Beauty & The Beast On Track To Break Batman V Superman's Record

CBR

By Brett White

Published Mar 18, 2017

The live-action Disney film added another $64.2 million to its opening weekend total on Friday.

Belle and the Beast have Batman and Superman in their sights. Much has been made of the odds of Disney's live-action "Beauty and the Beast" dethroning "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" as the biggest March movie ever, and those odds just skewed a bit more in the tale as old as time's favor.

As reported by Variety, the film, which features Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as Beast, added another $64.2 million to its opening weekend haul on Friday. That's added to the $16.3 million the film earned in Thursday night previews.

Based on its Thursday and Friday earnings analysts are now estimating that "Beauty and the Beast" could score a massive $170M opening. That would best "Batman v Superman's" opening weekend; the DC superhero film earned $166M when it opened in March 2016. While "BvS" earned more on its preview night and opening day, "Beauty and the Beast" could break the record if Saturday and Sunday's receipts remain consistent with Thursday and Friday.

Earlier this week, Fandango revealed that over 1,000 showtimes for “Beauty and the Beast” are already sold out all across the country. The film’s pre-sale numbers are reportedly on the level of “Dark Knight,” “Avengers” and the “Twilight” films. Fandango predicts that “Beauty and the Beast” will do more in pre-sales than the previous March record-holder, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” So far, more than 90% of “Beauty and the Beast’s” pre-sales have come from Fandango. The film is already the online ticket seller’s biggest family film of all time when it comes to pre-sales.

Directed by Bill Condon, “Beauty and the Beast” stars Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast, Luke Evans as Gaston, Kevin Kline as Mauricer, Josh Gad as Lefou, Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, Audra McDonald as Madame Garderobe, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, and Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts.