Ride Along 2 knocks Star Wars film off top spot

After almost a month at the top of the box office charts, “The Force Awakens” was finally dethroned by the “Ride Along” sequel. Ride Along 2 finds the bickering police officers trying to bring a Miami drug ring to justice.

It’s off to a solid start.

Ride Along 2 was savaged by the critics, earning only a 14 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences didn’t seem to care. The bone-chilling picture has now pulled $87.6 million domestically and $58.6 million internationally, giving it a worldwide total of $151.8 million. The budget for “The Revenant” swelled to $135 million amid production delays. The four-day weekend estimate is $31 million. It has earned $851 million stateside and $1.86 billion globally.

The very first thing our freind said when we left the theatre was “Why do Stormtroopers wear all that armor if you can just blast right through them…?” From 2,400 locations, the Rob Schneider-voiced movie opened to $6.6 million and a weak per-screen average of $2,769. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday. 1.

Rounding out the top five was the Summit Entertainment film “The Last Witch Hunter”, which earned $9.5 million Friday through Sunday.

Alejandro G. Inarritu’s The Revenant roared to an impressive $7.9 million debut at the United Kingdom box office, buoyed by a bevy of Oscar and BAFTA nominations, in addition to Golden Globe wins. The animated film about a polar bear who is displaced from his Arctic home and makes his way to New York City, should do $8.8 million worth of business over the four-day span. Lionsgate is only on the hook for marketing costs on this one but may still have difficulty making any real money unless overseas grosses are far better than expected.

“The Revenant”, the haunting wilderness survival flick starring Leonardo DiCaprio, booked the second-highest sales, with $29.5 million in its second weekend of wide release.

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

Internationally, Star Wars blockbuster became only the 5th film in history after Avatar, Titanic, Jurassic World and Furious 7 to cross the $1-B mark.