Dawn of the Planet of the Apes rallied Saturday against the big Friday night showing of The Purge: Anarchy, to retake the No. 1 slot this weekend, pulling in $36 million for a very good hold from last week (better than quite a few other blockbusters have had this year). The Purge earned $28 million over the weekend, a couple million under the last movie's opening last year, but got just a "B" Cinemascore. As always though, these cheaply made horror movies make all their money back and more on the opening weekend, so expect it to vanish in a week but still be considered a hit, like most of the forgettable horror films that have come out in the last few years.
Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel's Sex Tape, meanwhile, ended Diaz's hot streak at the box office, coming in fourth with just $15 million and a terrible "C+" from audiences. Looks like the Bad Teacher combo didn't quite hit twice. Disney's Planes: Fire & Rescue came in third with $18 million, which is actually very low for a family audience movie, but I can't imagine there are too many die hard fans of this particular spin-off series from the Cars universe in the first place. It did get an "A" from audiences, so perhaps it'll hold well. Transformers rounded out the top five with another $10 million.
Top 5:
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes- $36 million
- The Purge: Anarchy- $28 million
- Planes: Fire & Rescue- $18 million
- Sex Tape- $15 million
- Transformers: Age of Extinction- $10 million
In limited release news, Zach Braff's Kickstarter-funded vanity project Wish I Was Here opened in 68 theaters for a $495k total, while Boyhood continued to shine, pulling in $1.1 million on just 34 screens, indicating it will probably have a quite successful theatrical run, with the best per-screen-average of any other film this weekend. But you never know with limited release movies- it could suffer as it expands wide, or word of mouth could help it genuinely cross over. We''ll have to wait and see. Well, that's it for this week, as next week brings a couple more action movies (hopefully one of them will have good reviews, as every new release this week was rotten), when Lucy and Hercules square off.
