On Sunday, it was estimated that Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, directed by Bill Condon, and starring Emma Watson as Belle, and Dan Stevens as The Beast, earned $170 million over its opening weekend domestically and another $180 million for its overseas opening for a total worldwide opening of $350 million.
When the Monday actuals came in, the grosses turned out to be even higher than originally estimated for both domestic and overseas.
The film, which cost $160 million to produce, actually ended up earning $174,750,616 over its domestic opening weekend, surpassing its Sunday estimate by $4.8 million. This gives the film the honor of being the biggest March opening weekend ever, as well as the biggest Spring opening weekend ever, and the sixth biggest opening weekend of all time.
Overseas, it was also underestimated, coming in at $182,275,977, beating the original estimate by $2.3 million. The total worldwide opening was $357,026,593, a full $7 million above the original Sunday estimate, making it the 13th biggest worldwide opening weekend of all time.
In the United States, it is playing on around 9,200 screens at 4,210 theaters. The opening weekend average was a scorching $41,508 per theater, and a sizzling $18,995 per screen.
On Friday, it grossed $63,777,443, which includes $16.3 million from preview showings starting on Thursday at 7:00 pm at around 3,300 theaters. The true Friday take comes out to $47,477,443.
On Saturday, the film grossed $62,706,808 (-1.68%), dropping less than 2 percent from its combined Thursday-Friday take. Over the true Friday gross, the film actually increased by 32 percent (+32.08%) on Saturday.
On Sunday, it grossed another $48,266,365 (-23.03%), dropping only 23 percent from its Saturday gross. The film had a much better Sunday hold than originally predicted which made up most of the difference between the Sunday estimates and the Monday actuals.
The Friday to weekend multiplier was a decent 2.74, when dividing the weekend by the Thursday-Friday combined gross.
When we take the Thursday night showings out of the equation, the Friday to total multiplier increases to a solid 3.34 by dividing the true Friday to Sunday gross of $158,450,616 by the true Friday gross of $47,477,443.
With this strong of a start, Beauty and the Beast should have little trouble breaking the $1 billion mark worldwide before the end of its run.
Over the weekdays it has held well too:
Monday gross: $13,531,723 (-71.96%)
Tuesday gross: $17,878,785 (+32.12%)
Wednesday gross: $11,538,802 (-35.46%)
Thursday gross: $10,905,961 (-5.48%)