Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Wins Weekend Box Office

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows topped the weekend box office crown, earning near the high end of its original projections.

The sequel to 2014’s blockbuster comics adaptation earned more than $35 million this weekend, according to studio projections. Final numbers will be in tomorrow. The film was expected to earn between $30 and $35 million.

Last week’s comics adaptation, X-Men: Apocalypse, earned a second place finish with around $23 million. It had tumbled to third place on Friday with a little over $6 million haul. Me Before You, a romance starring Game of Thrones‘s Emilia Clarke, came in second with over $7 million. That movie ultimately earned $18 million over the weekend.

Going into the weekend, it was generally assumed that Apocalypse would come in second, but Me Before You started out outperforming expectations. It’s entirely possible X-Men will still take second place for the weekend in its entirety, since it has a broader audience base than Me Before You and is expected to be less front-loaded.With $22 million in its second weekend, X-Men: Apocalypse dropped about 66%. That’s roughly on par with a lot of big blockbusters in their second week — a little steeper than Captain America: Civil War, but not as steep as Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

For Ninja Turtles, it’s hard to say how happy the studio will or won’t be. Even winning its opening weekend by a wide margin, a $35 million opening would be a nearly 50% drop from the opening weekend for the first installment in the franchise — this despite better word of mouth and an A- CinemaScore.