Sunday, August 25, 2013

Butler, Millers Repeat as 1-2; Newbies Flounder

Lenny Kravitz stars in Lee Daniels' The Butler

So much for the old adage that "new is better." Holdovers Lee Daniels' The Butler and We're the Millers finished 1-2 atop the weekend box office for the second straight week, clobbering new hopefuls The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones ($9.3M) The World's End ($8.9M) and You're Next ($7.1M) in the process.

The end of August is usually reserved for horror flicks and summer hopefuls that have been pushed back as far as possible. This week had a Twilight-hopeful (you know, the next Harry Potter, Hunger Games novel-turned-franchise) but City of Bones took Sony down yet another notch (what a disastrous summer, no?) earning a paltry $14 million since opening Wednesday. Focus Features played it safe with The World's End, opening across 1,549 theaters... less than half of Sony's teen dud. Average-wise, The World's End finished #1 ($5,773) ahead of The Butler ($5,472 per.) Lionsgate's You're Next opened seventh overall... I'm guessing audiences were tired of animal-masked intruders (Note to self: I've got to get into screenwriting.)

On the positive side, TWC and Warner Bros. have to be happy with The Butler and We're the Millers... which dropped just under 31 and 25% most respectively. Big deal? Just ask Universal's Kick-Ass 2, which suffered a free-fall of 68% from last week's dismal opening: It's been a great year for Universal (Despicable Me 2, Fast & Furious 6) but they can't shove Kick-Ass 2 under the rug fast enough.

This coming weekend could be interesting: It's a holiday (Labor Day) and the NFL season still has one more week of meaningless preseason to bore us with. That said, the lineup is dull to say the least... Closed Circuit, Getaway? I'm sensing a three-peat for Oprah and co.

The top 10 films for this weekend...

1. Lee Daniels' The Butler $17M

2. We're the Millers $13.5M

3. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones $9.3M

4. The World's End $8.9M

5. Planes $8.6M

6. Elysium $7.1M

7. You're Next $7.1M

8. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters $5.2M

9. Blue Jasmine $4.3M

10. Kick-Ass 2 $4.3M