StudioCanal’s fully financed action film starring Liam Neeson opened top of the North American charts through Universal on an estimated $30m.

The film, in which the ever-reliable Neeson plays an air marshal on a stricken plane alongside Julianne Moore and Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong’o, led a top 12 session that gained 12% on last weekend and 16% on the same session in 2013.

Lightworkers Media’s Son Of God, the feature version of its miniseries smash The Bible that sees Diogo Morgado reprise his role as Jesus, arrived in second place through Fox on $26.5m.

Relativity International handles sales outside the US and recently closed a slew of markets after launching sales at the EFM in Berlin.

In the fourth weekend, Warner Bros’ The Lego Movie crossed $200m to reach $209.3m and slipped two places to number three, while The Monuments Men moved up one to number four through Sony and stands at $65.7m.

Frozen crossed $1bn worldwide through Disney as the North American tally reached $388.7m and the international haul climbed to $611.5m.

Paramount’s Anchorman 2 re-release experiment floundered as the longer edit opened at number 14 on $1.3m from 1,317 sites for a lowly $1,014 average.

In limited release, the Forest Whitaker and Anthony Mackie horror-thriller Repentance opened through Lionsgate on $530,000 for 152, while Russian smash Stalingrad arrived through Sony on $500,000 from 308.

SPC’s Cannes 2013 Critics’ Week winner The Lunchbox from India opened on $51,300 from three sites for a strong $17,100 average, while Cinedigm released The Bag Man on $28,400 from two and GKids opened Ernest & Celestine $15,600 well in a single theatre.

This week’s releases includes two heavy animation prospects as Fox debuts DreamWorks Animation’s Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Warner Bros unleashes 300: Rise of An Empire.

Estimated Top 10 North America Feb 28-Mar 2 2014
Film (Dist) / Est wkd gross / Est total to date

1 (-) Non-Stop (Universal) StudioCanal $30m –

2 (-) Son Of God (Fox) Relativity International $26.5m –

3 (1) The Lego Movie (Warner Bros) WBPI $21m $209.3m

4 (5) The Monuments Men (Sony) Fox International $5m $65.7m

5 (2) 3 Days To Kill (Relativity-EuropaCorp) Relativity International $4.9m $20.7m

6 (4) RoboCop (MGM-Sony) SPRI-MGM $4.5m $51.2m

7 (3) Pompeii (TriStar-Constantin-Impact) Lionsgate International $4.3m $17.7m

8 (8) Frozen (Buena Vista) WDSMPI $3.6m $388.7m

9 (6) About Last Night (Sony-Screen Gems) SPRI $3.4m $43.8m

10 (7) Ride Along (Universal) UPI $3.1m $127.2m


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