G.I. Joe: Retaliation Dominates Weekend Box Office, Sequel on the Way

Paramount Pictures are moving ahead with plans for a third G.I. Joe film after the series' second installment, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, made more than $40 million domestically this weekend and earned the top international, single-weekend box office gross of 2013. "Yo Joe! After a $132 mil opening for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Paramount said it will move forward with a third JOE," tweeted Variety's Andrew Stewart earlier this year. That came on the heels of a $41.2 million weekend in the U.S. and $132 million worldwide, second only to Oz the Great and Powerful's $148 million worldwide gross, but much more of Oz's money came from the U.S., so Paramount is still sticking to a "record-setting" 2013 weekend as G.I. Joe also had the second-best Easter weekend opening ever, behind 2010's Wrath of the Titans. Last week's #1 movie, The Croods, took in $26.6 million this weekend for the #2 spot, giving the movie a strong first two weeks; the studio had been hoping for that, since tracking on the movie had been uneven going into last week's release. Tyler Perry's Temptation came in at #3, followed by Olympus Has Fallen and Oz the Great and Powerful. The last notable film of the week was The Host, the new sci-fi adaptation of the book by Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight. The movie flopped, bringing in only $11 million and taking the #6 spot. That's got to hurt star Saoirse Ronan, whose Order of the Seven was recently axed by Disney because it cost too much money. Maybe she can get a role opposite Taylor Kitsch, whose John Carter and Battleship were back-to-back money-losers last year.