While some book-spawned franchises see leaps in earnings between their instalments as the popularity begins to snowball (see: The Hunger Games and particularly Twilight), the Divergent series appears to be on more of an even keel. The second film based on Veronica Roth’s dystopian adventure, Insurgent, debuted at the top of the US box-office charts this weekend with $54 million, according to studio estimates.
That’s actually little bit behind Divergent, which opened last year to $54.6 million, so it’s not like it’s a huge drop, but will still be slightly disappointing for Lionsgate/Summit, as the companies were probably hoping that Tris Prior’s (Shailene Woodley) struggle would take off the way that Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen’s have in the past. Still, we would expect plans to stay on track for two films based on Roth’s third book, Allegiant, to arrive across the next two years.
Cinderella was nudged down to second place, dropping 49 per cent to earn $34.4 million in its second weekend of release. Liam Neeson’s new action thriller, Run All Night, fell from second to third place, taking home $5.1 million. That was still more impressive than the latest older newcomer looking to score some of the Taken franchise’s heat, with Sean Penn in The Gunman. Unfortunately for him, it appears audiences are tiring of what is sometimes known as the geriaction genre, as the new film could only muster $5 million for a disappointing fourth-place start.
Rounding out the top five we find Kingsman: The Secret Service, which dropped a couple of places but still made $4.6 million.
Sixth place went to this week’s only other wide new release, Do You Believe?, the latest attempt to tap the lucrative faith-based market. This new project from the people behind God’s Not Dead didn’t see its prayers answered quite as soundly, launching to $4 million compared to the previous film’s $9.2 million. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel fell to seventh place, earning $3.4 million, with Focus down to eighth with $3.3 million. Chappie found himself shunted down to ninth and $2.6 million, while The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water was tenth with $2.3 million.
To see Tris use her divergent powers to defeat Cinderella in the full chart listings, head to Box Office Mojo.