It was supposed to be a tough second weekend for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but it turned out be a cakewalk. Slipping a customary 56%, the film hauled in another $28M and now has $185M worldwide, enough for Paramount to move forward on a sequel. Turtle power is still alive and kicking.
2. Guardians of the Galaxy- $24.7M/$222.2M
Trailing just behind TMNT was Guardians of the Galaxy, and it has so much momentum at this point it should cross the domestic totals of X-men: Days of Future Past, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and The Lego Movie. Yeah, it's doing that well. Crazy, right?
3. Let's Be Cops- $17.7M/$26.1M
No, the top new release this week is not The Expendables 3. It's actually the lowbrow comedy Let's Be Cops, which has zero marketable stars compared to Sly Stallone's literal army of them. What does that tell you when a $17M buddy film can best a starry behemoth of a franchise so easily? In this case it probably says more about the viability of The Expendables than anything else, but it's also a feather in the cap of rising star Jake Johnson. The New Girl star has been making waves on the big screen for a little while now, and with a role in next year's Jurassic World we could be seeing a lot more of him. Perhaps in Let's Be Cops 2? You know it's coming.
4. The Expendables 3- $16.2M
Oh, there's The Expendables 3; buried behind two holdovers and a minor comedy with a fraction of its budget and star power. So what happened? Sylvester Stallone and his aging crew of action heroes added some legit names in Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and Mel Gibson, but the results are the franchise's lowest debut by a wide margin. It's possible the DVD-quality leak from a few weeks ago had a bigger than expected impact, and that's likely to be the studio's talking point on the issue. There's still hope in the cast's worldwide appeal to power international grosses, but this is looking more like the Expendables' final mission.
5. The Giver- $12.7M
Hey, remember The Giver? Yeah, that came out this weekend, too, and apparently you weren't the only one who forgot about it. The latest interchangeable YA adaptation didn't have a lot of heat behind it, despite the presence of Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, and Taylor Swift. On the plus side, it only cost $25M and should manage to make that back with no problem even with the terrible reviews. But it's also unlikely this will grow into the Hunger Games-level franchise The Weinstein Company was hoping for.
6. Into the Storm- $7.7M/$31.3M
7. The Hundred-Foot Journey- $7.1M/$23.6M
8. Lucy- $5.3M/$107.5M
9. Step Up All In- $2.7M/$11.8M
10. Boyhood- $2.1M/$13.8M
