“Beauty And The Beast” continued to crunch the competition at the North America box offices this weekend, and powered the movie studios to have the best cumulative march film attendance ever.
The Disney monster was on track to deal $88.3 million in tickets this weekend in the United States and Canada, according to studio estimates gathered by comScore. The film was on track to amass $317 million in sales in 10 days — a figure that grows to $690.3 million when foreign receipts are added in.
Paul Degarabedian at comScore said the Disney blockbuster thrust total Hollywood ticket sales past the $1 billion line this weekend, making this the best March ever.
“Beauty And The Beast” dwarfed a strong premiere for the new “Power Rangers” reboot, which was estimated to be on track to deal $40.5 million in its first weekend.
“Kong: Skull Island” was in third place, with an estimated $14.4 million in weekend sales and a 10-day running total of $133.5 million.
An R-rated outer-space epic called “Life” debuted in fourth place, with $12.6 million in projected sales.
Rounding out the eight most-popular movies this week, as estimated by the studios, were “Logan” ($10.1 million), “Get Out” ($8.7 million), “Chips” (debuting at $7.6 million) and “The Shack” ($3.8 million).