Weekend Box Office: ‘Logan’ Sinks Claws Into Huge $85.3M U.S. Debut, $237.8M Globally
Director James Mangold’s Logan howled loudly at the North American box office over the weekend with $85.3 million from 4,071 theaters, the biggest opening of the year so far and one of the top showings of all time for an R-rated film or for a March release.
Logan was also huge overseas, debuting to a near-record $152.5 million from 81 markets for a global launch of $237.8 million. The movie scored $46.2 million in China, where it crushed The Lego Batman Movie, which bowed to a meager $3.6 million.
Nostalgia, glowing reviews and an A- CinemaScore are no doubt aiding the 20th Century Fox superhero movie, which marks Hugh Jackman’s final turn on the big screen as the moody and fierce X-Men superhero Wolverine. (That’s according to the actor himself.)
And Logan is another victory for Fox in proving that R-rated superhero films can have sharp claws, following the blockbuster success of last year’s Deadpool. Logan, the final title in the spinoff Wolverine trilogy, got the widest release ever for an R-rated title in North America.
“Jim [Mangold] and Hugh perfectly executed the movie they wanted to make,” said Chris Aronson, domestic distribution president for Fox. “It is a very personal and visceral story for the character, which contemplates mortality.”
Before Logan came along, the top domestic opening of 2017 belonged to The Lego Batman Movie ($83 million). Among other stats: Logan narrowly unseated Fifty Shades of Grey ($85.2 million) to score the fifth-biggest debut for an R-rated film behind Deadpool ($132.4 million), The Matrix Reloaded ($91.8 million), American Sniper ($89.3 million) and the first Hangover sequel ($85.9 million), not accounting for inflation. It also nabbed the fourth-biggest March debut, behind Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million), The Hunger Games ($152.5 million) and Alice in Wonderland ($116.1 million).
This time out, the story follows the adventure that…