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.
The summer’s nearly over but it offered one more big action flick for fans of testerone-driven fare with the star-studded The Expendables 2 (Lionsgate), starring Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham, joined by Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Liam Hemsworth, Jet Li, Nan Yu, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture. The sequel to the 2010 hit opened with an estimated $28.7 million in 3,316 theaters, averaging $8,670 per site. That’s less than the $34.8 million opening of the original movie two years ago.
Second place went to last week’s #1 The Bourne Legacy (Universal), starring Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, which fell 55% in its second weekend to bring in $17 million and $69.6 million total.
LAIKA’s stop-motion animated movie ParaNorman, featuring the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, John Goodman, Leslie Mann and Christopher Mintz-Plassed, opened Friday in 3,429 theaters–Focus Features’ widest release to date–where it brought in $14 million to take third place.
The Will Ferrell-Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign (Warner Bros.) added another $13.4 million to its take and though that was down 50% from its opening weekend, it has amassed $51.7 million in just ten days.
Whitney Houston’s swan song, the remake of the musical drama Sparkle (Sony/Tristar) with “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks, managed to score $12 million in its opening weekend to take fifth place. Having opened in just 2,244 theaters, it had the second-highest per-theater average of the weekend, averaging $5,350 per venue.
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros.) crossed the $400 million mark this weekend with an additional $11.1 million, only the fifteenth movie to cross that mark domestically as it passed The Hunger Games with $409 million, making it the 12th-highest grossing movie in North America. It’s also been reported that overseas, the movie took in $20.6 million in 61 markets bringing its international total to $487.8 million, surpassing The Dark Knight‘s $469.7 million.
Opening on Wednesday, Disney’s family drama The Odd Life of Timothy Green, starring Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton, took seventh place with $10.9 million in 2,598 theaters. It has grossed $15.2 million including the money from Wednesday and Thursday.
The adult dramedy Hope Springs (Sony), starring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell, fared well in its second weekend, dropping just 38%–the best hold of the weekend–to gross an estimated $9.1 million this weekend and bringing its total to $35 million.
Ninth and tenth place went to the family sequel Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (20th Century Fox) with $3.8 million and Len Wiseman’s remake of Total Recall (Sony) with $3.5 million. They have grossed $38.8 and $51.8 million, respectively.
The weekend’s Top 10 grossed roughly $123.7 million, up 31% from the same weekend last year as The Help and Rise of the Planet of the Apes remained in the Top 2, only reversing positions with The Help taking the top spot with $20 million. The four new movies, Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids: All The Time in the World, Lionsgate’s Conan the Barbarian, the 3D Fright Night remake and the drama One Day starring Keira Knightly, did disappointing business with Spy Kids coming out on top with just $11.6 million.
As far as this week’s limited releases, David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don Dellilo’s Cosmopolis, starring Robert Pattinson, opened in three theaters in New York and Los Angeles where it brought in $96 thousand. The Frank Langella dramedy Robot & Frank opened in two theaters where it grossed $38 thousand, while Craig Zobel’s controversial thriller Compliance (Magnolia) opened at the Landmark Sunshine in New York on Friday and grossed $16,000 in that single location.
Click here for the full box office results of the top 12 films.
