Weekend Box Office: Ride Along 2 Rides to Top Spot
by EG
A month after it first opened, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is no longer the top-grossing movie in the United States. Over the long MLK holiday weekend, a new release took the top spot for the first time in four weeks, and for the rest of 2016, the top box-office spot will be held by a non-Star Wars movie--at least until Rogue One is released in mid-December.
The top spot this week went to Ride Along 2, the comedy sequel starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. The film took in about $34 million, which wasn't as much as its predecessor earned in its opening weekend but enough to breeze ahead of Star Wars. Second place went to The Revenant; it had already been exceeding expectations, and the armload of Oscar nominations it received last week helped it to pull in about $30 million for the weekend.
The Force Awakens nailed down third place with $25 million, far outpacing Michael Bay's Benghazi action flick 13 Hours. That film drew conservative audiences but not much else and took in only $16 million. The week's other new release, the animated Norm of the North, earned only $6.7 million and came in sixth.