Divergent went head-to-head with Muppets Most Wanted and pretty much laid the smack down on the sequel to the popular rebooted franchise for the weekend box office crown.
While the first Muppets movie was met with pretty much universal praise, the sequel fell very short of expectations. Divergent finished strong with $56 million, and while that is a solid opening, it is still less than what Twilight made. However, it is a huge improvement over recent young adult adaptations like Beautiful Creatures and The Host.
Meanwhile, Muppets Most Wanted was met with critical indifference as the movie failed to live up to the level of the first movie. That first film earned a $29.2 million weekend box office opening, and with better reviews, which puts the long term life of this one questionable.
The other new release this week was a Christian movie called God’s Not Dead, which made a very impressive $8.56 million. Since it only opened in less than 1,000 theaters, that is very impressive.
Need for Speed, which opened last week, fell below movies that have been running for longer and has only earned a disappointing $30.4 million.
Here’s the complete weekend box office breakdown:
Weekend Box Office
| Position | Title | Weekend | Total |
| 1 | Divergent | $56.0M | $56.0M |
| 2 | Muppets Most Wanted | $16.5 | $16.5 |
| 3 | Mr. Peabody & Sherman | $11.7 | $81.0 |
| 4 | 300: Rise of an Empire | $8.6 | $93.7 |
| 5 | God’s Not Dead | $8.5 | $8.5 |
| 6 | Need for Speed | $7.7 | $30.4 |
| 7 | The Grand Budapest Hotel | $6.7 | $12.9 |
| 8 | Non-Stop | $6.3 | $78.6 |
| 9 | The Lego Movie | $4.1 | $243.3 |
| 10 | Tyler Perry’s The Single Moms Club | $3.1 | $12.9 |
Next week sees Darren Aronofsky’s first big budget effort Noah and the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Sabotage.
Weekend box office estimates courtesy of Box Office Mojo