In a weekend that saw Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg matched up against an army of animated blue Communists (better known as Smurfs) common sense ultimately prevailed and families were smart to avoid the Smurfs sequel. The tag-team machismo of Wash and Wahl propelled 2 Guns to the #1 spot at the weekend box office with an estimated $27.3 million. Such an accomplishment is a rarity in Hollywood. Seriously, how often does a new R-rated release, targeted to adults, beat a family-targeted film, when both open the same weekend?
And how did those Smurfs do? They couldn’t even manage a second place finish. Its Wednesday opening didn’t help its weekend performance, so it brought in an estimated $18.2 million. The 2011 Smurfs release brought in $35.6M. So we’re looking at an opening that was nearly half of what we got two years ago. Columbia Pictures not unexpectedly is looking at international grosses more than domestic dollars. Those little blue men and a Smurfette have collected $52.5 million overseas to bump its first weekend total to $80.2M overall.
In between the two major new releases we have The Wolverine. With a respectable audience drop of 59% the film finished with $21.7 million. As a comparison, X-Men Origins: Wolverine suffered a 69% drop. That was based on a very strong opening figure ($85M vs. The Wolverine‘s $53.1M) and poor word-of-mouth coming to a head.
The rest of the top ten consisted of films I’ve written about ad nauseum in the weeks prior, but here are some notable highlights.
The Conjuring, finishing in fourth place, continues to be one of the best surprises and success stories of the summer. Here you have a release that bucks the trend of what’s expected for summer – namely, giant blockbuster films based on previously published works or high concept ideas, that have production costs that tower over the GNP of several countries. The success of James Wan’s spookfest, which has grossed an impressive $108.6 million in its first three weekends, hasn’t been lost on the executives at Universal Pictures. The studio, which was the party responsible for the horrid R.I.P.D., will release, wait for it, a seventh Fast & Furious movie summer 2014 with James Wan taking the reins from Justin Lin, who helmed the last four entries in the series.
Despicable Me 2 continues to be a major attraction. In its fifth weekend it made $10.4 million to bring its domestic haul to $326.6M. A certifiable blockbuster and it didn’t come at a blockbuster expense (a respectable $75M). The film helped to make history for the month of July as it led the domestic box office to an impressive $1.37 billion. That total isn’t a record for the month, but it is enough to make July 2013 the second-highest-grossing month of all time behind July 2011 ($1.395 billion). For the record, July 2011 featured such films as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Horrible Bosses, and June holdovers Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Cars 2.
Pacific Rim may be closing in on $100 million domestic, but overseas is what will ultimately determine if a Pacific Rim 2 ever comes about. Factoring in international dollars and Guillermo del Toro’s high concept movie has made $293.3M worldwide.
Looking at some of the smaller releases looking for your attention, Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine saw expansion from 6 theaters to 50 and earned an estimated $2M, with a per-theater average of $40,440. That was the second-best PTA of the weekend behind great coming-of-age film The Spectacular Now. A24’s The Spectacular Now, opened in only four theaters and walked away with an estimated $200k (a PTA of $50k).
This upcoming weekend we have Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and We’re the Millers (both opening Wednesday), followed by Neil Blomkamp’s Elysium and Disney’s (not Pixar’s) Planes on Friday. If people were smart they’d look to see Elysium. Though I’m curious to see how well Percy Jackson performs if only for the fact that it was on the bubble to not get a sequel, but the combination of international totals and performance on home video convinced Fox to go ahead with a sequel.
1. 2 Guns (Universal Pictures) – $27.3 MILLION
2. The Wolverine (20th Century Fox) – $21.7 MILLION ($95m cume)
3. The Smurfs 2 (Columbia Pictures) – $18.2 MILLION ($27.7m cume)
4. The Conjuring (Warner Bros.) – $13.6 MILLION ($108.6m cume)
5. Despicable Me 2 (Universal Pictures) – $10.4 MILLION ($713.6m worldwide cume)
6. Grown Ups 2 (Columbia Pictures) – $8.1 MILLION ($116.4m cume)
7. Turbo (DreamWorks Pictures) – $6.4 MILLION ($69.4m cume)
8. Red 2 (Summit Entertainment) – $5.6 MILLION ($45.1m cume)
9. The Heat (20th Century Fox) – $4.7 MILLION ($149.5m cume)
10. Pacific Rim (Warner Bros.) – $4.5 MILLION ($293.3m worldwide cume)
