NEW YORK — Will Smith’s con-man caper “Focus” disrobed “Fifty Shades of Grey” at the box office, but the film’s modest $19.1 million opening still left questions about the drawing power of the once unstoppable star.
According to studio estimates Sunday, Warner Bros.’ “Focus” easily topped all competitors on a weekend with little competition at North American multiplexes. In second place was the Colin Firth spy thriller “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” which made $11.8 million in its third week of release.
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After two weeks atop the box office, “Fifty Shades of Grey” continued its steep slide, landing in fourth with an estimated $10.9 million for Universal Pictures. “Fifty Shades,” which has made $486.2 million globally, fell just behind Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,” which earned $11.2 million in its fourth week.
The weekend’s only other new wide release, Relativity’s horror film “The Lazarus Effect,” opened in fifth place with $10.6 million.
But the weekend was largely seen, fairly or not, as a referendum on Smith’s star power. “Focus,” written and directed by the “Crazy, Stupid, Love” duo Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is Smith’s first film since 2013’s “After Earth,” the sci-fi flop in which he co-starred with his son, Jaden.
Smith has been frank about the sting of that film’s box-office performance. “I can’t allow the box-office success, or lack thereof, to determine my self-image,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
But “Focus,” made for about $50 million and co-starring Margot Robbie of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” was never intended to be a summer-sized blockbuster. It had been predicted to make around $21 million.
“This is a mid-budgeted film with a result that matches,” said Jeff Goldstein, head of distribution for Warner Bros., who added that winter storms accounted for a drop of $1 million to $2 million. “There’s no question we got hammered because of inclement weather in the South and the Midwest.”
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