“Pokémon Detective Pikachu” gave “Avengers: Endgame” a run for its money this weekend at the box office, but the superheroes managed to hold onto the once again.
The Marvel blockbuster earned an estimated $63.1 million from its third weekend in North America only, bringing its domestic grosses to $723.5 million, passing the totals for “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”
It added $102.3 million, bringing its global total to just shy of $2.5 billion where it remains the second biggest release of all time behind “Avatar” ($2.8 billion.)
But three weeks into “Avengers” release, Warner Bros. managed to draw a huge audience to its live-action “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” which opened on 4,202 screens and earned roughly $58 million from ticket sales alone.
Theres no beef behind ‘Avengers’ powering over ‘Pikachu’.
It even beat “Endgame” world-wide by a very slight margin with $103 million.
Ryan Reynolds voices the popular Pokémon character in the film. This notched a record of its own: Biggest video game adaption opening. The previous record-holder was the Angelina Jolie “Tomb Raider” from 2001, which opened with $47 million.
A few other movies were released this weekend, including two women-led comedies launching on Mother’s Day: “The Hustle” and “Poms,” which both attracted an overwhelmingly female audience.
“The Hustle,” is a gender-flipped spin on “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. This movie landed in third place with $13.6 million despite the iffy reviews.
The Diane Keaton cheerleading comedy “Poms,” was not as successful. This movie grossed only $5.1 million in its debut against negative reviews. “Poms” placed sixth behind the thriller “The Intruder” ($6.6 million) and the Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron rom-com “Long Shot” ($6.1 million), both in their second weekends.
Not every film was a hit this weekend, but the diversity of content is important to the marketplace. Overall, the industry-wide box office continues to get stronger as the year goes on. The weekend is up around 23%, and the year is down around 9%. Three weeks ago, pre-“Endgame,” that year-to-date deficit was at 17%.
May has more big movies to come, including “Aladdin,” ”Rocketman,” ”John Wick 3: Parabellum and “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.”
Senior web article writer Katie Booth says, “It’s outrageous,” when asked how she felt about ‘Pikachu’ almost passing ‘Endgame’.
