The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films and then check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office.
Things started to get real at the summer box office as two very different new movies opened on Thursday night and battle lines were drawn as one of them started out the weekend well ahead, but by Friday afternoon, it became more of a tighter race and by the end of Friday, the other movie had pulled ahead.
Not that it really mattered, because going by Sunday estimates, Universal Pictures’ hit animated comedy sequel Despicable Me 2 had settled back into the #1 slot for the second weekend in a row with an estimated $44.7 million and a total domestic gross of $229.2 million. It opened in six new markets internationally this weekend and was #1 in all of them, grossing $55.5 million in those territories to bring its international total to $243.2 million and global cume to $472.4 million.
Of the two new movies, Adam Sandler’s ensemble comedy sequel Grown Ups 2, co-starring Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello and Nick Swardson, ended up with $42.5 million over the weekend from 3,491 theaters or roughly $12,000 per location to take second place. That’s roughly two million more than the original movie made when it opened three years ago and it’s on par with Sandler’s last movie for Sony, the animated Hotel Transylvania. With an abysmal 7% Rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes, the next few weeks will tell if it’s as big a box office hit as its predecessor or some of Sandler’s earlier $150 million plus hits or if it did all its business this weekend.
That left Guillermo del Toro’s monsters vs. robots epic Pacific Rim, starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day and Ron Perlman, to take third with $38.3 million after having one of the strongest Thursday preview showings since Brad Pitt’s World War Z. That’s the largest opening of Guillermo del Toro’s career, besting the openings for Blade II in 2002 and Hellboy II: The Golden Army in 2008, and it was helped greatly by IMAX and 3D showings with 50% of that amount coming from 3D screenings, the best percentage for any movie this summer. $7.3 million of its opening weekend was accumulated from 331 IMAX screens, making up 19% of its opening weekend. Internationally, Pacific Rim took in $53 million in 38 markets–$4 million of that from 124 IMAX screens–to help bring its global total to $91.3 million in its first weekend.
The hit police comedy The Heat (20th Century Fox), starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, crossed the $100 million mark this weekend, the 16th movie of the year to do so. It took fourth place with $14 million with the smallest drop-off in the Top 10 and brought its total to $112.4 million after three weeks.
Walt Disney Pictures claimed the fifth and sixth slots, although it’s not a good sign when your four-week-old release is doing almost as well as your movie released last week. That was the case as Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger (Walt Disney Pictures), starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer, tanked in its second weekend, dropping 62% from second to fifth place. It brought in $11.1 million this weekend to bring its total to $71 million domestically and it only did slightly better internationally, adding $12.7 million to bring its global box office total to $119 million after 12 days. (Granted, it’s only currently playing in 35% of the foreign markets currently.)
Meanwhile, DisneyPixar’s animated prequel Monsters University took sixth place with $10.6 million while still playing in 3,142 theaters to bring its total to $237.8 million. It added another $30.2 million internationally to bring its overseas total to $236.4 million, putting it neck and neck with Despicable Me 2 with $474.2 million globally.
Seventh place went to Brad Pitt’s World War Z (Paramount Pictures) with $9.4 million in its fourth weekend with $177 million grossed domestically so far.
Roland Emmerich’s action-thriller White House Down, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, dropped to eighth place with $6.1 million and $62.9 million grossed so far, not even close to its reported $150 million budget.
After a strong first week, the comedy concert film Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain (Summit) dropped one spot to ninth with $5 million over the weekend and a total gross of $23.7 million so far.
Rounding out the Top 10 was Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (Warner Bros.) with $4.8 million, bringing its domestic total to just under $281 million.
The good news is that the roughly $187 million grossed by the Top 10 was well ahead of last year’s box office when Ice Age: Continental Drift topped things with just $46.6 million and the Top 10 only brought in $150 million.
As far as limited releases, Ryan Coogler’s Sundance Film Festival award-winning Fruitvale Station (The Weinstein Company), starring Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer and Melonie Diaz, opened in 7 theaters Friday where the timely drama about a young black man shot on New Year’s Day in San Francisco brought in $377 thousand, roughly $54 thousand per location. The Weinstein Company plans on expanding the movie nationwide on July 26.
Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films.
