'Heaven Is for Real' Crushes Johnny Depp's Latest Bomb 'Transcendence'

Faith-based film Heaven Is for Real soared at the Easter weekend box office, earning a stellar $21.5 million from 2,417 theaters to bury big-budget Transcendence, which opened to a dismal $11.5 million from 3,455 locations.

Transcendence marks the third big-budget bomb in a row for Johnny Depp after The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows.

Captain America, staying at No. 1 for its third consecutive weekend, grossed $26.6 million from 3,825 locations to cross the $200 million mark domestically and hit $586.6 million worldwide in another major victory for Marvel Studios and Disney.

Fox's animated family film Rio 2 grossed $22.5 million from 3,975 locations in its second weekend for a domestic total of $75.4 million.

Heaven Is for Real, placing No. 3, is the latest Christian film to exceed expectations. Produced by influential pastor T. D. Jakes, director Randall Wallace and Hollywood veteran Joe Roth, Heaven Is for Real stars Greg Kinnear and earned an A CinemaScore. The drama did its biggest business in the country's Bible Belt, but appealed to mainstream audiences as well.

Easter weekend provided further evidence that 2014 is indeed the year of the Bible movies. Heaven Is for Real was one of three such titles populating the top 10 chart. Noah placed No. 9 with $5 million for a domestic cume of $93.2 million, while God's Not Dead came in No. 10 with $4.8 million, pushing its total to $48.2 million.

Heading into the weekend, no one expected the $12 million Heaven Is for Real to beat Transcendence, which cost a hefty $100 million to produce. Transcendence suffered from scathing reviews and a C+ CinemaScore.

Easter weekend saw two other new nationwide offerings -- A Haunted House 2 and Disney documentary Bears.  Haunted House 2 placed No. 5 with $9.1 million from 2,310 theaters, half of the $18 million opening secured by the first film. Bears placed No. 11 with a less-than-expected $4.7 million from 1,720 theaters, the lowest opening of any Disneynature title.

Over the weekend, Frozen became the No. 6 title of all time worldwide with $1.129 billion in earnings, passing up The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.114 billion) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1.123 billion). It has also passed up Ice Age 4 ($716 million) to become the top-grossing animated film at the international box office with $729.3 million.

Captain America Writers Talk Next Narnia Movie

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were the screenwriters on the first three Narnia movies. They were replaced during pre-production on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which lead to their work on the Marvel cinematic universe writing Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World. They've already been signed to write Captain America 3, and may also work on the Agent Carter miniseries that could come to TV in the mid-season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

They spoke with SuperheroHype, who asked about The Silver Chair, even though Markus and McFeely are not writing the screenplay.

SHH: Before you guys go, I want to quickly ask about “Chronicles of Narnia,” because I’m a huge fan of the books. Do you think there’s a future for the movies as a franchise at this point and are you still involved at all?
Markus: They’re trying to do a fourth one.
McFeely: Yeah, they’re trying to do “The Silver Chair” right now but I don’t think there’s a studio.
McFeely: No, I think they switched producers, but “Silver Chair” I think is a good choice because it’s a pretty coherent adventure that’s not terribly tied to what comes before or after so you can make a really solid adventure movie and not get too bound up inside this other thing. It’s three acts, it’s literally a beginning, middle and end and it feels like a whole story. “[Prince] Caspian” was harder because it takes place a thousand years later and “[The Voyage of the] Dawn Treader” was really hard. We were kicked off that one. The problem with “Dawn Treader” is that it’s a lovely book with no stakes. It’s a philosophical exploration that needed to be turned into a heroic quest, but it basically just wasn't.
McFeely: We always thought that if we did “The Silver Chair,” we’ll crush that one, but everything worked out for a reason. If we stayed with that, we wouldn’t be here.

David Magee is currently writing the script for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair.