Weekend Box Office Report: August 1-3 2014

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

 

BOX OFFICE REPORT August 1-3, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. Guardians of the Galaxy ($94.0 million)2. Lucy ($18.2 million)3. Get On Up ($14.0 million)4. Hercules ($10.0 million)5. Dawn of the Planet...  ($8.7 million)

Guardians of the Galaxy, despite some worries from Marvel that audiences might not flock to a lesser-known comic book property, flew past the competition this weekend with an estimated $94 million. That's far and away the biggest August opening opening, $25 million better than 2007's The Bourne Supremacy. It's proof that Marvel train will keep on a-rollin', no matter what characters are onscreen. Granted, it helped that the movie was a blast, compared to the grim comic book movies that grew out of The Dark Knight's success. It's probably going to rule for the rest of the summer.

Lucy fell nearly 60 percent to land at No. 2 with $18 million. So far, the $40 million import has doubled its budget and done a lot better than some other action flicks this year. And even with that sort of tumble in its second weekend, it still did better than Get On Up, the James Brown biopic. While everyone agreed Chadwick Bozeman's performance was top-notch, critics were mixed on the rest of the movie and audiences obviously weren't that curious. It only took in around $14 million. So much for those Oscar hopes.

Everything else was in its standard state of decline: Hercules is now only halfway to its budget and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will have to stretch to get to $200 million. Meanwhile, Fire & Rescue will end up well below Planes, but Anarchy will actually best The Purge.

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: Calvary, John Michael McDonagh's black comedy set at an Irish church. It averaged $18,200 on four screens.

- Magic in the Moonlight, Boyhood and A Most Wanted Man are working their way up to wide release, continuing to post fantastic per-screen averages.

- Would you believe me if I told you a black-and-white foreign-language film about a nun (Ida) has made more than Wish I Was Here, Zach Braff's follow-up to Garden State?

Next week: A lot of movies are battling for second place. For the old folks, there's The Hundred-Foot Journey, about a French restaurant re-vamping its menu. For the ladies, there's the latest Step Up installment: All In. For people who like loud noises, there's the tornado movie Into the Storm. And then there's the reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's likely to be No. 2, which is fitting. But please, everyone, vote with your wallets and see anything other than that. Send Hollywood a message that we will not accept any old movie just because we grew up with the characters.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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