• Entertainment & Connectivity

APEX Hollywood Shortlist: Female-driven films dominate weekend B.O.

March 24, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

Share

They may hail from two very different “factions,” but Insurgent’s Tris and Disney’s Cinderella kicked the box office into high gear this weekend in a girl-powered, one-two punch for the ages.

Landing in first place with a solid $52.2M was the second entry in Lionsgate’s Divergent series, The Divergent Series: Insurgent. Based on the hugely-popular young adult (YA) novels by Veronica Roth, the current chapter in the series finds heroes Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) on the run in the dystopian ruins of Chicago. Woodley’s rabid fangirl (and fanboy!) following from such recent YA monster hits as 2013’s The Spectacular Now and last year’s The Fault in our Stars, likely filled many seats over the weekend opening. Insurgent was also given a boost behind the scenes with the addition of German-born helmer Robert Schwentke – the mad genius behind Flightplan and Red. With Woodley, Schwentke and the rest of the cast returning for the penultimate chapter, The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1 (due to be released this time next year) expect to see even more Insurgent insanity for a while to come.

Also whipping fangirls of a different, and probably younger-skewing variety, into a lather for the second weekend in a row was Disney’s Cinderella which took in a princely $34.9M at second place. Dancing past the $100M mark in the US earlier in the week, Cinderella’s outlook for a happy ending in the foreign market is even more magical with an impressive $131.1M haul to date.

Having a harder go of it over the weekend was the Sean Penn top-lined action drama, The Gunman (Open Road Films) which opened in fourth place with $5M.

Also opening wide was Do You Believe? from the faith-based Pure Flix Entertainment, the company behind last year’s sleeper hit God’s not Dead. Starring Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino, Sean Astin and retro power duo Cybill Shepherd and Lee Majors, Do You Believe? took in a heavenly $3.5M on 1,320 screens.

And on the specialized front, David Zellner’s indie-sensation Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter took in $40.4K in four theaters for a per screen average of $8,529. Starring Oscar-nominee Rinko Kikuchi as a Japanese tourist searching the American heartland for the “lost treasure,” the darkly comedic Kumiko should prove to be an art-house hit for up-and-coming indie distributor Amplify Releasing.

Complete Box Office Results – March 20-March 22, 2015