Tales From The Box Office: 10 Years Later, The Croods Is Still Nic Cage's Biggest Film

Despite having to shift the release date a few times, Fox (before it was owned by Disney and before DreamWorks had its deal with Universal) chose to release "The Croods" hits theaters March 22, 2013. As we've seen over the past decade, March can be fertile ground in that pre-summer spring break period for some blockbusters. It certainly turned out to work well for this film.

The animated film, after all its delays and development issues, debuted atop the charts in its opening weekend, grossing $43.6 million, topping “Olympus has Fallen” and “Admission,” which also opened this weekend. While the movie would cede the crown to "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" the following weekend, down 38.8%, it still grossed another $26.7 million. The public ate ​​it. Families ate it. Word of mouth was good.

What helped the most was a huge overseas turnout. The film ended its domestic run with $187.1 million, but it made $400 million internationally, far exceeding expectations. This $587.2 million worldwide haul more than justified the $135 million production budget and, moreover, helped DreamWorks out of a difficult situation. It also gave Nic Cage a top-grossing new film, surpassing "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" ($457.3 million) by a significant margin.