“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” held the top spot for its second week up against weak competition. The horror/thriller sequel “The Purge: Anarchy” was second best and did far better than its other competitors who also opened. Earning $29.8 million on a $9 million budget put it far ahead of “Planes: Fire & Rescue” and “Sex Tape.” I didn’t expect much from the “Planes” sequel and you can read our review to see why, but I did expect a little more from “Sex Tape” which may have suffered from bad marketing and timing.
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Dropping 50% down to $36.2 million, the apes sequel is performing well and has good word of mouth.
- The Purge: Anarchy: Down a bit from its predecessors $34 million debut this sequel did $28.4 million, not bad but I don’t expect it to do more than $10 million next week.
- Planes: Fire & Rescue: The latest installment in Pixar’s merchandise shilling machine did $17.5 million. Hopefully the next one goes straight to DVD.
- Sex Tape: Bad reviews and poor marketing led to a flop at $15 million. Worse than “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”
- Transformers: Age of Extinction: $10 million, which is down 39% and so far the film has earned $227 million domestically and a whopping $659.1 elsewhere.
Competition next week will be a bit more stiff with “Lucy” and “Hercules” opening.
A quick note on budgets and dollar figures:
Films making back their budgets is a good sign, but that is just the money to film. It doesn’t include distribution and marketing. Marketing can cost as much as a film. That big Superbowl spot is spendy. So take that into account when judging a films success. Hitting $100 million isn’t the same as it once was.
All dollar amounts in the top 5 come from estimates based on ticket sales unless noted otherwise. Occasionally this article will be published when actual results come out, which is usually late Monday afternoon. For more about this and other ins and outs of movie tracking click here.