Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Guardians of the Galaxy buried newcomer The Expendables 3 in the Friday box office results, setting up a second consecutive weekend in which those Heroes in a Half-Shell will come out on top. Let’s Be Cops is on track to finish the weekend in third place, while The Giver is following in the footsteps of other young adult adaptations that fizzled in their box office debuts.
It didn’t matter how many aging action stars Sylvester Stallone packed into The Expendables 3. An unwise step back from the R-rating of the previous two films combined with franchise burnout led to a $5.88 million opening day Friday, nearly half of what The Expendables 2 earned in its debut. $15 million looks probable for the three-day opening and should all but guarantee there won’t be a The Expendables 4.
Those beatboxing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will win the weekend after earning $7.9 million in their second Friday, a 69 percent drop from their opening day a week ago. The Turtles have now amassed $97.2 million domestically and will wrap up their second weekend in the neighborhood of $25 million.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy brought in just under $7 million Friday and with only a 44 percent drop from the previous Friday, should finish right behind TMNT for the weekend. Its domestic gross stands at $205 million and worldwide business is closing in on $350 million.
Fans of the popular The Giver novel must have let the horrid reviews scare them off as the latest ill-fated young adult book-to-screen attempt could only muster $4.74 million. $12 million for the weekend seems generous, and this one will quickly fade away like The Mortal Instruments before it.
We’ll be back Sunday with the complete weekend box office wrap and report.
