The 3D version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast posted a solid opening weekend at the box office, earning an estimated $18.5 million and coming in second for the frame that ran through Sunday.
The weekend’s top movie was Universal’s Contraband, an R-rated thriller starring Mark Wahlberg that grossed an estimated $24.1 million in its debut weekend.
Beauty and the Beast’s total builds on the $146 million it earned in its original 1991 release, as well as the $25 million it earned as an IMAX release in 2002. That gives it a lifetime box office total of about $192 million.
The animation-live action hybrid movie Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked came in eighth this weekend, with $5.8 million in its fifth weekend of release. The film has grossed $118 million domestic and $152 million foreign for a worldwide total to date of about $271 million.
Other animated movies still in release include The Adventures of Tintin, which earned $4 million over the weekend to bring its domestic total to $67 million. The film has been a global smash outside of America, where it has earned $278 million for a worldwide total to date of $346 million.
