Looks like the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon might have passed. Or, at the very least, it has died down considerably.
Although Fifty Shades of Grey was able to retain the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, the movie suffered a massive 73 percent decline in its second weekend. However, considering the huge numbers the movie opened to last week, it was always going to be tough for the movie to avoid declining in week two. The movie raked in $22.3 million, which was enough to keep it ahead of this weekend's three new releases, Hot Tub Time Machine 2, The DUFF and McFarland, USA. As an added bonus, Fifty Shades of Grey has now earned $130.1 million over the past two weeks.
But even with that silver lining, it's still bad news for Fifty Shades of Grey, as the film suffered the second-biggest decline ever for a movie playing at over 3,100 locations, only barely keeping ahead of the Friday the 13th remake, which dropped 80 percent in its second weekend in 2009.
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 outright bombed, coming in at No. 7 with a disastrous $5.9 million, a huge decline from the original film's $14 million debut. It's hard to imagine the film will turn a profit by the time its run comes to an end. One of the prevailing theories is that the five-year gap between the first film and the second was one of the biggest reasons for its failure, considering that the more successful comedy sequels tend to come 2-3 years after the original. But regardless of the reason, this was a terrible opening for Hot Tub Time Machine 2.