Box office hits and misses: Gods of Egypt bombs as Deadpool extends its reign

For the third straight week, Deadpool continued its raunchy, record-breaking reign atop the box-office rankings, and for the third week in a row, no other movie came close to beating it — and that includes a trio of new releases featuring some well-known stars.

One of the most successful “R”-rated movies of all time both in U.S. theaters and worldwide, Deadpool added another $31.5 million to its domestic ticket sales over the weekend, and pushed its worldwide gross past the $600 million mark ($609.8 million, in fact) in just three weekends. The massive success of Deadpool made the underwhelming performance of the second-place film, Gods of Egypt, seem that much more disappointing.

Director Alex Proyas’ special-effects spectacle generated just $14 million for its opening weekend, far below the hopes of its studio, Lionsgate, for the $140 million film, which stars Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, and Game of Thrones actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Unless things turn around in a big way for Gods of Egypt, it’s likely to become the year’s first major flop at the box office — but with near-universal negative reviews for the film, a dramatic shift isn’t likely.

As for the weekend’s other new releases, ski-jumping comedy Eddie the Eagle and heist drama Triple 9 didn’t over- or under-perform expectations, and earned right around what pundits were expecting for both films. And the positive reviews that the two films are earning will probably keep them in theaters long enough to cover their budgets, which are fairly low by Hollywood standards.

It’s worth noting that this is the first week since Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters that the sci-fi sequel hasn’t earned enough to put it among the top ten films for the weekend. The current all-time domestic record-holder added another $3 million to its wildly successful run, bringing its U.S. total to $926 million. The Force Awakens now stands just $138 million shy of passing Titanic to become the second-highest grossing film of all time worldwide.

This upcoming weekend features the release of several notable films, including Tina Fey’s wartime comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the action sequel London Has Fallen, and the animated feature Zootopia. Celebrated filmmaker Terrence Malick’s new film, Knight of Cups, also hits theaters. It’s uncertain whether any of these films can knock Deadpool out of the top spot, but given how well animated features tend to perform on their opening weekends, Zootopia might be the one to do it.