Monday Morning Box Office Report: Ready Player One Takes the Prize

Posted by on April 2nd, 2018   Filed under: Box Office

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Steven Spielberg’s return to the science-fiction genre seemed to connect with audiences as Ready Player One took the Easter box office by storm, earning $53.2 million over four days ($41.2 million over three). That’s the best opening weekend for a Spielberg movie since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull back in 2008 and it’s pretty solid for a non-franchise movie in general. Tyler Perry’s Acrimony opened in second with $17.1 million, which puts it towards the lower end of the Tyler Perry spectrum, while Black Panther fell to third. In fourth, I Can Only Imagine took in another $10.75 million in its third weekend and Pacific Rim: Uprising rounded out the top 5. Elsewhere God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness proved to be a dud, crowded out by similar competing films and opening outside the top ten with just $2.6 million.

1. Ready Player One — $41.2M
2. Tyler Perry’s Acrimony — $17.1M
3. Black Panther — $11.3M
4. I Can Only Imagine — $10.8M
5. Pacific Rim: Uprising — $9.2M
6. Sherlock Gnomes — $7.0M
7. Love, Simon — $4.8M
8. Tomb Raider — $4.7M
9. A Wrinkle in Time — $4.7M
10. Paul, Apostle of Christ — $3.5M



  • Lisa Naarseth Myklebust

    41 million opening weekend “take the Box office by storm”? I’m sorry, how does 41 million in the opening weekend for a blockbuster with a clearly large budget, go under any other definition than disappointment? Mad Max: Fury Road with a similiar budget opened to 70 mill, and was deemed disappointing. This somehow isn’t?

  • Sean

    I don’t know if there is another non-franchise blockbuster that’s made more than that in the last couple of years. It’s not amazing, but it’s higher than expected. And the $41 million isn’t entirely accurate because it opened on Thursday.

  • Lisa Naarseth Myklebust

    Jumanji (maybe it doesn’t count as non-franchise, idk)? Beauty and the Beast? Coco?

    You certainly have a point about franchise films earning way more money, which is a sad reality as all of them are brainless, bland, by-the-book products. But the general rule has always been that a film should make up at least its budget and a bit more in order to not be deemed a failure or disappointment.

    Ready Player One had a production budget of 175 million USD. 41 million USD opening weekend does not bode well to even close in on that production budget, domestically. It’ll probably do so internationally, I guess. But 41 million USD domestically is really, really weak, compared to what’s usually the case for a blockbuster.

    I guess we’ll see how it turn out for Ready Player One. I’ll be surprised if it makes it past 100 million USD domestically in its entire run. Blade Runner 2049 (call if franchise if you like) had similiar budget to Ready Player One, and barely scraped 90 mill USD overall, and it was deemed a big failure.

  • Glen

    I wonder how many people under the age of 30 care that a movie is directed by Steven Spielberg anymore. Ready Player One seems geared towards that age demographic.