LOS ANGELES _ A talking building-block toy proved tougher than Matt Damon's "The Great Wall" at the box office over the four-day Presidents Day weekend, as "The Lego Batman Movie" from Warner Bros. finished first, raking in an estimated $42.5 million in the U.S. and Canada.
The animated "Batman" parody, now in its second week, saw its total domestic gross rise to $107.1 million. International ticket sales are estimated at about $72 million. That's for a film with a production budget of about $80 million.
Coming in second was Universal's "Fifty Shades Darker," the sequel inspired by the best-selling E.L. James novels, which dropped sharply from its opening weekend take of $46.6 million. Its holiday gross was $23.3 million.
Universal's " Great Wall," an epic monster-battle picture directed by Zhang Yimou that Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan described as "a snore," opened with $21.7 million in domestic ticket sales. The $150 million film, which stars Damon as a mercenary warrior, has made more than $244 million in foreign markets.
Lionsgate's assassin flick "John Wick: Chapter Two," starring Keanu Reeves, finished fourth with $19.1 million in its second week. Its per-screen average of $6,136 was just 6 percent below that of "The Great Wall."
New Line's comedy "Fist Fight," starring Ice Cube and Charlie Day, opened with $14.5 million, at the low end of industry projections of $15 million to $20 million heading into the weekend.
But 20th Century Fox's "Hidden Figures," a surprise breakout of the season, continued its strong run, finishing sixth and grossing $8.7 million in its ninth weekend of release. The film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae raised its domestic total to $144.2 million.
Rounding out the top 10: the James McAvoy-starring thriller "Split" from Universal with $8.3 million, Universal's "A Dog's Purpose" with $7.4 million, Oscar front-runner "La La Land" from Lionsgate with $5.4 million (raising its domestic total to $134.4 million) and Oscar-race surprise "Lion" from the Weinstein Co. with $5.2 million.
"A Cure for Wellness" opened below expectations with $5 million. The thriller, directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Dane DeHaan, is about a mysterious wellness spa with a dark secret. Produced by New Regency and released by 20th Century Fox, the film may have been hurt by the continued draw of another thriller, "Split," directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
