Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg were able to take down the family competition as 2 Guns managed to take the #1 spot at the weekend box office with an estimated $27.3 million and a “B+” CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences. I don’t know box office history well enough to know when was the last time a new, R-rated, adult-targeted property opened up against a family-targeted animated sequel and won, but I must say, that’s impressive work.
As for The Smurfs 2, it couldn’t even manage a second place finish as it brought in an estimated $18.2 million, virtually half of the $35.6 million the original brought in back in 2011. However, the original also made only 25% of its $563.7 million worldwide at the domestic box office. So this is a film looking for international dollars more than domestic. So far the little blue guys (and gal) have brought in $52.5 million from 43 international markets for a worldwide opening of $80.2 million.
Opening day audiences gave Smurfs 2 an “A-” CinemaScore, but the next title shows that’s not always a sign of week-by-week success. If there is any defense for the weekend result, the film did open on Wednesday and has a five-day cume of $27.7 million, but that’s still nearly $8 million shy of its predecessor’s three-day opening two years ago.
The Wolverine managed a second place finish, but it dropped a healthy 59% to an estimated $21.7 million. Looks like that “A-” CinemaScore didn’t mean a whole lot when it came to the film’s theatrical longevity.
Finally, while it didn’t make the top ten it was part of this weekend’s reader predictions competition as A24’s The Spectacular Now opened in only four theaters and came home with an estimated $200,181 result for a $50,295 per theater average. It will be interesting to see what this does to the accuracy numbers as I’m not quite sure how far off, percentage wise, many of these predictions will end up being. I may have to think of something to make sure it doesn’t destroy people’s results too much, but we’ll see.
Next week you’re looking at Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and We’re the Millers opening on Wednesday followed by Elysium and Disney’s Planes on Friday along with the limited release of Radius-TWC’s Lovelace.
The weekend top ten is directly below followed by the current results in the reader box office prediction challenge, which will become official with actual box office results on Monday afternoon.
