‘The Lego Movie’ Continues Box Office Dominance, Leaves Remakes In The Dust

The Lego Movie continued to dominate the box office over the weekend, proving once again that remakes can’t hold a candle to original properties.

The folks over at Warner Bros. continue to make a serious amount of cash from the family-friendly animated flick. The movie generated around $49.8 million between Friday and Sunday, allowing it to easily slip into the top position at the domestic box office.

When President’s Day figures are carefully added into the equation, The Lego Movie earned a deeply impressive $62.4 million from moviegoers. With some help from foreign markets, the flick’s worldwide total stands at $191 million. There’s a very strong possibility the movie could earn upwards of $200 million in the US by the time it leaves theaters.

However, the continued success of The Lego Movie doesn’t mean its competition walked away empty-handed. Kevin Hart and Regina Hall’s remake of the 80s flick About Last Night earned $27.8 million from Friday to Monday, pushing past RoboCop into second place.

Since Screen Gems and Sony Pictures only spent around $12 million on the romantic movie, it’s safe to stay the studios have a certified hit on their hands. The flick posted the strongest opening numbers for a romantic comedy since the 2012 endeavor Think Like a Man, a movie that also featured box office champ Kevin Hart.

Unfortunately, director Jose Padilha’s RoboCop remake couldn’t find much of an audience in the United States over the weekend. Since more people were seemingly interested in The Lego Movie and About Last Night, the $100 million action flick only scraped together $25 million from Friday to Sunday.

However, RoboCop will probably break even with some help from overseas markets. The film’s foreign total stands at around $70 million, which effectively pushed its worldwide total to $100.2 million. It’s currently unclear if Sony will move forward with another installment of the series.

While the boys and girls at Warner Bros. haven’t said anything official about a sequel to The Lego Movie as of this writing, chances are the ball is already rolling on a follow-up. According to Hypable, the studio was kicking around Lego Movie 2 earlier this month.

Reports indicated that Mr. Popper’s Penguins scribe Jared Stern and Girl Most Likely writer Michelle Morgan were recently tapped to pen the script. However, it’s unclear when the studio hopes to have the sequel up and running. Producers will likely try to have something on the big screen by late next year.

Are you surprised that The Lego Movie managed to best About Last Night and the RoboCop remake at the box office?