Weekend Box Office: 'Insurgent' Tops, 'Cinderella' Drops, Sean Penn Flops
by Andy Neuenschwander
With $101 million globally over its first weekend, you would think that "Insurgent," the sequel to "Divergent," would have a lot to cheer about. Unfortunately, that's not exactly the case.
"Insurgent" brought in $54 million domestically over the weekend; a decent haul and enough to be #1 at the box office, but only enough to just barely match the $54.7 million debut of "Divergent" last year. That's troubling considering that "Insurgent" had the added boost of 3D ticket sales.
Fortunately, "Insurgent" gained popularity for the series overseas, particularly in Brazil where it out-earned "Divergent" about two-to-one.
Disney's live-action "Cinderella" dropped to #2 this week with $34.4 million, pushing it above the $100 million mark domestically. In third was another holdover from last week, the Liam Neeson thriller "Run All Night" which earned another $5.1 million to reach just south of $20 million over two weeks.
That meant that the other big release of the weekend, the Sean Penn action movie "The Gunman," debuted in fourth place with a mere $5 million. The movie was quiet on the marketing front, and it seems that Penn just doesn't bring the same audiences as Neeson or Denzel Washington in the "old guy kicking ass" genre.
Here are the top five for the week:
1. "Insurgent" - $54M
2. "Cinderella" - $34.4M ($122M)
3. "Run All Night" - $5.1M ($19.7M)
4. "The Gunman" - $5M
5. "Kingsman: The Secret Service" - $4.6M ($114.5M)