Unsurprisingly, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes held on to the top spot, but what is a little surprising is the small 49% decline. Thank a number of superlative reviews with many claiming it to be the best tentpole film of the summer. Internationally it has added another $32M for a total of $171M, right at the estimated $170M production budget.
2. The Purge: Anarchy- $28.3M
Although The Purge: Anarchy's $28M debut falls short of The Purge's $34M just last year, it perhaps has a better shot at performing better in the long run. The film is getting relatively good reviews for expanding the core premise of a national holiday where all violent crime is legal. That concept has always been the biggest hook, and with audiences happy at seeing more of it, the film has a 'B' Cinemascore, it should mean solid word of mouth buzz.
3. Planes: Fire and Rescue- $18M
The only film with an 'A' Cinemascore this week is Disney's largely unwanted sequel, Planes: Fire and Rescue. The last film began life as a straight-to-DVD project before the Mouse House decided to bring it to theaters, and it succeeded with $219M. 'Fire and Rescue' may not reach those levels but it doesn't really need to in order to be profitable. These movies cost about $50M, are sure to make bank overseas, and are basically just feature-length TV commercials for Cars/Planes merchandise.
4. Sex Tape- $15M
The biggest fail of the week was Sex Tape, the toothless R-rated comedy with Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel. It's actually a pretty funny film, just not as edgy as the marketing suggested, and that has driven many of the bad reviews that have played a part in it doing so poorly. The film inexplicably cost $40M and should manage to recoup that, but it says something that Sex Tape is lagging behind Diaz's most recent sex-themed comedy, The Other Woman, which opened at $25M and ended up with a whopping $190M worldwide. Bad Teacher, which featured the same cast and director, similarly started off slow before ending up with $216M, and maybe Sex Tape will rebound in the same way. Doubtful, but anything's possible.
5. Transformers: Age of Extinction- $10M/$227.1M
$886M and counting for Michael Bay's fourth Transformers flick. It should surpass Maleficent and X-men: Days of Future Past's domestic haul probably by the end of today, and may steal the top slot from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
6. Tammy- $7.6M/$71.2M
7. 22 Jump Street- $4.7M/$180.5M
8. How to Train Your Dragon 2- $3.8M/$160.6M
9. Maleficent- $3.3M/$228.3M
10. Earth to Echo- $3.2M/$31.9M
Zach Braff's Kickstarter-funded Wish I Was Here opened to decent business with $495K at only 68 sites. Richard Linklater's apparent Oscar-contender Boyhood was the big art house winner of the week, expanding to 33 locations with a hefty $36K per-site-average for $1.2M. Overall the film has earned $1.8M and will continue to roll into more cities over the next few weeks.
