Gru and his lovable minions once again led Despicable Me 2 to the top spot at the North American box office this weekend by defeating mega robots, gnarly alien monsters, and Adam Sandler. The hit 3D comedy withstood the solid debut of Sony’s Grown Ups 2 and the disappointing arrival of Warner’s expensive Sci-fi visual effects extravaganza Pacific Rim. Overall, the top ten continued to be strong as ticket sales were up a healthy 24% over last year at this time.
While it dipped to third place on Friday, Despicable Me 2 ticket sales took full advantage of family matinees on Saturday and Sunday to make its way to the top spot. Word-of-mouth and midweek ticket sales for DM2 have been strong, which should help keep the money rolling in for the Universal blockbuster throughout the remainder of the summer. Adding a handful of screens to push its theater count over the 4,000 mark, Despicable Me 2 eased a modest 46% from its huge July 4th weekend opening to earn an estimated $44.7 million. To date, the domestic total stands at a tall $229.2 million and should have no problem zipping past the $300 million mark by the end of the month. The overseas total currently stands at $243 million and should eclipse the 2010 original’s $291 million global haul by next weekend.
Read our Despicable Me 2 review.
In second place for the weekend was Sony’s Adam Sandler sequel Grown Ups 2 with an estimated $42.5 million opening haul from 3,491 screens. The follow up to one of Sandler’s biggest hits seemed to follow the usual pattern for a Sandler comedy: critics absolutely despised it; ticket buyers ignored the critics and showed up en masse for 100 minutes of gross-out humor. The opening is a return to form of sorts for Sandler as his previous two live-action comedies were financial misfires: Jack and Jill opened to $25 million en route to a $74 million final haul while last summer’s That’s My Boy opened to a mere $13.4 million and finished its brief box office run with $36 million. The animated Hotel Transylvania, which Sandler provided a voice for, was a smash hit last fall with a $148 million gross.
Given its $190 million budget, the $38 million opening for the Guillermo del Toro robot/monster epic Pacific Rim was seen as disappointing. The Kaiju feature certainly had the backing of the nation’s critics as they gave the movie a solid 72% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film also had longtime del Toro and genre fanboys very excited for its debut as evidenced by the strong $3.6 million the movie brought in Thursday night starting at 7pm (Grown Ups 2 in comparison netted $2 million Thursday night) and continuing into Friday to finish opening day with $14.6 million. After that, the film’s attendance began to fall off. Saturday saw business slide 12% to $12.7 million and Sunday is being pegged at $10.8 million (a drop of 15%).
With the studio’s marketing all over the map and failing to break out past its targeted demo (young adult males), Pacific Rim is going to have to rely on either really strong word-of-mouth or repeat customers to come even close to hitting $90-100 million Stateside. If it does not and winds up being a niche product along the lines of del Toro’s Hellboy 2, which topped out at $75 million following a $34.5 million opening weekend, Pacific Rim will become the fourth mega-budgeted event picture this summer to underperform at the box office. In the overseas markets that the movie launched in it was a case of hit (mostly in the Asian markets) or miss (the film was DOA in Australia) with $53 million in additional ticket sales.
Read our Pacific Rim review.
In fourth place was the Fox comedy hit The Heat, which only slipped 43% in its third weekend. Making the most of being the only female-centric film out in the market right now, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy arrested another $14 million on 3,128 screens to bring the $43 million comedy’s domestic haul up to a great $112.3 million. The Paul Feig-directed hit should pass the $150 million mark in a few weeks and may come close to matching the $162 million domestic total his last film, Bridesmaids, earned two summers ago.
Rounding out the top five was the Disney dud The Lone Ranger. The Johnny Depp western dropped a dangerous 62% from its underwhelming opening weekend to earn a meek $11.1 million on 3,904 screens. To date the movie has earned $71 million in North America. Should the film continue its steep box office slide, the $215 million production could finish its domestic run with only $85-90 million. Foreign markets have only contributed $48 million thus far but the movie has yet to open in big territories such as Japan, China, the United Kingdom and France. How it is received there will see if the movie has any chance of breaking the $100 million mark abroad.
The remainder of the top ten is as follows:
6. Monsters University (Disney/Pixar) $10.6 million (-46%); $237.7 million
7. World War Z (Paramount) $9.4 million (-49%); $177 million
8. White House Down (Sony) $6.1 million (-54%); $63 million
9. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain (Lionsgate) $5 million (-50%); $26.3 million
10. Man of Steel (Warner Brothers) $4.8 million (-58%); $281 million
Four movies debut in an attempt to knock Despicable Me 2 out of the number one spot next weekend and two of them are poised to stumble hard. Turbo and R.I.P.D. are already being written off as box office duds, while Red 2 and The Conjuring have a shot at displacing the reigning champ.
– Shawn Fitzgerald
