Box Office Weekend: The Butler Buttles to the Top Once More

Well, perhaps “buttle” is not a real word, but the money Lee Daniels’ The Butler is bringing in at the box office most certainly is. At an estimated $17 million, it won the weekend handily, seconded only by We’re the Millers, which made an estimated $13.5 million. Nothing else even came close; falling well short of the $10 million mark (a bad sign considering three of them are new).

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was the best of the rest with an estimated $9.3 million, though the term “best” might not be the most correct, considering its reception is worse than a majority of the Twilight films (an apt comparison considering the target audience). More surprising was the mediocre start for the two other newcomers: The World’s End, the newest from the same team of actors and writers of Shaun of the Dead, received rave reviews but little income, the British action comedy earning only an estimated $8.9 million. Granted, the $20 million film is likely to see success with a few similar weeks of business, but also interesting is to see the well-reviewed You’re Next also scraping bottom for a few bucks, earning seventh place with only an estimated $7.1 million on an unreported budget. Whether it is a hit or miss remains to be seen, but based on reviews alone neither film, is making the kind of money they expected.

Planes garnered some profit with an estimated $8.6 million, making the poorly-reviewed-but-kid-pleasing CG romp a minor success but a comparative disappointment for a Disney company more used to triple digit incomes. However, Elysium pulled off what originally looked impossible…though its estimated $7.1 million still makes it a domestic disappointment, it managed to pull off a profit in worldwide take; perhaps still a far cry from expectations, but at least not a dismal failure.

Going on into eighth place, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (weekend estimate: $5.2 million) is also grateful for those overseas dollars, as the poorly reviewed adventure flick remains a failure here but has earned $20 million over its budgetary costs; it is still far below what the first film made, and further adaptations of the popular book series are looking like dim prospects. Ninth place belongs to Blue Jasmine, the latest Woody Allen film that is not new to theaters, but new to wide release. Adding an additional 1,000 theaters in its fifth week, the comedy is receiving rave reviews (a rare experience for Mr. Allen these days) and picked up an estimated $4.3 million. While its budget is unreported, it can probably be safe to say it is shining high over the ill-regarded Kick-Ass 2, which ironically did very little of its titular kicking as it sits at the bottom of the top ten having earned a weekend estimate of $4.3 million, though it has made back its money worldwide (though still not very much, sitting on a grand total of $38.5 million over $28 million in costs).

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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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