‘Fifty Shades Freed’ Dominates Weekend Box Office With $38.8M

Newcomers like “Fifty Shades Freed,” ”Peter Rabbit” and “The 15:17 to Paris” breathed some fresh life into a marketplace that has for weeks been dominated by “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” ”The Greatest Showman” and various Oscar contenders. But it’s all just setting the stage for “Black Panther,” which opens next week.

“Fifty Shades Freed”managed to take the top spot on the charts in North American theaters. Universal Pictures estimated Sunday that the final chapter in the Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele saga earned $38.8 million over the weekend — down significantly from the first film’s $85.2 million debut and even the sequel’s $46.6 million opening, but enough to bump the three-film franchise over $1 billion globally. Women once again made up the vast majority (75 percent) of the opening weekend audience.

“We are exhilarated with the results,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution. “To have a trilogy engineered primarily for a female audience that we were then able to broaden out into a billion-dollar franchise is just a fantastic result.”