It was a very lackluster weekend at the theater. The top 10 films made just shy of $114 million combined. “Transformers: Age of Extinction” dropped 63% to $37 million. While Optimus and pals didn’t do great in the US the movie has actually now earned more in China. Over the past weekend it hit $212 million (compared to $175 in the states) and will surpass “Avatar” as the highest grossing film in China soon. The new films to the theater didn’t fare much better. “Tammy” which I saw 1 trailer for and had never heard of until last week did a respectable $21 million. Meanwhile “Deliver Us From Evil” and “Earth to Echo” both flopped with Echo not even making the top 5.
- Transformers: Age of Extinction: $37 million and $175.39 total domestic so far.
- Tammy: $21.1 million and $32.9 over the 5 day.
- Deliver Us From Evil: $9.5 million and probably not much else, a horror film in July isn’t going to hold over well.
- 22 Jump Street: A 40% drop down to $9.4 and a total of $158.8 domestic so far.
- How to Train Your Dragon 2: Still holding on at $8.75 million and just $5 million shy of its $140 million budget.
Next weekend “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is the only wide release.
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.