Box Office Weekend: Filmgoers Give Their Halves to the Have-Nots as Elysium Steals the Box Office

Although not receiving quite the high praise lavished on his previous District 9, director Neill Blomkamp still did well enough with his next outing Elysium, taking the top spot and earning an estimated $30.4 million. It still has much ground to make up, its $115 million budget perhaps as far out of reach as the film’s space station, but it was still enough to hold three other debuts to second place and lower.

Despite its second-place finish, We’re the Millers had much lower ground to make up, and considering its Wednesday opening did well for itself despite mixed reviews; the $37 million-budgeted film has already broken even with its weekday gross added to its $26.6 million weekend estimate. Planes, too made a strong opening bid against its $50 million costs with an estimated $22.5 million, but fell incredibly short with critics. And like We’re the Millers, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel to the 2010 family-aimed fantasy film opened during the week; unlike We’re the Millers, its estimated $14.6 million weekend and grand totals of $23.5 million does not bode well for its $90 million costs, nor do its poor reviews.

The action film 2 Guns dropped quite a bit from its last week top spot thanks to the newcomers, but it still brought only an estimated $11.1 million, leaving the film high and dry in terms of profitability (though at least two more weeks in the top ten ought to fix that). The Smurfs 2 disappointed both critically and domestically, its estimated $9.5 million leaving it at less than half its costs in domestic earnings (though the film has done well worldwide, meaning it will likely be profitable despite its performance here). The Wolverine, with an estimated $8 million, closes in on its $120 million costs and has proven quite successful worldwide, but represents a financial low-water mark for the X-Men franchise, remaining the lowest earner of the six films despite its critical reception.

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The bottom holds onto three successful films, one wildly so: The Conjuring (estimated $6.7 million) has now made $100 million over its production costs, if not ensuring a sequel, then at least cementing director James Wan’s solid reputation in the horror genre. Despicable Me 2 almost does not even need its estimated $5.7 million in its sixth week, having earned $338.3 million domestically and second only to Iron Man 3 as highest earner of the year (and 26th highest earning domestic of all time). While Grown Ups 2 (estimated $3.7 million) likely will not break any major box office records, and unlikely to best the success it had with the previous film, it is still a winner for Adam Sandler, despite anything the critics have to say about it.

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Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."

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