Weekend Box Office (July 11 - 13, 2014)

by Gitesh Pandya

THIS WEEKEND One of the best-reviewed tentpoles of the year arrives in Fox's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the studio's second sequel to a 2011 prequel hitting theaters this summer after X-Men: Days of Future Past which also earned rave reviews and is currently the highest-grossing film of the season. The PG-13 Dawn picks up a decade after the last film and introduces a new human cast to star alongside motion capture king Andy Serkis who once again plays the central simian Caesar. Pre-shows begin at 10:00pm Thursday night and higher ticket prices from 3D and premium large format screens will add to the gross.

All signs point to a bigger opening weekend than its predecessor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which opened on the first weekend of August with $54.8M. That film was liked by critics and audiences alike plus enjoyed great legs never dropping by more than half during its first full month of release. Not many summer franchise action movies can say that. It finished with an impressive $176.8M and did gangbusters overseas reaching a huge $483M global take. Dawn may improve upon those numbers, especially internationally.

With Rise doing well, a built-in audience is set to come out again for Dawn. Plus, marketplace conditions are better this time. No studio dared to open opposite the new Apes and holdovers will not take away too much business either. In fact, only one film over the past three summer weeks has managed to open north of the basic $30M threshold - Transformers: Age of Extinction. Like most four-quels, that one is fading fast and will take another nasty tumble this weekend. It is the only other film in the marketplace which will do over $12M this weekend. Three years ago when Rise opened, it faced six films that crossed that mark in a much more crowded field. The utter lack of competition will allow movie fans to focus on just Dawn this weekend.

Fox has also been marketing the new Apes very aggressively and has taken particular aim at advertising during all the major sporting events of the past month. They don't want to miss out on any action-loving male. Now, this is the eighth major summer action vehicle to hit multiplexes so there are some who will skip it due to fatigue. But historically, mid-July has been fertile ground to launch well-made, critically-acclaimed action tentpoles for summer popcorn audiences looking for quality. Dawn will cash in.

With strong reviews, a built-in fan base, and unusually light competition for this time of year, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is all ready to conquer the North American box office. Opening in 3,967 locations, a weekend take of around $64M might result.

After two weeks on top, Age of Extinction will fall down to the second place spot and should take a heavy hit thanks to Apes. The new Optimus Prime film may drop by 55% to around $17M pushing the domestic tally to $209M joining the double century club on Saturday.

The new Transformers is playing out just like the fourth installments of the aging Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-Man franchises. Those films became the lowest-grossing chapters domestically. But amazing overseas grosses made them impressive mega-hits anyway. This weekend with new openings in the U.K. and Latin America, Extinction looks on course to surpass X-Men: Days of Future Past to become 2014's top-grossing global blockbuster with over $730M on its way to the billion dollar club.

The underperforming comedy Tammy is likely to take a big drop too as audiences are not liking it too much and the long holiday weekend has come and gone. A 50% fall from the opening weekend take (which did not include opening day) would put Warner Bros. at about $11M for the weekend and $55M overall.

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Watch the trailer for Horrible Bosses 2. For a review of Transformers: Age of Extinction visit The Chief Report.


LAST YEAR Holding the number one spot for a second straight weekend was the well-liked animated comedy Despicable Me 2 with $43.9M which catapulted the cume past the $200M mark for Universal. Among new releases, audiences chose an Adam Sandler sequel over an original sci-fi actioner. Grown Ups 2 debuted in second with $41.5M for Sony while Pacific Rim opened in third with $37.3M for Warner Bros. Domestic finals reached $133.7M and $101.8M, respectively, although Rim did much better overseas with a worldwide tally of $412M. Rounding out the top five were the buddy comedy The Heat with $14M and Johnny Depp's big-budget bomb The Lone Ranger which collapsed 61% in its second weekend with $11.5M.

LAST WEEKEND's TOP 20

Last Updated: July 10, 2014 at 4:20PM ET

Watch Gitesh Pandya's weekly box office preview on CNN International airing live each Thursday at 6:40pm ET.

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