LOS ANGELES – With Super Bowl XLVIII weekend in full swing, Ride Along remained strong, steering itself into the No. 1 slot in a surprising three-week takeover at the box office.
Topping multiplex sales since setting a January debut record when opening over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend with $48.6 million, the buddy cop comedy, starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, made $12.3 million, as it nears a $100 million domestic total, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Frozen, now the fourth highest-grossing domestic animated release ever, is in second place with $9.3 million.
Another family film, the squirrel comedy The Nut Job, took the fourth-place slot with $7.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $50 million over a three-week span.
That Awkward Moment, starring Zac Efron, Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller, has taken third place in its opening weekend with $9 million.
Lone Survivor stands strong in the fifth slot with $7.2 million, as it notably crosses the $100 million mark, making this Mark Wahlberg’s 7th film to cross that milestone. Others have included Planet of the Apes, Ted, The Departed, The Other Guys and The Italian Job.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit starring Chris Pine as the resourceful CIA analyst, came in at No. 6 with $5.4 million in its third week. Overseas it made $9.1 million.
The Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin-starring drama Labor Day, directed by Canada’s Jason Reitman, opened in 7th place with $5.3 million.
Riding the Oscar nominations wave were the No. 8 and 9 films: American Hustle, leading the Oscar pack with 10 bids, and The Wolf of Wall Street, which has five nods. David O. Russell’s con-artist comedy earned $4.3 million, while Martin Scorsese’s movie gained $3.6 million.
Rounding out the top 10, and dropping from last week’s position six, was the big-budget I, Frankenstein, with $3.5 million in its second weekend. With an estimated $65 million cost, I Frankenstein, in 3-D and starring Aaron Eckhart, has a $14.5 million domestic total. But the film could gain a spike in sales overseas over the coming weeks, as it earned $13 million internationally when it hit theatres.
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