What does a movie studio want out of its sequels? Is a sequel a failure if it simply matches its predecessor or does it need to make more money? That’s the big question that’s swirling around Insurgent, which made almost exactly as much as Divergent did one year ago. Seriously: there’s only a $500,000 difference in their opening weekends. So is Insurgent a success or a disappointment? That’s the question, isn’t it?

FilmWeekendPer Screen
1Insurgent$54,025,000$13,942$54,025,000
2Cinderella$34,492,000 (-49.2)$8,964$122,041,000
3Run All Night$5,115,000 (-53.6)$1,613$19,722,000
4The Gunman$5,009,000$1,779$5,009,000
5Kingsman: The Secret Service$4,600,000 (-26.0)
$2,069$114,570,000
6Do You Believe?$4,000,000$3,030$4,000,000
7Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel$3,450,000 (-39.3)$1,711$24,125,000
8Focus$3,300,000 (-42.5)$1,606$49,403,000
9Chappie$2,650,000 (-53.5)$1,091$28,300,000
10The SpongeBob Movie$2,350,000 (-41.6)$1,187$158,794,000

With a weekend haul of $54 million, Insurgent easily took the weekend. However, its real test will come over the next few weeks. Divergent ultimately tripled its opening weekend at the domestic box office, grossing $150 million. Insurgent will need to do similar numbers to be seen as a success. In a perfect world, it would find a way to sprint to $200 million. But alas, these movies don’t have the unstoppable drawing power of The Hunger Games. With Furious 7 just around the corner, this franchise is about to get tested in a huge way. It is going to need to weather one helluva storm.

Meanwhile, The Gunman opened in fourth place with $5 million, instantly ending Sean Penn’s desperate attempt to pull a Liam Neeson and evolve into a late-career action hero. In fact, this is one of the lowest opening weekends in Penn’s filmography, which has got to hurt. Between this and the ultimately disappointing gross of Taken 3, we could be looking at the end of the age of the older action hero.

And then there’s Do You Believe?, the Christian film that played well enough with faith-based audiences to crack the top 10 with $4 million in sixth place. No crowd is more fickle or harder to predict, so we’ll just have to see what happens to this one next week.

The rest of the top 10 lacked any kind of surprise. Cinderella dropped to second place, but with a $34 million weekend and a $122 million total haul so far, it’s in a very good place. $200 million shouldn’t be a problem unless something goes horribly wrong. Right below it, Run All Night continued to do disappoint business, but hey, at least it’s going to wildly outgross The Gunman.

While Chappie and Focus continued to do lackluster business, a trio of movies continued to do surprising business. Kingsman: The Secret Service kept on showing off endurance that every other movie in the top 10 would kill for, grossing $4 million for a $114 million total, dropping only 26% from last week. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel continued replicating the success of its predecessor, slowly but surely heading for the $30 million mark on the back of older crowds. And finally, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water continued to rapidly catch up with 50 Shades of Grey, further extending the most unlikely showdown of the year.

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