Weekend Box Office Report: July 11-13 2014

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

 

BOX OFFICE REPORT July 11-13, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. Dawn of the Planet... ($73.0 million)2. Transformers 4 ($16.5 million)3. Tammy ($12.9 million)4. 22 Jump Street ($6.7 million)5. How to Train...  ($5.8 million)

Those dirty apes got their hands on all the box office dollars this weekend as Dawn opened with an estimated $73 million. That's the biggest opening for any Apes movie and already the third highest-grossing film in the franchise. (Then again, it's not totally fair to compare a series of movies that originally wrapped up when Richard Nixon was still president.) Its good reviews should keep it on top for at least another week, though it's likely to be yet another blockbuster that does good but not astounding business.

The same is true of the latest Transformers movie, which dropped significantly for its third weekend. It's already topped $200 million, but any dreams of being the biggest of 2014 are out of reach now. Well, at least domestically. It's already the biggest movie worldwide, with $752 million and counting. To quote the maitre'd in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "I weep for the future."

The rest of the usual suspects plodded along, with Tammy already nearing $60 million (on a $20 million budget no less). Remind me again why a studio wouldn't rather throw $20 million to a group of talented people to make a decent comedy, than investing $200 million in a movie that may not even make that much? But the biggest success story might be 22 Jump Street, which will very nearly make the Top 5 R-Rated Comedies list. It won't cross the $200 million mark, meaning it won't join the likes of Ted, the first two Hangovers, Wedding Crashers and Beverly Hills Cop.

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: Boyhood, Richard Linklater's epic coming-of-age story, took in $359,000 on only 5 screens. That $71,800 average is the second-best of 2014, just behind The Grand Budapest Hotel.

- Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, a romantic comedy from India, did even better. making $401,000 on 101 screens. That's the power of Indian-American audiences, Hollywood. Pay attention.

- People! A Hard Day's Night, one of the happiest movies you will ever see, is probably playing at your local arthouse theater and you haven't gone to see it yet. What are you waiting for? The 50th anniversary re-release has only made $435,000 so far. The Beatles deserve better. 

Next week: Three new releases vie for your attention, but they're all duking it out for second place. There's the unnecessary sequel to Planes with Fire & Rescue. Then there's Anarchy, a sequel to The Purge no one asked for. And finally there's Sex Tape, which involves Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz trying to get the video record of their encounter taken off the Internet. I would be shocked if any of them made more than $20 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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