For the second weekend in a row, the sequel to a hit action movie failed to bring in the expected male audience, and this time, it didn’t have the excuse of the movie leaking online early either! Before we get to one of the biggest bombs of the summer, one that barely squeaked into the summer to get that dubious honor, let’s look at the amazing close race between two returning movies and one of the new ones.
After settling for second place behind Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for two weeks, Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn, moved back into first place with a fourth weekend take of $17.6 million, down just 30% from last weekend. With a total domestic gross of $251.9 million in just four weeks, it has become the highest-grossing movie of the summer domestically, passing Transformers: Age of Extinction with $243.4 million and Disney’s Maleficent with $237 million.
As we suggested last week, it’s not going to be hard for “Guardians” to surpass what is currently the year’s highest-grossing movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which grossed $259.8 million in its theatrical run since opening in early April. “Guardians” is not not only the highest opening August movie of all time but also the second-highest grossing movie to open in August behind M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense with $293 million. Expect Guardians of the Galaxy to cross “Captain America’s” gross sometime in the coming week as it goes for the elusive $300 million milestone that no movie this year has crossed.
Internationally, “Guardians” added another $20.7 million to bring its international gross to $237.6 million (playing in 70% of worldwide territories with Japan, China, Germany and Italy still to come) and its global total to $490 million. It’s one of the few summer blockbusters that’s been doing as well in North America as it is internationally.
The Michael Bay-produced revamp of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles swapped places to take 2nd after two weekends at #1 with a weekend take of $16.8 million–down 41%–and a domestic total of $145.6 million.
The adaptation of Gayle Forman’s novel If I Stay (Warner Bros.), starring Chloe Grace Moretz and directed by R.J. Cutler, did the best of the three new movies, taking third place for the weekend with $16.4 million after opening on Friday with $6.8 million, compared to “Guardians'” $4.8 million. Having been produced for $11 million, the young adult drama is likely to be another movie in the genre to turn a nice profit.
Last week’s top new movie, the appropriately-named pseudo-police comedy Let’s Be Cops (20th Century Fox), starring Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson, dropped to fourth place with $11 million, down a respectable 38%. It has grossed $45 million so far, which means it’s already recouped its $17 million production budget.
So are you ready to hear how well Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For did this weekend yet? No? Okay, we’ll wait a bit longer then…
In fifth place came the football drama When the Game Stands Tall (Sony/Tristar), starring Jim Caviezel, Laura Dern, Michael Chiklis and Alexander Ludwig, which opened with an estimated $9 million in 2,673 theaters, averaging $3,336 per site. It also reportedly cost fairly little with a $15 million budget, so it could make that amount back.
It might be a tight race for sixth place, but as of now, the Lois Lowry adaptation The Giver (The Weinstein Company), starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and Brenton Thwaites, is estimated to take that slot with $6.8 million and $24.1 million grossed since opening ten days ago.
The star-studded action movie threequel The Expendables 3 (Lionsgate) fell 58% in its second weekend to take seventh place with $6.6 million and a total of $27.5 million, still less than what the previous installment made in its opening weekend.
And that finally brings us to the sequel Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Dimension Films/TWC), once again directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez with returning cast Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson, joined by Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Jeremy Piven and more. Like The Expendables 3, having so many stars didn’t do much to convince the film’s target male audience to spend their money to see it in theaters as it bombed badly with only $6.5 million its opening weekend in 2,894 theaters for a pitiful 8th place showing.
For some perspective, the original Sin City made nearly TWICE that amount in its opening DAY in April 2005, but obviously, waiting nine years for the sequel wasn’t the wisest idea and fans of Frank Miller’s comics no longer cared anymore. Ironically, the movie got slightly better reviews than If I Stay and way better reviews than When the Game Stands Tall.
Helen Mirren’s popular East-meets-West sleeper The Hundred-Foot Journey (DreamWorks) held its ground for a third weekend in a row with the smallest drop in the Top 10, down just 22% to take ninth place with $5.6 million and $32.8 million total.
New Line’s giant tornado disaster flick Into the Storm (New Line/WB) rounded out the Top 10 with $3.8 million and $38.3 million total. It looks like it won’t recoup its $50 million budget from North America alone.
Starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, Ira Sachs’ festival favorite Love is Strange (Sony Pictures Classics) took in $127 thousand over the weekend from 5 locations in New York and L.A.
By comparison, the Mark Duplass-Elisabeth Moss romantic dramedy The One I Love (RADiUS-TWC) brought in less than half that amount, $55 thousand, in nine theaters, although it had already been playing on VOD for a month.
