After weeks of Universal's thriller "Glass" topping the domestic box office, there was certainly going to be a change at number one with movies like Warner Bros.' "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part" and Paramount's "What Men Want" opening this weekend. But the bigger question was if either would attract big audiences.
"The Lego Movie 2" picks up where the 2014 hit left off, but it didn't grab audiences the same way.
"Lego Movie 2" won the weekend box office with a $34.4 million opening on 4,300 screens, but that's nowhere near the original's $69 million opening take, or the projections the industry had for the sequel, which were around $50 million-plus.
You certainly can't blame Rotten Tomatoes for this one. The movie was certified fresh with an 84% rating. The movie also sported an A- CinemaScore. Perhaps Warner Bros. releasing two Lego movies last year — "The Lego Batman Movie" and "The Lego Ninjago Movie" — burnt out audiences.
Coming in second place was the Paramount comedy "What Men Want." The studio stayed realistic in what it could pull off this weekend, placing the Taraji P. Henson movie on only 2,900 screens, but the movie performed well taking in $19 million.
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Next week will be more of a mixed bag of releases as "Alita: Battle Angel," "Happy Death Day 2U," and "Isn't It Romantic" enter the fray. But the way things are going, it seems audiences are saving their pennies for the first must-see movie of the year, "Captain Marvel," which opens March 8.
