User blog:Ceauntay/Weekend Box Office: 'Heroes Forever: The New Beginning' Scores Top Spot With Strong $77 million

This is good news for Rita Christensen's planned franchise home to the Jane Hoop Elementary film series as Heroes Forever: The New Beginning scored a monster opening with an estimated $157 million.

Heroes Forever: The New Beginning is now 2016's third biggest opening ever behind Captain America: Civil War ($179 million) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million), and it’s worth remembering that, with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them out next weekend, will not be holding on for one for long.

Heroes Forever: The New Beginning pretty much beat all seven Jane Hoop Elementary films minus Jane Hoop Elementary: The Final Rush - Part 2, which made $165.2 million in its opening weekend in 2011, before going up to $380 million, and $1.3 billion worldwide. With that, it probably won't be possible if it can also reach the $1 billion mark.

Heroes Forever: The New Beginning also demolished the box office internationally by making $215 million, for a total to $372 million worldwide. It easily topped Doctor Strange, which made $43 million, bringing it's total to $153 million in two weeks.

Arrival took in some $24 million, well over predictions of $16 million from tracking, and is the sort of movie that could prove to have impressive legs, even if it never hits #1. Meanwhile, Trolls took the second-place spot over Arrival with $35 million, bringing it’s cumulative take to an admirable $94 million domestically. Almost Christmas, again outpacing tracking, came in fourth with $15.6 million and if it has another good weekend, it will easily make back its $17 million budget. Fifth place, as I suspected, went to Mel Gibson‘s Hacksaw Ridge, bringing in $10.8 million for the fascinating war picture.

One could easily look at all of this as continued proof of Marvel’s dominance over the industry, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. That being said, the triumphs of Arrival and, for better or worse, Hacksaw Ridge suggest that studios would do well to hire more great actors and let them make the movies they want to make, rather than forcing their artistry into a simplified, endlessly compromised format. For all its amazements, Doctor Strange still has a lot of easily recognizable moments that make the entire enterprise feel episodic, thin, and weightless. Arrival has familiar notes, especially toward the end, but on the whole, it’s a unique visual and storytelling experience that’s hard to dust off. It’s success, much like Villeneuve’s Sicario, remains proof of the power of a singular artistic, expressive mind to create a work that tilts towards universal yet remains inarguably personal.