The first weekend numbers based on Thursday sales, suggest a 55 % drop for BvS (60 % drop including previews) while ZOOTOPIA passes DEADPOOL and THE REVENANT to become the biggest movie of the year...

That's great for Zootopia. Not bad for BvS considering the holiday weekend boost.

Well, Germany is not that frontloaded, 50 % plus drops are not very common (except during sunny weather)...

Let me guess there was an eclipse?

Zootopia is going for 3.5 million admissions in total, similar to Inside Out. While good, I miss the times when big animated hits could get 5+ million admissions based on great WoM. Now that seems pretty much exclusively reserved for Minions and Ice Age sequels. Seriously, what the hell? I mean Zootopia could not have better WoM than it does, yet it will clearly miss 4 million admissions. It seems like 3-4 million admissions is the range for most well-liked animated films.

Looking back, it seems like a miracle that Ratatouille got 6 million admissions.

http://www.insidekino.com/DTop10/16/DTop16MAE31.htm

So BvS' 2nd weekend is 1.4 % better than ZOOTOPIA's fifth weekend.

ZOOTOPIA passes DEADPOOL & REVENANT and is now 2016's biggest hit.

SW7 passes EPISODE 1 and is now the biggest SW movie with 8,965,321 admissions...

Judging by Thursday sales it looks like ZOOTOPIA could regain the No. 1 spot while BvS drops another 53 %.

HUNTSMAN opens 69 % below Part I while HOW TO BE SINGLE fights for the top spot with ZOO...

http://www.insidekino.com/DTop10/16/DTop16APR7.htm

Worst weekend of the year with HUNTSMAN flopping (66 % below Part I ) and BvS dropping another 51 %...

How to Be Single did good. Poor for Hunstman but its expected to flop.

http://www.insidekino.com/DTop10/16/DTop16APR14.htm

JUNGLE BOOK with the 4th biggest opening of 2016, but compared to other European markets it's underwhelming...

Some great holds this weekend...

The weather was sunny, though, right? (I don't know, I wasn't in Germany last weekend).

No, only the very northern part of Germany was sunny, in most parts it was raining cats & dogs...

http://www.insidekino.com/DTop10/16/DTop16MAI5.htm

As usual, beautiful weather melted the b.o.

Now maybe your memory is better than mine, but when I think back to, say, 2000/2001...I remember films like The Mummy Returns, Pearl Harbor or Mission: Impossible II posting 1+ million admissions openings despite warm and sunny weather. Does my memory betray me or was the box-office THAT different back then? I mean a film like Pearl Harbor would not open this huge nowadays under any imaginable circumstances wather-wise...

Box office was indeed quite different back than (even though 2015 is considered a good year, it's still down 22 % compared to 2001).
But equally important is how the beautiful weather came together. The first nice weekend after bad weather is twice as bad as the third nice weekend in a row.
We had quite a lot of good openers in the "Jahrhundertsommer" of 2003 because people got used to the nice weather and they didn't have to fear that every nice day could be the last one... (sort of like going to the movies in the USA)

True. Yet this whole stretch of bad weather ==> good weather ==> box-office killed effect has been way more visible in the last 6-7 years than 15 years ago. Maybe weather was generally better back then.

But then again, films like 40 Days and 40 Nights getting over 2 million admissions or the FSK18 Blade II getting 1.8 million...just unimaginable nowadays.

Judging by Thursday sales, WARCRAFT (500,000 admissions) will handily beat ALICE 2 (225,000) this weekend...
The WARCRAFT opening would be the 5th biggest of the year...

It seems as though Warcraft is going to be saved by its overseas tally. A $500 million+ (maybe $600 million+) OS total is looking pretty good, based on early reports and real figures. It's delivering good to excellent openings everywhere so far.

Almost 90% of its worldwide total could be from overseas, heh.

If Warcraft is saved by OS box office with over 80% coming from outside NA with a WW gross of over 300M, it will be a rare case. Looking at the list of all time WW box office films...

44 Ice Age: Continental Drift Fox $877.2 81.6% 2012
128 The Mermaid (Mei ren yu) Sony $553.8 99.4% 2016
205 The Intouchables Wein. $426.6 97.6% 2012
236 Monster Hunt FR $385.3 100.0% 2016
253 The Golden Compass NL $372.2 81.2% 2007

Only 2 received major releases in the U.S.

Looks like THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS will deliver the biggest opening of the year (admissions)...

http://www.insidekino.de/DTop10/16/DTop16JUL28.htm

THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS misses the biggest opening of the year by 1.1 % (8,103 admissions)...

What has the biggest opening of the year?

Deadpool I think. But it's called "Totes Schwimmbad" in Germany or not?

I think it was just called "Deadpool". It sure had the largest opening week of the year, but was it also the largest opening weekend? Mark's site is so hard to navigate and find anything on, so I am guessing here.

In the link provided in the right column you'll find the Top Ten opening weekends of the year...