Weekend Box Office: ‘Too’ Can Play That Game

Two sequels battled for the top spot at the box office this weekend. At this moment, the newcomer appears to have taken the lead, but rumor has it that the movies could easily switch places when the final tallies are released later today.

Weekend estimates place ‘Think Like a Man Too‘ in the lead with $30 million, while ‘22 Jump Street‘ stayed strong with $29 million in its second weekend. ‘Like a Man’ earned $3.6 million less than its predecessor, which was surprising due to the ongoing draw of actor/comedian Kevin Hart. ‘Jump Street’, however, only slipped 49%, pushing its ten-day total up to $111.4 million. ‘Man’ hasn’t yet opened overseas, but ‘Jump Street’ has earned $38.2 million from international markets.

The #3 spot went to ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2‘. With positive reviews and word of mouth, it was believed that the DreamWorks family flick would make up for its underwhelming debut with a strong holdover – but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Its 49% drop-off is painful for a family movie, but at least the film still has another week and a half until the next big kids’ movie (‘Earth to Echo’) opens. Weekend two pulled in $25.3 million, which pushed its ten-day total up to $95.1 million.

Clint Eastwood’s Broadway adaptation claimed the #4 spot. Despite being based on a smash hit, Tony-winning musical, ‘Jersey Boys‘ only earned a paltry $13.5 million. Eastwood’s movies are rarely box office blockbusters, but the Broadway appeal of this one was supposed to change that. The R-rated drama is estimated to close around $50 million, but I don’t see even that much happening.

Maleficent‘ rounded out to Top 5 by easing just 29% in its fourth weekend with another $13 million, which has pushed its domestic total up to $185.9 million. This points to the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ spinoff being one of summer’s biggest movies.

Paul Haggis’ ‘Third Person‘ didn’t live up to the writer/director’s Oscar-winning credits, but his movies haven’t seen acclaim for some time now. The ensemble drama earned $42,000 from five locations, giving it a per-screen average of $8,400.

Roman Polanski’s black comedy ‘Venus in Fur‘ performed a little stronger in limited release, but still didn’t do great business. From two screens, the IFC-distributed picture grossed $26,200 and per-screen average of $13,100.

Australian crime drama ‘The Rover‘ expanded to 599 locations, but failed to do any business. That’s what happens when a rinky-dink studio pushes an unmarketed picture to a high screen count. From the 599 locations, ‘The Rover’ only earned $500,000, with a per-screen average of just $835.

Top 10:

1. ‘Think Like a Man Too’ (Screen Gems) – $30,000,000

2. ’22 Jump Street’ (Sony) – $29,000,000

3. ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ (Fox) – $25,300,000

4. ‘Jersey Boys’ (Warner Bros.) – $13,515,000

5. ‘Maleficent’ (Buena Vista) – $13,012,000

6. ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ (Warner Bros.) – $10,340,000

7. ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ (Fox) – $8,600,000

8. ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ (Fox) – $6,200,000

9. ‘Chef’ (Open Road) – $1,845,000

10. ‘Godzilla’ (Warner Bros.) – $1,820,000

4 comments

  1. William Henley

    I finally made it to Maleficent this past week. I was actually surprised how strong the story was. What seemed to kill this movie was an inexperienced director – there were some weird editing choices, pacing and timing felt off, there were some strange choices with shot angles, and interatcions between onscreen and composited or CG’ed characters seemed off – you could so tell they were not acting to each other, something a more experienced director would have handled better.

    I am really interested in Jersey Boys, but the R rating has me a bit concerned. While R ratings may not bother me depending on content (I loved Seth McFarlane’s movies, Terminator, South Park, Team America, etc), an R rating on a musical raises an eyebrow. I mean, Rent, even with its subject matter, is PG-13. So the R rating on this is really putting me off. As such, I will probably hold off until I hear a review from a faith-based movie review site until I decide if I am going to see it or not.

  2. William, ‘Jersey Boys’ is a completely unneccessary R. The only R-rated characteristic is language. There’s implied sex (affairs), drugs and violence, but nothing shown on-screen. Oh, and there’s a lot of drinking and smoking.

    • William Henley

      So similar to Rent and Dreamgirls? I would okay with that. I have seen a few R rated movies that I thought had unnecessary R ratings (The Patriot, The Passion of the Christ, Die Hard). It is just that if a movie gets an R rating, I usually like to know why before I see it, because some stuff does cross the line for me.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *