Weekend Box Office: Party Over, Oops Out of Time

The collective box office for the Top 12 movies this weekend was only $118.5 million, which is down a whopping 47% from this same period last year, making this the worst Fourth of July weekend since 1999.

Transformers: Age of Extinction‘ reigned atop the box office for the second week with $36.4 million. That’s a 63% drop-off, and the film’s ten-day domestic total of $174.7 million is much lower than the last two ‘Transformers’ outings. It looks like ‘Age of Extinction’ will close $100 million below the last sequel, ‘Dark of the Moon‘, which bowed out with $352.3 million. However, Michael Bay’s blockbuster fourquel is making up for that loss overseas, where it has now earned $400.9 million, up 21% from the last ‘Transformers’ movie.

The most successful of the new releases was ‘Tammy‘. Opening on Wednesday, the Melissa McCarthy comedy got an $11.7 million head start on the weekend. Over the actual weekend, ‘Tammy’ drew an additional $21.1 million. Despite bad reviews and a smaller start than McCarthy’s past comedies, the movie still had a nice little opening when you consider that it was produced for just $20 million.

Third place went to Eric Bana’s paranormal horror flick ‘Deliver Us from Evil‘. Grossing just $9.5 million from more than 3,000 locations, ‘Deliver Us’ failed to deliver much at all. The film’s five-day total brings it up to $15 million, which might not be half bad if the budget was as micro as the director’s previous scary movie. ‘Sinister‘ was made for $3 million, but we won’t know how much ‘Evil’ cost until the actual budget is revealed.

22 Jump Street‘ closed out its fourth weekend in the #4 spot with $9.4 million. Down 40% from last weekend, the $50 million comedy has now earned $158.8 million domestically and an additional $69.7 million overseas.

Also in its fourth weekend, ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2‘ rounded out the Top 5 with $8.7 million. Down a soft 33.9%, this is the sort of slight decline that the movie should have seen each weekend leading up to now, but hasn’t.

Disney’s Relativity-distributed kids’ flick ‘Earth to Echo‘ failed to crack the Top 5. With $8.2 million during the actual weekend, ‘Echo’ pulled in just $2,554 on average from each of its 3,230 screens. Box Office Mojo points out that this flop is the worst-ever for a Found-Footage title.

Two Weinstein releases in slow expansion played well over the holiday. ‘Begin Again‘ jumped up to 175 locations and landed the #15 spot with $1.3 million, for a per-screen average of $7,520. ‘Snowpiercer‘ hit the #16 spot, but didn’t do quite as well. It earned $999,000 from 250 locations, with a per-screen average of $3,996.

It’s also worth noting that the 102-screen re-release of The Beatles’ classic comedy ‘A Hard Day’s Night‘ only earned $160,000. Perhaps fans didn’t show up in screaming flocks because they already shelled out between $24 to $40 for the amazing Criterion Blu-ray just a week and a half ago?

Top 10:

1. ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ (Paramount) – $36,400,000

2. ‘Tammy’ (Warner Bros.) – $21,170,000

3. ‘Deliver Us from Evil’ (Screen Gems) – $9,500,000

4. ’22 Jump Street’ (Sony) – $9,400,000

5. ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ (Fox) – $8,750,000

6. ‘Earth to Echo’ (Relativity) – $8,250,000

7. ‘Maleficent’ (Buena Vista) – $6,133,000

8. ‘Jersey Boys’ (Warner Bros.) – $5,160,000

9. ‘Think Like a Man Too’ (Screen Gems) – $4,900,000

10. ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ (Warner Bros.) – $3,640,000

3 comments

  1. William Henley

    I saw Jersey Boys. While I kind of enjoyed the story, I agree with the reviews – awful directing.

    We are looking to go see Earth to Echo this coming Friday or Saturday, but now I am not sure – I was thinking it was going to be one of those 80s suburban films, like Explorers, or Super8 (80s style), or something, but when I found out it is Found Footage, I lost all interest. I now have no desire to see this movie – I cannot STAND the found footage genera.

    Doesn’t surprise me on ticket sales this week – I guess people who were going to see Transformers saw it last weekend, and there really wasn’t a good release this weekend (I know Earth To Echo was heavily promoted – at least in terms that they were getting YouTubers swag and screenings and such, so kind of surprised to hear that it did not do better)

    • Agreed, found footage is like the lazy Reality TV craze on TV. Everybody is doing it in hopes that they get a cheap way to make a quick buck. And while some work, it is now just a tired cliche. And like Reality TV, needs to just stop.

  2. FiendishThingy

    I must have been under a rock (Actually on vacation without TV or internet), because I wasn’t even aware of A Hard Day’s Night being in theaters until I saw Ringo interviewed on CNN tonight (his 74th birthday). I would love to have gone to a screening, and take an 18-year-old niece with me.

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