‘Ride Along 2’ beats ‘Star Wars’ at box office

“The Force” has finally shown signs of weakness, as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” slipped out of first place after four weeks atop the North American box office derby.

Scoring a B+ CinemaScore, Ride Along 2 finds Kevin Hart and Ice Cube reprising their roles as brothers-in-law from the 2014 original.

The sci-fi juggernaut ended its four-week run at No. 1 over the Martin Luther King Jr.

Taking the second spot was Leonardo DiCaprio’s critically-acclaimed new film The Revenant, which brought in an estimated four-day gross of $35 million.

The Force felt a great disturbance at the box office this weekend. 13 Hours earned a 59% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Whatever the case may be, the film should be able to return a nice tidy profit to Universal Pictures, who spent only $40 million to produce the film.

Fourth place went to another new release this weekend, Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. This was also the first weekend in which the hit sci-fi sequel saw its screen count decrease. The blockbuster added another $25.1 million from 3,822 theaters, bringing its domestic total to $851 million.

Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Rentrak, told USA Today that Star Wars’ loss of the box office crown to Ride Along 2 should not come as a big surprise to anyone. “They rewrote the record books with Star Wars”. Globally, The Force Awakens is now on $1.8 billion.

The Revenant enjoyed a bump from its recent batch of Oscar nominations staying in second place for $29.5 million and a current Stateside total of $87.6 million. That put it ahead of comedy Daddy’s Home, which fell from third to fifth with $9.3 million.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan & Abrams, features a cast including actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Academy Award victor Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow.