'The Lego Batman Movie' tops the first strong weekend box office of the year

Who says there's nothing to see at the movies?

This weekend proved that multiple titles can perform well at the multiplex on the same weekend as "The Lego Batman Movie," "Fifty Shades Darker," and "John Wick: Chapter 2" all had impressive first weekends.

"The Lego Batman" movie found positive reviews leading into the weekend which led to an estimated $55.6 million, according to Exhibitor Relations, to win the weekend.

Though that doesn't come close to 2014's "The Lego Movie" opening of $69 million, it's still impressive for a spin-off movie of one of the popular characters from the original.

The difference between first place and second this weekend really came down to the number of screens both titles were on.

"Fifty Shades Darker," the follow-up to "Fifty Shades of Grey," didn't get the opening the first movie based on the E.L. James novels had ($85.1 million), but its $46.8 million take is a strong figure seeing it only had a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In fact, the movie out-performed "The Lego Movie" on Friday ($21.5 million versus $15 million), but "Lego" having over 300 more screens has proved enough to edge out "Grey."

Coming in third is "John Wick: Chapter 2." The Keanu Reeves R-rated action movie is proving to find audiences outside of its genre fan base, as the movie took in $30 million, more than doubling the opening weekend of the original in 2014 ($14.4 million).

All three titles should have strong performances next weekend, too, as the only big competition will be the Matt Damon action/thriller, "The Great Wall."

NOW WATCH: Everything you need to know about 'American Gods' - a TV show that could be bigger than 'Game of Thrones'

Please enable Javascript to watch this video