As the curtain begins to draw on the summer movie season, old favorites are still topping the box office, and the new releases represent a mix of good and bad news. The top two slots remained exactly the same for the second weekend in a row; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made $28.4 million in the top slot, bringing its total to $117.6 million against its $125 million budget. And in its third week, Guardians of the Galaxy continued to hold strong at second place with $24.7 million and a $222 million total, putting it well on its way to not only being the highest grossing movie of the summer, but also topping Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s $260 million total to become the highest grossing movie of the year.
The third, fourth, and fifth place slots were where this week’s newcomers fell, although not in the order that was expected. Despite a week of turmoil and general ill-feelings toward our men in blue, the comedy Let’s Be Cops, which opened on Wednesday, took the third place slot with $17.7 million for the weekend and $26.1 million for the five-day frame, far ahead of its $17 million budget, making it a small-scale August hit. The fourth place slot went to what was expected to top this weekend, The Expendables 3, which took in $16.2 million, nearly 43 percent less than its predecessor. Although the studio would be quick to say that the leak of the film through torrent sites three weeks ago hurt the box office, the more likely culprits are franchise fatigue, the move from a hard-R to a PG-13 rating, and a movie that catered heavily to men over 25 (66 percent over the age of 25). It’s unlikely we’ll get another outing from these guys. And the latest teen lit entry, the long-awaited The Giver, clearly suffered from some audience fatigue as well, taking in $12.7 million in fifth place, in the range of many of the would-be teen franchises that have long been committed to the dust bin.
Next week brings the perhaps-too-late sequel to Sin City and that movie where Chloe Grace Moretz is in a car accident or something.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo
