Box office

YOUR SACRED WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: On a weekend when Frozen, just out on DVD, became the highest-grossing animated movie in history, the hand of God was very much in evidence in cineplexes across the country. Darren Aronofsky’s revisionist take on the Old Testament story of Noah’s ark opened strong, while the believers continued to flock to the sleeper hit God’s Not Dead, sandwiching three youth-skewing pictures.

1. Noah (Paramount) – $44m, 3,567/$12,335 avg. (debut)
2. Divergent (Lionsgate) – $26.5m (-51.5%), 3,936/$6,733 avg. (week 2)
3. Muppets Most Wanted (Disney) – $11.4m (-33.1%), 3,194/$3,561 avg. (week 2)
4. Mr. Peabody & Sherman (Fox) – $9.5m (-19.7%), 3,299/$2,880 avg. (week 4)
5. God's Not Dead (Freestyle) – $9.1m (-1.5%), 1,178/$7,704 avg. (week 2)

Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox Searchlight) continued to rack up big numbers in its fourth week, earning $8.8m (+30%), a personal best for the cult filmmaker, and drawing the weekend’s biggest per-screen average with a $9,033 average in 977 theaters, That tally put the film at #6, ahead of the debuting Sabotage (Open Road), which grossed a piddling $5.3m, marking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s worst start in 40 years, according to Box Office Mojo. (1/31a)