'The Batman' Tops Box Office, But Who Expected 'Jujutsu Kaisen 0' To Take Second Place?

“The Batman” stayed on top of the U.S. box office for the third consecutive weekend, while two smaller releases from independent studios found their way to the upper ranks of the top grossing films.

What Happened: There was no surprise in “The Batman” from AT&T's T Warner Bros. division continuing to draw audiences, bringing in $36.8 million from 4,302 theaters. The film broke the $300 million mark for its domestic theatrical release. On a global spectrum, “The Batman” is approaching the $600 million mark for ticket sales.

But the real surprise included the weekend’s second place finish among the top grossing films: the anime feature “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” from Crunchyroll / Funimation premiered this weekend with $17.7 million from 2,297 theaters. This offered a very rare occasion when a new anime theatrical release cracked the U.S. top five list of weekend box office champs.

Another surprise was the fourth place finish for A24’s horror-slasher film “X,” which accumulated $4.4 million from 2,865 venues in its premiere weekend. “X” had its world premiere on March 13 at SXSW and was fueled by very strong critical response – the Rotten Tomatoes website gave it a 96% positive rating.

Sony Pictures’ SONY “Uncharted” was the weekend’s third top grossing film with $8 million from 3,700 theaters, which brings its five-week domestic release total to $125.8 million. United Artists Releasing’s “Dog” finished with $4.09 million from 3,307, bringing its five-week domestic theatrical release total to $54.2 million.

And Sony Pictures' “Spider-Man: No Way Home” finally fell out of the top five rankings during its 14th week in theaters with a $3.2 million take from 2,585; the film has grossed $797.5 million from its U.S. theatrical release

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What Happens Next: This coming weekend has one major film in nationwide release: Paramount’s PARAA “The Lost City,” a comedy-romance-adventure-thriller with a starry cast that includes Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt.

Among the films opening in limited release are Warner Bros.’ “The Duke,” a British art heist comedy starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren that was originally slated to open in 2020 but has been on the shelf until now; Bleeker Street's “Infinite Storm” starring Naomi Watts as a mountain climber who encounters a stranded man during a descent from a peak ahead of a blizzard; and Lionsgate's (NYSE: LGF-A) British romantic-drama “Mothering Sunday” with Colin Firth, Olivia Colman and Glenda Jackson.

Kino Cult, a division of Kino Lorber, is teaming the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain on a re-release of Brian Trenchard-Smith's 1978 cult favorite “Stunt Rock” starring the legendary Australian stuntman Grant Page. Promoted as being “part documentary, part rock film, and all kinds of crazy,” the film is being presented in a new 4K restoration.

Also Happening: Marina Kuderchuk, the head of the Ukrainian State Film Agency, is calling on the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals to ban “all content created in Russia or co-productions with Russia” from their respective exhibitions.

According to a Screen Daily report, Kuderchuk’s request came after both festivals issued statements that they would not ban films by Russian filmmakers opposed to the Ukraine war and to the increasingly repressive domestic policies of President Vladimir Putin. But Kuderchuk claimed “the Russian Federation is unreservedly plagued by a totalitarian regime where the very notion of freedom is non-existent.”

“By supporting Russian filmmakers, you not only promote the aggression of the Russian Federation, but also help to finance it,” she claimed. “Nowadays, this financing of a terrorist country, which no longer tolerates free and independent arts, is unacceptable.”

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Photo: A scene from 'Jujutsu Kaisen 0' via Crunchyroll / Funimation