"The Lego Batman Movie" tops box office in North America

Warner Bros.' animated Batman film "The Lego Batman Movie" opened at first place at this weekend box office, marking best weekend at the 2017 box office so far.

"The Lego Batman Movie" opened at 4,088 locations in U.S. and Canada this weekend with 55.6 million U.S. dollars in sales, according to box office tracker somScore.

The Lego-Batman mashup "fit the pieces together by combining two irresistible brands and the results are impressive," said movie analyst Paul Dergarabedian at comScore.

The first-night audiences gave the film a strong "A-" on CinemaScore, which plays well with the strong critical reception the film received. Critics gave the film as high as 91 percent positive rating on RottenTomatoes. Among audience, 48 percent were males and 52 percent females, and 48 percent of moviegoers were over the age of 25.

Internationally, "The Lego Batman Movie" brought in an estimated 37 million dollars from 60 overseas markets for a combined. The film opens in China on March 3.

Besides "The Lego Batman Movie", other very different movies also debut with strong sales this weekend.

For adults, "Fifty Shades Darker" opened in second place with an estimated weekend three-day sales of 46.8 million dollars. This Universal's sequel film topped the box office on Friday and held on well over the weekend, placing on second spot.

"Fifty Shades Darker" opened at 3,710 locations in North America. Opening day audiences gave the film a "B+" on CinemaScore and critics gave it a pool 9 percent recommending rate.

The audience for "Fifty Shades Darker" mainly are female, which up to 70 percent. The age breakdown saw 56 percent of the audience coming in under the age of 30.

Compared with the first weekend revenue of "Fifty Shades of Grey", the "Darker" is nearly 40 million dollars behind.

Overseas, "Fifty Shades Darker" delivered an estimated 100.1 million dollars from 57 markets, the fourth largest international opening weekend ever for an R-rated film, behind "Fifty Shades of Grey" (157.1 million dollars), "Deadpool" (132.2 million) and "The Matrix Revolutions" (117.6 million).

At third place, Lionsgate's action film "John Wick: Chapter Two" opened in third place, with an estimated 30 million dollars debut on 3,113 locations. This sequel more than doubled its predecessor's opening in 2014 with 14.4 million dollars.

This action film received an "A-" from first-night moviegoers on CinemaScore and a good 90 percent of recommending rate on RottenTomatoes. The opening day audience for this film was 64 percent male vs. 36 percent female.

Universal's horror thriller film "Split" finished in fourth, dropping 35.4 percent for an estimated 9.3 million dollars. The total revenue of "Split" goes to 112.3 million dollars in 24 days.

"Hidden Figures" got an estimated 8 million dollars, dropping 21.5 percent in its eighth week since its limited, Christmas Day debut. Its gross in North America now stands at an impressive 131.5 million dollars, becoming the highest box office grossing in U.S. and Canada of the 2017 Oscar Best Picture nominees.

Rounding out the rest 10 most-popular movies this week were "A Dog's Purpose" (7.4 million), "Rings" (5.8 million), "La La Land" (5 million), "Lion" (4 million) and "The Space Between Us" (1.7 million). Endit