Weekend Box Office: Godzilla Crushes All Foes

Sixteen years after Roland Emmerich ruined the good name of Japan’s iconic monster, the giant radioactive lizard is back on top.

After a wildly successful Thursday night debut and Friday kick-off, some box office analysts believed that ‘Godzilla‘ might finish the weekend north of $100 million. While it quite didn’t reach that height (and didn’t even finish with the biggest opening of 2014), the film still managed to close out its premiere weekend $30 million higher than original tracking predictions. Threading the needle between the biggest debuts of 2014 so far (‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’), the kaiju reboot hauled in a very impressive $93.2 million. There’s no way that we’ll have to wait another 16 years for Hollywood’s next Godzilla movie.

Seth Rogen’s ‘Neighbors‘ dropped 47% to the #2 spot with $25.9 million. The R-rated comedy has now made $91.5 million in its first ten days.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘ slipped to third place with a 52% decline in attendance. Its $16.8 million third weekend has pushed the film’s 17-day total up to $172.1 million. While it’s not on track to meet the success of the first ‘Amazing Spider-Man‘ domestically, the sequel is still performing extremely well overseas. To date, it has earned $461 million from international markets. However, its comic book supremacy will be challenged when Friday brings ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ to the domestic and many foreign markets.

Disney’s latest sports drama struck out. From more than 3,000 locations, ‘Million Dollar Arm‘ was only able to score the #4 spot with its $10.5 million draw. Luckily, the Jon Hamm vehicle was produced for just $25 million, so the damage shouldn’t be too bad.

Somehow, despite terrible reviews, the Cameron Diaz/Leslie Mann/Kate Upton chick flick ‘The Other Woman‘ keeps on plugging along. In its fourth weekend, the picture rounded out the Top 5 with $6.3 million, pushing its total gross up to $71.6 million.

Finally, the Weinstein Company’s three-screen release of indie drama ‘The Immigrant‘ performed very well at the specialty box office. Starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner, the period piece pulled in $45,400, giving it a per-screen average of $15,133.

Top 10:

1. ‘Godzilla’ (Warner Bros.) – $93,205,000

2. ‘Neighbors’ (Universal) – $25,991,000

3. ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ (Sony) – $16,800,000

4. ‘Million Dollar Arm’ (Buena Vista) – $ 10,511,000

5. ‘The Other Woman’ (Fox) – $6,300,000

6. ‘Heaven Is for Real’ (TriStar) – $4,400,000

7. ‘Rio 2’ (Fox) – $3,800,000

8. ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ (Buena Vista) – $3,759,000

9. ‘Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return’ (Clarius) – $1,952,000

10. ‘Moms’ Night Out’ (TriStar) – $1,900,000

4 comments

  1. William Henley

    and didn’t even finish with the biggest opening of 2014

    Really? They said the exact opposite on the news this morning. I wonder why the descrephancy.

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