Box Office Insider: 'LEGO Movie 2' And 'What Men Want' Win the Weekend |

Each week on Atom Insider, we break down the box office numbers for all of the biggest films opening in theaters. This week, a new animated sequel opens big—but not that big—and a romantic comedy beats out a cold thriller.

This Week’s Top Earner – ‘The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part’

The year is young, but Warner Bros. has finally cracked the Top 10 global box office of 2019 with The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (give them a break, Aquaman has been cleaning house since December). The animated sequel to the 2014 surprise hit opened with $34.4 million domestically, plus another $18.1 million overseas.

We expected LEGO Movie 2 to dethrone Glass this weekend, and it did, but it’s not all good news. The first LEGO movie made double this domestic amount in its opening weekend, and each LEGO movie in the last five years has made less than the one before (although this sequel opened bigger than LEGO Ninjago in 2017). It’s looking like audiences aren’t convinced “every movie is awesome” when it comes to this franchise. The film is getting strong reviews (like ours, which you can read here), however, and Warner Bros. has a couple of weeks to make up some ground on its $100 million budget before the next animated family film roars into theaters – and, for that matter, Marvel’s Captain Marvel, set to hit theaters less than a month from now.

Read Atom Insider’s review of The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part.

Second Place – ‘What Men Want’

Paramount clearly got into our heads this weekend with What Men Want, which grabbed the #2 spot with $19 million domestically, just under its reported budget of $20 million. Who says romantic comedies are dead?

To be fair, this is nowhere near the heights of the film’s predecessor What Women Want, which opened in 2000 to $33 million domestically, which doesn’t even count inflation. But considering its heavy competition from several star-studded films, it’s clear audiences were down for a fun comedy with Taraji P. Henson and Tracy Morgan.

Read Atom Insider’s review of What Men Want.

And Third – ‘Cold Pursuit’

Audiences didn’t exactly hunt this one down. Cold Pursuit opened with just $10.8 million domestically this weekend, marking the weakest debut for a Liam Neeson film since before Taken. This is in spite of Cold Pursuit receiving some of the best reviews Neeson’s brand of revenge thriller has gotten since Taken, and we can point to several possible reasons ranging from Neeson’s press tour admission of past racism and subsequent cancellation of the movie’s premiere to the fact that his last few films have been extremely hit or miss with fans and critics alike.

Read Atom Insider’s review of Cold Pursuit.

Rounding Out The Rest Of The Box Office

Here’s a surprise. Looks like Universal’s Glass dipped more than STX’s The Upside this week. Both films fell from their top spots, of course, but The Upside managed to drop less and land at #3 for the weekend with $7.2 million domestically. This is likely because it lost fewer theaters than Glass, which made $6.4 million. Regardless, both films are nearing the end of their runs with great box office totals, Glass especially thanks to a robust performance overseas. It’s now at $221.4 million worldwide, just $56 million shy of Split.

The Prodigy performed about as well as Orion might have hoped, opening at #5 with $6 million domestic, already reaching the horror film’s low budget of, you guessed it, $6 million. Reviews have been mixed and February is a crowded month for all sorts of genre movies, so it’s doubtful The Prodigy will be much of a hit going forward, but it could make enough back in the next few weeks to eke out a modest gain.

Universal’s other Top 10 film for the box office is still Green Book, which dropped a spot to #7 in its 13th week. The film brought in $3.5 million despite losing 500 theaters. It’ll debut in China and Japan next month, but regardless of how it does in those markets, the film is a solid hit at $106 million worldwide off of a reported $23 million budget.

Aquaman dropped a few spots this week to #8, but it’s still holding strong in its 8th week with $3.3 million. It lost over 700 theaters, but its lead as the highest-grossing DC film ever at $1.1 billion worldwide is more than secure for now. The film will likely stay as the #5 film of 2018 in terms of total box office for the year.

Another superhero flick dropped four spots, and that’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, now at #9 in its 9th week. The film brought in $3 million domestically, just narrowly missing a chance to beat Aquaman despite still playing in more theaters.

Finally, we have Miss Bala, which despite not losing or gaining any theaters this week actually dropped 7 spots to #10. Ouch. The film dropped 60%, making only $2.7 million and will almost certainly fall off the Top 10 by next week. With a reported budget of just $15 million, Miss Bala may be able to come close to breaking even, but it likely won’t be profitable for Sony unless it overperforms internationally.

And They’re Out

As expected, a lot of films fell off the Top 10 this week. The Kid Who Would Be King plummeted to #15 after a disappointing opening weekend despite getting rave reviews, A Dog’s Way Home slid less dramatically to #11 – same for Escape Room which fell to #14 – and They Shall Not Grow Old at #13 (despite gaining theaters). The latter three films are in decent shape overall, but Kid Who Would Be King is shaping up to be a real disaster for Fox, bringing in just $1.5 million in only its 3rd week. We should keep in mind, of course, that the film has yet to open in the UK.

Check back with Atom Insider later this week as we preview all the new releases hitting theaters this Friday.