Leonardo DiCaprio's The Revenant tops North American box office as hundreds of theaters shut due to Winter Storm Jonas
The snowy frontier saga The Revenant fared best out of the movies that tried to survive a blizzard-ravaged box office.
Weekend movie-going was affected up and down the East Coast by Winter Storm Jonas, which forced theater closures in Washington D.C. and New York, and caused hundreds of theaters to suspend showings. Studio executives said the storm had a major effect on business.
'It had a huge effect on the entire marketplace,' said Kevin Grayson, head of domestic distribution for STX Entertainment, which debuted the horror thriller The Boy.
'Anywhere from 300 to 400 theaters were affected.'
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Snowy: Leonardo DiCaprio's revenge film The Revenant topped the North American box office, as hundreds of theaters on the East Coast were forced to close due to a massive blizzard
Fittingly, the film that triumphed in the frigid winter weather was 20th Century Fox's Oscar-nominated Revenant, which took in an estimated $16 million in its third week of wide release.
The Alejandro Inarritu-directed thriller, which also stars Tom Hardy and is set in the 1820s, is proving to be one of Leonardo DiCaprio's biggest hits with $119.2 million thus far.
Disney's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, came in second with $14.3 million in its sixth week of release. The Force Awakens, with $1.94 billion globally to date, will likely cross $2 billion in the next week.
Still strong: Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was number two in the North American box office this weekend. It is expected to cross the $2 billion worldwide mark this week
Last week's No. 1 movie, the Kevin Hart-Ice Cube comedy Ride Along 2, dropped steeply in its second week, sliding to third with $13 million for Universal.
Those holdovers were trailed by a trio of new releases: Dirty Grandpa, The Boy and The 5th Wave, which all earned $10 million to $12 million over the weekend.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Rentrak, said the storm had an effect, but cautioned against overestimating its impact.
They're back: Kevin Hard and Ice Cube in Ride Along 2, which was number one last week but dropped to third place this weekend
'It probably altered the box office 10 or 12 percent overall,' Dergarabedian said. 'This was never predestined to be an earth-shattering box office weekend, anyway.'
Lionsgate's' Dirty Grandpa, starring Robert De Niro and Zac Efron, received some of the harshest reviews of the year. It narrowly edged out the other newcomers with an estimated $11.5 million.
The Boy, a PG-13 rated supernatural tale that cost only about $10 million to make, earned an estimated $11.3 million. It appealed strongly to Latino moviegoers, which made up 41 per cent of the audience, according to STX.
Not bad: Zac Efron and Robert DeNiro comedy Dirty Grandpa took in $15 million despite negative reviews
Sony's The 5th Wave, which cost about $38 million to make, is a young-adult adaption from the first of Rick Yancey's trilogy of science-fiction books about alien invasion. Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, 'The 5th Wave' debut of $10.7 million didn't suggest a budding YA franchise.
But Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony, was upbeat about the result and said it came in 'ahead of our expectations with the storm.'
'But Jonas was certainly no friend to the movie industry,' Bruer said.
New franchise? Chloe Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan in alien invasion movie The Fifth Wave, based on the YA novels by Rick Yancey
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Monday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.
1. 'The Revenant,' $16 million.
3. 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens,' $14.3 million.
3. 'Ride Along 2,' $13 million.
4. 'Dirty Grandpa,' $11.5 million.
5. 'The Boy,' $11.3 million.
6. 'The 5th Wave,' $10.7 million.
7. '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,' $9.8 million.
8. 'Daddy's Home,' $5.3 million.
9. 'Norm of the North,' $4.1 million.
10. 'The Big Short,' $3.5 million.
Oscars push: Leonardio DiCaprio promotes his new film The Revenant in Rome on January 16
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