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Chappie Chugs to Championship, Chump Change

Chappie, Neill Blomkamp’s emotional robot, learned another particularly human lesson this weekend: What it feels like to win for losing.

While Chappie took the weekend’s box office crown, it did so in the most dispiriting way possible, collecting a tiny $13.3 million (estimated, of course) in a super-slow weekend at the Megaplex. Why, that’s barely enough for the old Chapster to get his transistors cleaned, and far less than what Blomkamp’s other two R-rated dystopian fables (District 9, Elysium) earned.

I suppose it goes without saying that R-rated Chappie might’ve done better had Blomkamp dialed down the content and garnered a PG-13 rating, given the kid-friendly vibe the robot threw down in the trailers. But studios seem keenly disinclined to cater to kids or families in late winter. According to Box Office Mojo, seven out of the last eight box office titles have been claimed by R-rated movies—American Sniper, Fifty Shades of Grey, Focus and now Chappie. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is the lone exception. No wonder SpongeBob still floats in the Top Five ($7 million for fifth), what with families so thirsty for something to see during these chilly winter nights.

Will Smith’s Focus dropped to second place with a $10 million weekend. That left another first-week newcomer, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in third ($8.6 million). We’ll see how it does as it sallies forth.

Kingsman: The Secret Service continues to stalk the Top Five, earning $8.3 million to finish a herring ahead of SpongeBob.

Unfinished Business, the weekend’s third major release, didn’t do much business at all. The Vince Vaughn comedy proved to be maybe the worst business rollout since the Edsel, collecting just $4.8 million to finish 10th. Did we mention that this was a particularly slow weekend already?

Maybe all this malaise is a sign that moviegoers are getting tired of this steady parade of ooky R-rated films to the box office ball. But from what I gather, a glass-slippered newcomer may waltz into theaters next weekend to shake things up a little bit.

Final figures update: 1. Chappie, $13.3 million; 2. Focus, $10 million; 3. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, $8.5 million; 4. Kingsman: The Secret Service, $8.3 million; 5. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water $6.7 million.