'Fifty Shades of Grey' finds love with record box office weekend
Posted: Feb 15, 2015 3:24 PM CDT
Universal Pictures' erotic thriller set records at the cinema this weekend, hauling in $81.6 million over three days.
That makes \"Fifty Shades\" the biggest opening ever for a film on the combined Valentine's Day and Presidents Day weekend.
The box office love is expected to continue into Monday, which is a holiday for many people.
Industry analysts are projecting the film's four-day holiday haul to be roughly $90 million.
The film's $80 million three-day total crushed the previous record holder, the 2010 rom-com \"Valentine's Day,\" which brought in $63.1 million over four days.
\"Fifty Shades\" also nearly broke another record. It came in just shy of 2004's \"Passion of the Christ,\" which opened to $83.9 million, the largest February opening of all time.
The sexy film starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan also had a huge Valentine's Day with it bringing in $36.7 million on Saturday alone.
This is the largest single-day box office gross in the history of February, which makes sense considering that the film was heavily marketed as a Valentine's Day rendezvous.
While the box office numbers were record breaking, audiences didn't take much pleasure in actually watching the film.
Movie-goers gave \"Fifty Shades of Grey\" a less than loving CinemaScore rating of C+