New Movies March 17: Make Room for 'Beauty and the Beast'

The past two weeks have seen only one new movie each, but somehow theaters have become crowded with big movies anyway. That could be problematic as another giant new movie comes to town, giving moviegoers several different hits to choose from this weekend.

Most moviegoers are probably going to choose Disney's remake of Beauty and the Beast. The movie is setting records for ticket pre-sales, and projections have it earning as much as $140 million or more in its opening weekend. That would be by far the biggest opening for a spring release and the biggest opening for a PG-rated movie. It also would rival the openings of movies such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which opened with $155 million in December.

The week's only other wide release, the satirical thriller The Belko Experiment, is getting good reviews ahead of its release, but it's likely to get lost in the blockbuster bustle this weekend.

The bigger question is how well Kong: Skull Island will do in its second week. It easily outperformed Logan last week, but keeping its momentum going in the shadow of Beauty will be difficult. Kong will surely take second place, but it needs a sustained run at the box office to turn a profit given its big production budget.