Dawn of the Planet of the Apes lands in the #1 spot for the second weekend in a row, bringing in $36 million, raising its domestic cume to $138 million in ten days, but one newcomer did hold its own in the face of the apes…
The Purge: Anarchy proves people don’t care if they didn’t like the first film in a franchise, you promise more of the same and they’ll show up in hordes. The sequel to last year’s The Purge brought in an estimated $28.3 million, which is less than the $34 million the previous film opened with a year ago, but when you more than triple your production budget in three days I think you’ve done something right. Of course, the production budget is one thing, the marketing budget on this thing had to be huge.
Next up, another animated family film fails to inspire parents to take their kids to the theater as Disney’s Planes: Fire & Rescue fizzled with only $18 million. Granted, this is a Disneytoon film and they aren’t putting the same kind of money into this they are something like Frozen — the budget here was only $50 million — but 2014 is proving to be an especially tough year to get the family out to the theater. Perhaps people are tired of paying $100 dollars to get themselves and the kids into mediocre 3D movies. I can certainly understand that if it were the case.
Continuing with the weekend’s new releases, Sex Tape didn’t exactly have people banging down the theater door. Opening with only $15 million, the reteaming of the Bad Teacher stars, Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel, couldn’t even muster half of Bad Teacher‘s opening and a “C+” CinemaScore won’t help the films legs. Then again, that hasn’t stopped Tammy, which is now up to $71.2 million and it too had a “C+” CinemaScore… oh, and Melissa McCarthy, which seems to be a requirement if you want your terrible comedy to succeed.
Zach Braff‘s Wish I Was Here opened this weekend and I skipped it hearing nothing but bad word of mouth and the timing of the screening wasn’t in my favor. Opening in only 68 theaters the pic took in a mere $495,000.
A small film I do intend to see, however, is I Origins, which, like Wish I Was Here, had an unfortunate screening timing I could not make. It only opened in four theaters this weekend and didn’t make much of a dent either, tallying only $28,700. I’ve heard it’s good so I still hope to see it in theaters rather than waiting to see it at home.
Finally, Boyhood added 28 more theaters and is now playing in 33 across the country, and it brought in $1.19 million for a $36,303 per theater average. It will begin expanding more next weekend and we’ll see how it can do once it gets into more general audience territory.
Next weekend sees new wide releases in And So It Goes, Hercules and Lucy and limited releases of Woody Allen‘s new film, Magic in the Moonlight and A Most Wanted Man.
