A Strong Follow-Up Performance at the Box Office for "The King of Kings"

The animated story of Jesus' life delivers a particularly good second weekend in theaters.

The Jesus Character appears in a scene from the animated feature film "The King of Kings." Image: Angel Studios.

Theatrically released movies typically experience a drop of 40% to 50% or more in ticket revenue from opening weekend to weekend number two, so the fact that The King of Kings fell only 11% in its second weekend makes clear what an impressive start it is off to. The film brought in an estimated $17.2 million from Friday through Sunday, according to The Numbers website, putting it in third place overall at the North American box office.

That is down a spot from its inaugural weekend on the big screen, when it delivered one of the best opening performances - $19.3 million - of any movie in the faith-based genre for years now. Christian Film Blog had speculated at the time that it was likely to generate somewhere in the $50-million range when all was said and done, but we clearly missed the mark: The King of Kings has already crossed the $45-million threshold after only ten days in release!

That is an impressive number indeed, and this picture from distributor Angel Studios - which got a top rating from opening-night audiences surveyed by CinemaScore - is likely going to challenge for a place in the Top-5 all-time grossing movies in the genre, needing to get to about $68 million to enter that group, according to data from Box Office Mojo.