"Ant-Man" Still Stomps Out Box Office Competition

[JamesG]

Weekend Report: Ant-Man Burgles Pixels' #1
by Keith Simanton
July 26, 2015


Disney/Marvel is claiming that Ant-Man, with $24.765M, will retain the #1 spot at the box office, narrowly beating out the Sony newcomer Pixels, which even that studio is claiming made only $24M for the weekend.

As a group the top 12 films earned an estimated $140.6M. That's 2.4% more than last year's $136.8M, top-heavy, top 12 when Lucy led the competition with $43.9M for the three days. That Luc Besson/Scarlett Johansson film won out over Hercules, the Dwayne Johnson vehicle, which came in second with $29.8M.

Ironically, if that $29.8M finish had been this year, Hercules would easily have been #1.



It's a testament to how disappointing that Pixels opening is. The Adam Sandler vehicle, on 3,723 screens, should have had cross-generational nostalgic appeal, much like last year's Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, which opened to $65.6M in early August.

But Pixels relied heavily, too heavily it turns out, on appealing to a generation that watched MTV when it actually showed music videos and hoping they'd bring their 8-bit obsessed progeny with them.

Or maybe it signals an "out with the old, in with the new" shift, as Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator Genisys is dragging itself to an equally disappointing $90M domestic finish (it made $2.4M this weekend). Or, most likely, it was the awful reviews.



Any way you look at it Ant-Man, on 3,868 screens, benefited from it. The Paul Rudd starrer actually did take the 2nd week -57% dip that Thor: The Dark World did to reach that $24M.

But, not only can it claim #1, the film also passed the $100M mark, taking 10 days to do so.







Minions took 3rd with $22.1M on 4,066 screens. Worldwide, however, Minions is #1 for the 3rd week in a row. Minions' overseas coin brought in $44M in 60 territories which, with its $22.1M domestic (U.S. and Canada) gives it a total of $66.1M, beating Ant-Man.

Ant-Man, to be fair, made $60M worldwide and still isn't open in Italy, Korea, Japan and China. For cumes Minions stands at $261M domestic, $497M international and a worldwide cume of $759.4M.



Trainwreck, the Judd Apatow/Amy Schumer comedy, was off 42% from last week's $30M take, with an estimated $17.3M weekend and fourth place.







The take for Paper Towns was also a shocker, with the film becoming the most recent poster child for the term 'frontloaded.' Its Friday was a decent $6.3M, which indicated a finish of $20M. But all those teens that were supposed to show up Saturday either had prior commitments or were warned off by friends for the film fell -45% on Saturday with $3.5M.

Just like that Sunday looked like a gloomy $2.675 for $12.5M overall. The film was based on a book by John Green, the author of last year's sleeper hit, The Fault in Our Stars and starred two up-and-comers, Cara Delevingne and Nat Wolff.

But Fault had an adoring fan base from the book, one that Paper Towns clearly didn't share. A "B+" on CinemaScore, a rating system so upbeat that anything that's not an "A" is questionable, does indicate some customer dissatisfaction as well.







Southpaw outperformed its estimates, taking in $16M for the weekend.

That puts some suave in the cuts of the mixed reviews which have put a pall on all the "this is your year" talk for Jake Gyllenhaal for Best Actor.







Perhaps the biggest news of the weekend was news we all saw coming. Universal announced that, at the end of business today, Jurassic World will have earned an estimated $623.8 million at the domestic box office, passing Marvel's The Avengers and its $623.4M, making Jurassic World the third-highest-grossing film in North American history.

Just last week it passed The Avengers worldwide gross of $1.520B. The dino-flick's current gross stands at an estimated $1.542B.







In indie news Amy, the documentary about Amy Winehouse, made $700K in 370 theaters. That may not seem like much but it means the A24 flick has now passed 20 Feet from Stardom, the documentary about legendary backup singers, which won the 2014 Oscar for Best Documentary.

That's a good story to tell come awards season.



Mr. Holmes made $2.8M for Roadside Attractions on 686 screens, for an estimated $4,154 per-screen take and a $6.4M cume.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4090&p=.htm









July 24-26, 2015 Weekend Studio Estimates:


1. Ant-Man $24,765,000 / $106,075,000
2. Pixels $24,000,000
3. Minions $22,100,000 / $261,620,000
4. Trainwreck $17,300,000 / $61,545,000
5. Southpaw $16,500,000
6. Paper Towns $12,500,000
7. Inside Out $7,356,000 / $320,335,000
8. Jurassic World $6,900,000 / $623,803,000
9. Mr. Holmes $2,849,000 / $6,432,000
10. Terminator Genisys $2,400,000 / $85,666,000