Follows is based on one of Mitchell’s real-life recurring nightmares. Featuring a killer 80s-infused electronic score by Rich Vreeland (aka Disasterpeace), It Follows has already grossed upwards of $1.2M in the UK alone and should prove to be a solid hit for Radius/TWC when the film hits the streaming market later this spring.

Complete Box Office Results – March 13-March 15, 2015