'10 Cloverfield Lane' thrives this weekend while Sacha Baron Cohen has lowest box office ever
That gives it a domestic total of over $125 million, an earning pace that's around 50% ahead of what "Frozen" did in the same period.
It's likely "Zootopia" won't become the cultural sensation "Frozen" was as it doesn't have the same catchy songs and focuses on some more mature topics, but it's safe to say that Walt Disney Animation Studios is building up an impressive resume to compete against Disney's other animation house, Pixar.
Out of the new releases this weekend, "10 Cloverfield Lane" is the big winner, coming in second with an estimated $25.2 million. The "spiritual sequel" to 2008's found-footage thriller "Cloverfield," producer J.J. Abrams' plan to keep the project under wraps until a few months ago when it debuted the film's trailer for the first time turned out to work perfectly. And the high praise from critics didn't hurt either.
It will be interesting to see if other studios will take a page from Paramount, which released "10 Cloverfield Lane," and be more on the sly about certain titles when promoting their upcoming slate.
Rumored to be budgeted north of $80 million by the time Sony had the film (it was originally developed at Paramount), the vulgar comedy is vintage Cohen and according to Deadline the film had an A- CinemaScore among audiences under 25 who saw it. But there was limited marketing for the movie, causing the buzz for "Cloverfield Lane" to completely overshadow the movie.
Sony likely is praying that the film becomes a cult hit when it hits home video/streaming, so at the very least it can break even on the movie.