Hi-Yo, Silver! Away! Not so fast Silver, your movie is way back here (in second place, after a disastrous opening weekend over the fourth of July holiday.) Disney's blockbuster hopeful stumbled out of the gate, scoring a $48.9 million five-day opening (and just $29.4 million Friday-Sunday.) Meanwhile, Universal's Despicable Me 2 had minions jumping for joy with a resounding $142.1 million five-day total (and equally impressive $82.5 million Friday-Sunday.) Those numbers account for Universal’s biggest five-day gross ever, and the fourth highest weekend for an animated feature behind Shrek 2 ($108M) Toy Story 3 ($110M) and Shrek the Third ($122 million.)
As successful an opening as Despicable Me 2 had, the big story has to be The Lone Ranger's failure.
"We thought it would appeal to a broader audience than it did," said Dave Hollis, Disney's head of distribution.
No kidding. A whopping 68% of The Lone Ranger's audience was over 25 and not even Johnny Depp could make a difference this time around. Critics panned it, but it managed a B+ CinemaScore (so much for CinemaScore... again.) How do you love (B+ means love to me, don't you think?) something that runs 149 minutes long?
Ladies called the shots this weekend (60% of Despicable Me's audience was female) while 20th Century Fox's The Heat dropped only 36% in its second week to finish third overall with $25 million, leaping past last week's #1 Monsters University ($19.6M.) World War Z continued to fare well ($18.2M) placing fifth, ahead of White House Down ($13.5M.)
The top 10 films for this weekend...
1. Despicable Me 2 $82.5M
2. The Lone Ranger $29.4M
3. The Heat $25M
4. Monsters University $19.6M
5. World War Z $18.2M
6. White House Down $13.5M
7. Man of Steel $11.4M
8. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain $10.1M
9. This is the End $5.8M
10. Now You See Me $2.8M
