LOS ANGELES – Action-packed new releases couldn’t stack up to 3-D hit The LEGO Movie, which took the No. 1 slot in its third weekend at the box office.
The animated film bested 3 Days to Kill and the made-in-Toronto Pompeii on their opening weekends.
The LEGO Movie, featuring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Morgan Freeman, earned $31.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The domestic total has passed $183 million. Overseas, it grossed $23.1 million this weekend.
Heading into full-fledged franchise territory with a sequel set to release in May 2017, The LEGO Movie is the highest-grossing film of 2014.
The crime drama 3 Days to Kill, starring Kevin Costner and Amber Heard, came in second with $12.3 million in its first weekend at the multiplex.
Pompeii, the boiling gladiator drama starring Game of Thrones star Kit Harington, took third place with $10 million. There was a fairly even gender split for the film, with the audience breaking down as 52 per cent male and 48 per cent female. The film’s slot in the top five was steered mostly by viewers under 30.
The box office results for Pompeii were much better overseas, as the film made $22.8 million internationally.
In its second weekend, the Toronto-shot reboot RoboCop dropped from third to fourth with $9.4 million. Starring Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman and Michael Keaton, the modernized sci-fi film (the 1987 original starred Peter Weller as a cop who gains a new robotic body) is down 57 per cent from last weekend’s domestic opener. For the second weekend in a row, the action film performed better overseas with $17.7 million.
The Monuments Men, directed by George Clooney, was pushed down to fifth place from last week’s fourth-place spot with $8.1 million.
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