Box Office Weekend: 'Beauty and the Beast' Sets $170M Record

The Box Office weekend belonged to "Beauty and the Beast" as the Disney live-action fairy tale movie set the record for PG title openings while earning a spot as the one of top 10 money grossers ever.

The Emma Watson-led ensemble pulled in $170 million at 4,210 theaters in North America and another $180 million in foreign receipts, giving "Beauty and the Beast" a whopping $350 million opening weekend total, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie crushed the old PG domestic opening title set last year by "Finding Dory," which opened at $135 million. The movie became the best March weekend opener ever, topping 2016's "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," which opened at $166 million.

"Of its international openings, 'Beauty and the Beast' opened as the No. 1 film in all but three markets (Vietnam, India and Turkey), led by an estimated $22.8 million in the (United Kingdom), the highest grossing three-day opening in the market for a PG movie as well as an estimated $44.8 million in China, already surpassing the entire run in China for 'Maleficent' and 'Alice in Wonderland,'" said Brad Brevet of BoxOfficeMojo.

Beauty and the Beast's" opening weekend also was the seventh biggest domestic grosser of any film, said THR.

"I don't know if they made a deal with the devil, but Disney is an awfully potent empire right now," Jeff Bock, an analyst at Exhibitor Relations, told Variety magazine. "You continue to shake your head and roll your eyes, but they can do no wrong right now and that has all the other studios salivating."

Disney, thanks to its acquisition of such partners of like Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Pixar, has continued its domination of the movie industry. Variety reported that Disney made up more than one-quarter of domestic movie ticket sales in 2016.

The studio still has potential blockbusters in the pipe for this year with "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2" (May 5), "Cars 3," (June 17), and "Thor: Ragnarok" (Nov. 3) on the horizon.

Rounding out the top five weekend movies were "Kong: Skull Island" with $28.9 million, "Logan" with $17.5 million, "Get Out" at $13.2 million, and "The Shack" at $6.1 million, according to THR.