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Box Office Report: Furious 7 Zooms Past Paul Blart

Vin Diesel and company continued their dominance over the North American box office, fending off two new releases that debuted respectfully. In its third lap, Furious 7 topped the box office with an estimated $29.1 million, a drop of 51% from last weekend. That is a third weekend now that's almost as good as American Sniper ($30.7 million), a film that will finish just shy of the $350 million mark.

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Rounding out the top five were two films from Fox. In its fourth weekend, Home dropped 44% to bring in another $10.3 million. After a strong opening at the end of March, the 3D comedy held up more poorly than other animated titles from Fox and DreamWorks, such as The Croods and Monsters vs. Aliens. It has made $142.6 million so far and could still hit the $175 million mark by the end of its domestic run.

Meanwhile, The Longest Ride dropped a bit better than average for Nicholas Sparks adaptations, losing 47% of its audience to earn $6.9 million in its sophomore weekend. That was similar to Dear John‘s second weekend dip, although it held better than Safe Haven (-51%) and The Lucky One (-52%). However, with just $23.5 million after 10 days, this will be one of Sparks’ lesser-grossing romances. A final of around $35 million is expected.

While Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Unfriended had fine debuts, the rest of the openers this weekend fared poorly. Monkey Kingdom, the newest nature doc from Disney, finished in seventh with just $4.7 million. Despite debuting in the most locations for a Disneynature film, it had the smallest debut. Regardless, these films are produced cheaply and typically hold up well, so it’s not a complete loss.

The news was more dire for moderate openers True Story and Child 44. The crime drama with James Franco and Jonah Hill debuted outside of the Top 10 with just $1.9 million from 831 cinemas. With little marketing muscle from Fox Searchlight, too few moviegoers were aware of the film, even with its cast. Meanwhile, with a similar lack of advertisement and also poor reviews, the historical thriller starring Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman could not find much of an audience. Child 44 only mustered an estimated $600,000 from 510 theaters, one of the worst openings of the year.

Here are the numbers for the Top 10 films at the North American box office for the weekend of April 17 through 19, 2015:

1. Furious 7 – $29.1 million ($294.4 million total)
2. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 – $24 million (NEW)
3. Unfriended – $16 million (NEW)
4. Home – $10.3 million ($142.6 million total)
5. The Longest Ride – $6.9 million ($23.5 million total)
6. Get Hard – $4.8 million ($78.3 million total)
7. Monkey Kingdom – $4.7 million (NEW)
8. Woman in Gold – $4.6 million ($15.9 million total)
9. The Divergent Series: Insurgent – $4.2 million ($120.6 million total)
10. Cinderella – $3.9 million ($186.3 million total)

NOTE: These numbers are weekend estimates based on Friday and Saturday’s estimated takes. Actual numbers for the three-day weekend are reported on Monday afternoon.