Monday Morning Box Office Report: Mr. Peabody & Sherman Laps Need for Speed

Posted by on March 17th, 2014   Filed under: Box Office

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After a decent but unspectacular opening weekend, DreamWorks’ Mr. Peabody & Sherman was a surprise winner at the box office as it held off the new releases and pulled ahead of 300: Rise of an Empire in its second week of release. The animated film dropped just 34%, a strong hold comparable to the incredibly successful How to Train Your Dragon back in 2010. 300: Rise of an Empire fell to #2 while Need for Speed disappointed with just $17.8 million… Fast & Furious it ain’t. Non-Stop and Tyler Perry’s The Single Moms Club rounded out the top 5. Elsewhere, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel jumped to #8 despite playing in just 66 theatres. With a $3.6 million take, that means it made an amazing $55,152 per theatre, setting a new per-theatre record for a movie playing on over 50 screens. The crowd-funded Veronica Mars also managed to sneak into the top 10, which shows that some of these niche films are holding their own against the blockbusters. Nice.

1. Mr. Peabody & Sherman — $21.2M
2. 300: Rise of an Empire — $19.1M
3. Need for Speed — $17.8M
4. Non-Stop — $10.6M
5. The Single Moms Club — $8.3M
6. The Lego Movie — $7.7M
7. Son of God — $5.4M
8. The Grand Budapest Hotel — $3.6M
9. Frozen — $2.1M
10. Veronica Mars — $2M



  • Nick Poliskey

    Sean, not to rain on your parade, but I don’t agree with how amazing the take was with Veronica Mars and Grand Budapest, they are opening in Mid-March against crap, and Budapest edged out a cartoon that has been out since last November, I wouldn’t exactly say that is “holding it’s own against blockbusters”.

  • Sean

    When they are only playing on a few hundred screens, it’s still pretty impressive. Definitely the weakness of the competition is a factor, but that was kind of my point… audiences are flocking to the other stuff as an alternative to blockbusters they aren’t interested in.

  • Sam

    Yeah…Grand Budapest Hotel, even now is still an inconvenience to see in theaters, and I live in Orange County, CA. The release appears to be pretty limited. I’d say it’s doing pretty great all things considered.

  • Bas

    I don’t agree with the headline. Mr. Peabody & Sherman didn’t Lap Need for Speed, it lapped Non-Stop, exactly doubling its box office.

  • devolutionary

    Yeah, based on the pic, it should have read as ‘scooters on by…’. Ho, ho!

  • $3.6m in 66 theatres is certainly impressive compared to $21m in almost 4,000 theatres.

  • Nick Poliskey

    I have never bought into that “limited release” per theatre non-sense. I guess it is better than making no money at all, but I would hazard that when you have a smaller movie opening in a couple theatres, the small amount of people that want to see the movie crowd out the early showings. In fact that is the very strategy a lot of the Oscar nominees use year in year out. What I am trying to say is that what you guys are sort of implying is that if Budapest was playing in 4,000 theatres it would be making 100 million or something, I am just saying that is ludicrous. More than likely it would be considered a flop, because Wes Anderson doesn’t draw crowds the way the big blockbusters do, that is why he has to build momentum for his movies.

  • Sean

    Probably not $100 million but I think $20 million would have been possible. It’s also a bit of an unfair comparison though because the movies playing in 4000 theatres usually have huge marketing campaigns behind them. But you’re definitely right, the “per theatre” numbers can be misleading and aren’t all that useful for comparison.