We’ll get to the new releases in just a second, but the news of the box office weekend is Guardians of the Galaxy becoming the highest grossing domestic release of 2014, bringing in $16.3 million this weekend, raising its domestic cume to $274.6 million. On top of leap-frogging fellow Marvel release, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it might actually become the first and only $300 million release of 2014. Globally the film has topped $547.7 million and still has release dates in Japan and China yet to come.
Last weekend’s highest grossing new release, If I Stay, dropped 40% to $9.3 million and a second consecutive third place finish behind Guardians and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as this weekend offered very little from the new releases.
Getting into the weekend’s said new releases, the highest grossing of the two is As Above, So Below, bringing in $8.3 million to go along with its dismal “C+” CinemaScore, which is to say it’s pretty much DOA. But I can’t imagine Universal spent much on this one so it’s probably a wash in the end. Perhaps it’s time to bury the found footage style of filmmaking in the horror genre?
The weekend’s other new wide release was the Pierce Brosnan-led The November Man, which opened on Wednesday and came into the weekend with only $1.6 million to its credit and added only $7.6 million over the three-day. Opening day audiences gave it a “B+” CinemaScore, which is decent enough to say this will have a standard drop from week to week and be out of the top ten soon enough.
The only new movie I felt was even worth seeing this weekend was Tribeca’s Starred Up, which is also available on VOD and iTunes, but with an opening this weekend at the IFC Center and Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York it brought in $11,000, but look out for it elsewhere as it comes to Los Angeles, Seattle, Philadelphia and Chicago next weekend before heading to San Francisco, Washington, Phoenix, Portland and Denver, among others, in the weeks to follow.
I guess I should take back that “only new movie I would have seen” comment above, though this isn’t a new movie as Sony re-released Ghostbusters into 784 theaters this weekend, though to very little fanfare or marketing effort. As a result it’s no surprise it did only $1.65 million over the three-day.
Finally, I know you’re wondering and it seems audiences did Sin City: A Dame to Kill For a favor and rather than stringing it along, let it die a quick death as it brought in only $2.1 million this weekend, booting it out of the top ten after just 10 days in release.
Next weekend things won’t be getting any better at the box office as the only new release will be The Identical, a twin brothers separated at birth, Great Depression era tale of mistaken identity… or something like that. I don’t know, I’m not going to see it.
