It was a big weekend for Fox and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as the film started strong on Thursday night with $4.1 million, but it carried on throughout the weekend, ending the three-day with $73 million to go along with an “A-” CinemaScore suggesting the film will have legs over the coming weekend and little competition next weekend.
This is obviously the largest opening for any film in the Apes franchise and $18.2 million more than Rise of the Planet of the Apes brought in three years ago, though considering this one was released in 3D where 36% of its box office came this weekend along with another 8% from premium large format theaters. It’s not a huge uptick given the $170 million budget, but I have to assume this one is going to not only perform well domestically, but very well overseas where Rise nearly doubled its domestic take.
So far Dawn of the Apes has brought in $31.1 million internationally from 26 markets, but only two majors (Australia and S. Korea) as the film will expand internationally once the World Cup comes to a close this weekend.
With the holdovers we see a 40% drop for Melissa McCarthy‘s Tammy, scoring $12.9 million in its second weekend while Deliver Us from Evil dropped 51%, bringing in $4.7 million. Then the family film, Earth to Echo dropped 33%, scoring $5.5 million.
The weekend’s other new release was a very limited one in Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood. Opening in only five theaters in New York and Los Angeles the pic scored $358,000 for a $71,000 per theater average. Not too shabby. The film adds 18 theaters next weekend and you can click here to see when it’s coming your way. Let’s keep it going strong in theaters folks, making sure the Oscar chances increase.
Still holding on in second is Transformers: Age of Extinction, which is now the highest grossing worldwide release of 2014, bringing in $752.5 million worldwide, which includes a massive $262 million from China alone.
Opening in ninth, Begin Again expanded into 939 theaters this weekend and the Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo music-driven feature scored $2.9 million bringing its cume to $5.2 million. Considering the Weinsteins picked the film up out of Toronto last year for $7 million along with a $20 million marketing campaign this one still has a lot of work to do.
Next weekend brings Planes: Fire & Rescue, Sex Tape and The Purge: Anarchy, none of which am I really expecting to impress, though Planes could perform well on the family front.
