Box Office Week: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens at #1 with $75 mil. Other new releases couldn't compete as The Edge of Seventeen opens weak to $4.8 mil at #7, Bleed for This opens worse at #8 to $2.3 mil, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk utterly bombs opening wide to $930k at #14.


It was projected to make around $80-90M based on Friday and Saturday's profits, but "Fantastic Beasts" nevertheless dominated the weekend Box-Office with a respectable $75 Million opening weekend. 

Of note: Ang Lee's much anticipated High-Frame-Rate experiment "Billy Lynn's Long Half Time" bombed big time this weekend despite being screened in more than 1,176 screens across the country. It racked up an abysmal $3 Million. Its budget was reportedly at around $40 Million, but it seems like it won't come even close to getting it back and breaking even. Its Oscar hopes have also been obliterated by not only its poor performance, but also the less-than-stellar reviews it has garnered ever since its failed world premiere this past October at the New York Film Festival.