As the last big holiday weekend of the summer, Labor Day’s box office totals are never anything to write home about. However, this year did a bit better than the usual trend, especially for an unlikely foreign release.
The 3D concert documentary ‘One Direction: This Is Us‘ came in first, but just barely. The British boy band’s movie closed out the weekend with $15.8 million, less than $1 million ahead of returning champion ‘The Butler’, which earned another $14.8 million. Although recent Michael Jackson, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber concert movies all played much stronger than this one, ‘This Is Us’ beat out the Jonas Brothers 3D movie by more than $3 million, and the Katy Perry 3D movie by more than $8 million. The audience statistics for ‘This Is Us’ are hilarious: 87% female and 65% under the age of 17. It’s predicted that this will be a front-heavy release that fades away quickly.
Although ‘The Butler‘ only slipped 9% this weekend, that wasn’t the best hold-over for a title well into its release. ‘We’re the Millers‘ dropped just under 3%, earning another $12.6 million and locking in the #3 spot. While three-week-old ‘Butler’ has earned $74.1 million, ‘Millers’ has brought in $109.6 million over its four-weekend run.
From out of nowhere, the tiny 347-screen release of Lionsgate’s Mexican comedy ‘Instructions Not Included‘ sneaked in and finished in the #4 spot with $7.8 million. With a plot that sounds like ‘Three Men and a Baby’ (but with just one dad), no other movie came close to matching its $22,594 per-screen average.
Further proving that Selena Gomez has absolutely no star power whatsoever and that Ethan Hawke’s died a long time ago, their car-jacking thriller ‘Getaway‘ only opened in the #9 spot. The duo crashed and burned with a disastrous $4.4 million debut from north of 2,100 locations.
Focus Feature’s terrorist attack investigation thriller ‘Closed Circuit‘ also failed to connect with moviegoers. On 870 screens, the Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall procedural drama only brought in $2.5 million.
Following suit, Brian De Palma’s scandalous drama about a powerful female rivalry between Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams didn’t perform well either. Mind you, ‘Passion‘ has already been available through VOD services for more than a month now, so perhaps that’s the cause of its lackluster $33,400 opening from 14 screens.
Top 10 (3-Day Weekend):
1. ‘One Direction: This Is Us’ (TriStar) – $15,800,000
2. ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’ (Weinstein) – $14,881,000
3. ‘We’re the Millers’ (Warner Bros.) – $12,675,000
4. ‘Instructions Not Included’ (Lionsgate) – $7,840,000
5. ‘Planes’ (Buena Vista) – $7,724,000
6. ‘Elysium’ (TriStar) – $6,425,000
7. ‘The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones’ (Screen Gems) – $5,450,000
8. ‘The World’s End’ (Focus) – $4,759,000
9. ‘Getaway’ (Warner Bros.) – $4,490,000
10. ‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’ (Fox) – $4,425,000
