"How to Train Your Dragon 3", "Funeral Family Madea" in Close Race – Variety

Tyler Perry's "Funeral of the Madea Family" launches the following challenge: "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World" for first place at the domestic box office, according to first estimates released Friday.

The eleventh tranche of the Lionsgate Madea franchise is at the peak of expectations, with an opening of about $ 23 million on 2,442 sites on Friday. "How to Train Your Dragon 3" was supposed to end with about $ 24 million spread over 4,296 sites, a 56% drop that would give him a repeat North American box office win and $ 90 million at his First 10 days.

The third weekend of Fox's "Alita: Battle Angel" tops the rest of the pack with approximately $ 6 million spread over 3,096 locations. The launch of Focus Features' "Greta" thriller, starring Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz, is on target, with a budget of about $ 5 million on 2,409 screens. He will compete for fourth place with Warner Bros. Fourth weekend of "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part".

"A Madea Family Funeral" is Perry's swan song for her longtime character, Madea, which dates back two decades from her 1999 play "I Can Do Bad All By Myself". Madea Goes to Jail ", which debuted with $ 41 million in 2009.

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"Funeral" – which Perry directed, writes and produces – takes place in remote Georgia, where a family reunion becomes an unexpected funeral. As usual, Perry describes several characters and regulars, Patrice Lovely and Cassi Davis, come back. The photo is also produced by Ozzie Areu, Will Areu and Mark E. Swinton.

The weekend after the Oscars also sees extensions for the "Green Book" of Universal, "The Spider-Man: In The Spider-Verse" from Sony and for Warner Bros. "A star is born" with a reissue of one week with 12 minutes of new images.

The Oscar-winning "Green Book" will bring in $ 4 million to $ 5 million in 2,641 locations. This should move the North American course to more than 75 million dollars.

This weekend is in part the prelude to Disney's "Captain Marvel", which is expected to debut the opening weekend of more than $ 100 million in the year when it will hit theaters on weekends next and revive a weakened national box office.

Overall, North American film attendance is down 27% in 2019, to reach $ 1.42 billion, according to Comscore, and in February, it slipped by 38%. This is the largest year-over-year decline since 1990, as a result of the massive "Black Panther" crash last year.

"The decline is unprecedented because there had never been a movie like" Black Panther "released in February," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst of the box office tracker.

The gap will widen by the end of the weekend, knowing that the third weekend of "Black Panther" had already reached $ 66 million, which earned him $ 500 million. dollars.