"A Good Day to Die Hard," the fifth and most recent installment in the durable action movie franchise, was the top box-office performer over the extended Presidents' Day weekend. The film, a fresh release distributed by News Corp's (NWS +0.00%) Fox, pulled in $29 million in ticket receipts.
That narrowly edged out the performance of the comedy "Identity Thief," now in its second week of release. The movie drew nearly $28 million worth of business, not far from its estimated production budget of $35 million. "Identity Thief" is distributed by Universal, a subsidiary of Comcast's (CMCSA 3.20%) NBCUniversal.
In third place was the soapy "Safe Haven," the latest adaptation of a novel by popular author Nicholas Sparks. It took in $24.5 million, which combined with its Valentine's Day premiere makes for a total take of $33 million thus far. The privately held Relativity distributes the movie.
