After two weeks in limited release, Hidden Figures expanded very wide this weekend, besting Rogue One to take the No. 1 spot with $22.8 million. Exceeding both predictions and initial weekend estimates (which initially had it slightly behind Rogue One’s $21.9 million), the Taraji P. Henson-led drama about a trio of black female mathematicians who worked at NASA at the height of the Space Race has done extremely well, taking full advantage of a deliberate awards-season rollout.
It helps that it doesn’t have much competition, given that most of the other movies in theaters have been out for some time, and that only one other new release landed anywhere near the top of the chart this weekend. That would be the not-screened-for-critics Underworld: Blood Wars, the fifth film in the inexplicably long-running werewolves-and-vampires soap opera series. Debuting at No. 4 with $13.1 million, the film might seem like a box office dud (it’s the weakest opening for the series by about $7 million), but it’s made good money overseas, which means that viewers may be treated to another Underworld in 3-4 years, if Kate Beckinsale feels like it.
The slot just above it, No. 3, went to Sing, with $19.6 million. The only other film to open and land anywhere on the charts was the tired Jackie Chan vehicle Railroad Tigers, which opened in limited release, earning $127,600 in 42 theaters for the No. 25 spot. Otherwise, it weekend was taken over by the usual suspects: La La Land snuck up a few more spots to No. 5 with $10 million, Fences dropped down to No. 9 with $4.7 million, and Assassin’s Creed continued its slide into oblivion by earning $3.8 million for the No. 10 slot. Even accounting for the international box office, the film looks unlikely to make what it needs to clear its $125 million production budget.
The highest per-theater average of this otherwise snoozy weekend went to Peter Berg’s Boston Marathon bombing movie Patriots Day, which has been in very limited release since the last weeks of December; it made about $15,000 per screen, narrowly besting 20th Century Women. Martin Scorsese’s Silence, which has similarly kept to a very limited release, averaged $9,412 per theater, and is set to expand wide this coming weekend.