Jackie Robinson was a trailblazer. He changed the sport of baseball forever. It is only fitting that his biopic, 42, blazes its own trail, as it set a baseball movie record for opening weekend. Couldn’t have written a better story myself.  As baseball movies in America usually only flirt with the $20 million mark for opening weekend box office sales, 42, the Jackie Robinson biopic, was an exceptional success in its category as it managed to bank a whopping $27.2 million. With that, it landed atop the box office for the weekend by - what some would call - a landslide, as horror-spoof Scary Movie 5 totaled a lackluster $15.1 million. The comedic franchise endured its first embarrassing moment. Its first release in seven years, failed to match the performance of its predecessors, which all opened well above the $20 million mark – with three above $40 million.  Legendary Pictures has produced several blockbuster movies for Warner Bros., including 2006’s 300, 2008’s The Dark Knight, and 2009’s The Hangover, but 42, written and directed by Brian Helgeland, effortlessly surmounted its bench-marking categorical films. The 2006 comedy, Benchwarmers, bank rolled $19.6 million in its opening weekend, while 2011’s Moneyball - starring Brad Pitt, debuted with a neighboring $19.5 million.

With a mere $38 million production budget, the film stars Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. "We started out looking at this as a small film," Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman notes, "but when we saw what we had on our hands, we pressed the button and went wide with it." 42 debuted in 3,003 theaters this weekend, and Fellman and Warner Bros. look to expand next weekend, leaving little to no excuses for you – if you haven’t already – to enjoy this silver screen home run first-hand!