Kung Fu Panda 3 showed plenty of power at the US box office with a solid opening weekend of $41 million at 3,955 theatres as the durable family franchise dominated moviegoing.
Disney’s launch of Coast Guard rescue adventure The Finest Hours saw only modest returns with $10.3 million at 3,143 sites – trailing both The Revenant and the seventh weekend of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Marlon Wayans’s spoof Fifty Shades of Black generated only middling business at about $6 million at 2,075 locations and Natalie Portman’s oft-delayed Western Jane Got a Gun was nearly invisible with less than $1 million at 1,210 screens.
Kung Fu Panda 3, distributed by Fox for DreamWorks Animation, will finish its first weekend near 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2, which opened with $47.7 million domestically on its way to $162.5 million. The 2008 original bowed to $60.2 million and ended its US run with $215 million.
The cartoon also helped the US box office turn in a respectable performance following a dismal weekend that saw business hit hard by the massive East Coast snowstorm. Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant won the frame with only $16 million in its third weekend of wide release.
The Revenant remained a solid draw in second place in its fourth weekend of wide release, thanks to its dozen Oscar nominations and DiCaprio’s star power. It finished the weekend with $12.4 million at 3,330 sites for a decline of only 25 per cent and has now generated an impressive $138.2 million domestically.
DiCaprio is widely expected to win his first Oscar for his gritty portrayal of fur trapper Hugh Glass in The Revenant. He won the SAG Award on Saturday.