The LEGO Movie assembled an impressive opening weekend gross at the box office, selling $69 million in tickets and easily topping an unexpectedly strong frame.
Based on the popular toy, the Warner Bros. Animation release earned the second-highest opening weekend gross for February, behind only the 2004 release of The Passion of the Christ.
The LEGO Movie garnered strong positive reviews, and boasts a rather high 95 percent approval rating on the critical aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.
The performance is especially good for a film that’s not a sequel or prequel, though LEGO is one of the most popular toys in the world and the movie features well-known Warner Bros. characters such as Batman.
Disney’s Frozen continued to perform well at the box office, earning $6.9 million this past weekend. That’s good enough for fourth place for the weekend, which is the hit animated musical’s 12th in release.
Frozen is zeroing in on the billion-dollar mark, having so far earned $368 million domestic and $913 million worldwide.
Slipping down to eighth place in its fourth weekend was the indie animated feature The Nut Job. The film earned $3.8 million in ticket sales, pushing its domestic total to $55 million.
The next major animated release is not slated to show up until March 7, when DreamWorks Animation rolls out Mr. Peabody & Sherman.
