THE LEGO MOVIE HAS SECOND BIGGEST FEBRUARY OPENING OF ALL TIME!

The box office was built of Legos this weekend. The Warner Bros. animated comedy earned an estimated $69.1 million, far more than every other movie in the top ten combined! Analysts had forecast a big opening for The Lego Movie, but not that big. The result seemed to assure Warner Bros. of its first big animated franchise since the days of Looney Tunes. (How many sales of new Lego sets the movie will generate is anyone’s guess right now.) Opening in second place was George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, which also opened above expectations with around $22.7 million. The Sony film had been projected to earn $15-20 million. After three weeks in first place, Universal’s Ride Along slipped to third place with about $9.4 million, pushing past the $100-million mark to $105 million. And despite the Lego competition, Disney’s Frozen slipped just 23 percent in its 11th week to $6.9 million. Its total gross now stands at $369 million. The only other film to open wide over the weekend, Vampire Academy, wound up among the living dead as it debuted in seventh place with about $4.1 million.

The top ten films at the box office over the weekend according to estimates compiled by Rentrak: 1. The Lego Movie, $69.1 million ($18.1 million international); 2. The Monuments Men, $22.7 million; 3. Ride Along, $9.4 million; 4. Frozen, $6.9 million ($24 million international); 5. That Awkward Moment, $5.5 million ($1.1 million international); 6. Lone Survivor, $5.3 million ($1 million international); 7. Vampire Academy, $4.1 million; 8. The Nut Job, $3.8 million; 9. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, $3.6 million ($5.3 million international); 10. Labor Day, $3.2 million.