CinemaNerdz

Box Office Weekend: You Can’t Keep a Good Monster Down

Seth Paul
Box Office

This week saw the release of a female buddy cop comedy and the second “White House Under Attack” themed movie of the year, but neither film could keep Monsters University from scoring the top spot at the box office once again. The Pixar film, which earned an estimated $46.2 million has reportedly been budgeted at $270 million, meaning it has a long, long ways to go in making its deficit up domestically, but it has reached that number in worldwide sales. The Heat, on the other hand, cost $43 million to make, and in its debut the action comedy starring Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock made back an estimated $40 million, as well as positive critical reception. World War Z, while dropping a quite a bit from its opening weekend with an estimated $29.8 million, still managed to do strong weekday performance as it has now made $123.7 million domestically. It shares a chance of domestic disappointment with its similarly released Monsters University rival, but it has a smaller deficit to make up ($190 million production costs).

White House Down, which cannot help but draw comparisons to the earlier Olympus Has Fallen, is in a fight with the earlier film to see which one is the most average blockbuster. At an estimated $25.7 million for the weekend, White House Down made a smaller opening weekend than Olympus Has Fallen, though has a much bigger budget to make up ($150 million to Olympus’s $70 million). Still and all, both films are getting equally slammed by critics, so with all earnings and reception being equal, White House Down has the bigger cliff to climb.

Man of Steel has finished climbing its cliffs…despite its mixed critical reception, its estimated $20.8 million puts it in the realm of domestic profit over its $225 million costs. It failed to put DC on equal footing with Marvel as of yet, with Marvel still king of the top-earning comic book films with The Avengers and Iron Man 3, but it portends good things in the future with DC’s Justice League film on the horizon.

With one exception, the second half of the top ten holds a number of profitable ventures, from This is the End (estimated $8.7 million) earning more than double its costs overall, Now You See Me (estimated $5.5 million) magically defying critics with over $100 million in domestic earnings, Fast and Furious 6 (estimated $2.4 million) still racing to outdistance all five previous films financially by wider and wider margins, and Star Trek Into Darkness (estimated $2 million) sitting comfortably in earnings both here and in overseas box office. The lone loser remains The Internship. With an estimated $1.4 million, it remains unprofitable against $58 million production costs, with not even foreign box office capable of making it up as of yet.

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Weekend Box Office (June 28th – June 30th)

  1. Monsters University…$46.2 million
  2. The Heat…$40 million
  3. World War Z…$29.8 million
  4. White House Down…$25.7 million
  5. Man of Steel…$20.8 million
  6. This is the End…$8.7 million
  7. Now You See Me…$5.5 million
  8. Fast & Furious 6…$2.4 million
  9. Star Trek Into Darkness…$2 million
  10. The Internship…$1.4 million

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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