Hail, Panda! Kung Fu Panda 3, that is. Despite a trio of shiny new movies galumphing into theaters this week, America’s most popular animated bear since Yogi (scientists no longer think that giant pandas are just big raccoons) fended them all off and won its second straight weekend box office title. It earned $21 million, according to early estimates, bringing its two-week gross to about $69.1 million.
Hail, Caesar! was the weekend’s biggest newcomer. The Coen Brothers’ latest strange cinematic offering kidnapped about 11.4 million aging dollar bills from moviegoers to finish second. Meanwhile, Oscar darling The Revenant crawled into third place with another $7.1 million, officially making its famous Leo DiCaprio-eating bear only the second-most fearsome ursine in today’s box office countdown. The Revenant has earned a whopping $149.7 million—a huge number, considering best picture nominees typically gross about as much as your typical hedge fund manager. But this has been a surprisingly populist Oscar season: Three best picture nominee have crested the $100 million mark, the others being Mad Max: Fury Road ($153.6 million) and The Martian ($228 million).
Granted, take the earnings of all the best picture nominees and add ’em all up, they still wouldn’t come close to the next entrant. Star Wars: The Force Awakens added another $6.9 million to its already ludicrously high total North American gross, bringing it to $906 million. Oh, and add in its overseas earnings, and The Force Awakens recently became the third movie to earn more than $2 billion. It’s now at $2.008 billion, just behind Titanic’s $2.187 billion and, of course, Avatar’s $2.788 billion.
Another newcomer, The Choice, sauntered into fifth place with $6.1 million, while Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was more dead than alive with a $5.2 million, sixth-place take.
Final figures update: 1. Kung Fu Panda 3, $21.2 million; 2. Hail, Caesar!, $11.4 million; 3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, $7 million; 4. The Revenant, $6.9 million; 5. The Choice, $6.1 million; 6. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, $5.3 million.
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