Weekend box office for August 9 - 11, 2013: Elysium and Millers soar past Planes and Percy Jackson

 

Elysium was #1 with a $30.4 million opening, slightly lower than the $37 million opening of director Neill Blomkamp's sleeper hit District 9. D9's final gross more than tripled its $30 million budget; Elysium's higher budget, less positive reviews and increased competition will make profitability harder to achieve. We're the Millers may be the week's biggest success, taking in $26.5 million during the weekend and $38 million since its Wednesday release. It likely would have been first with a standard Friday release. Planes' $22 million is unremarkable. At least it had a modest $50 million budget and was smartly released after this year's family and blockbuster-stuffed June and July. The mediocre opening likely won't affect the July 2014 release of its sequel Planes: Fire and Rescue. Since Wednesday, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters has made $23.4 million, less than the previous PJ's $31 million 3-day opening ($40 million when including President's Day). Like those behind Red 2 and Smurfs 2, the studio may have wrongly assumed audience demand for a sequel.

In a World got a decent $71,000 with 3 screens. Lovelace had a much larger limited release and made $184,000 but had a mediocre per-screen average of about $1,500. The Spectacular Now and Blue Jasmine expanded and kept high screen averages of $14,000 and $21,000. 2 Guns had a big drop, but wasn't over-budgeted and should beat Wahlberg's Pain & Gain in a couple of days. In America, Wolverine is likely to fall short of First Class by over $10 million. Next weekend, I expect The Butler to lead Kick-Ass 2, Jobs and Paranoia in another weekend packed with major releases. See how other films performed here.

Weekend box office estimates for August 9 - 11, 2013:

1) Elysium; $30,400,000; opening weekend

2) We're the Millers; $26,555,000; $38,044,000 total; opening weekend

3) Planes; $22,525,000; opening weekend

4) Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters; $14,600,000; opening weekend

5) 2 Guns; $11,128,000; $48,517,000 total; -58.9%; 2nd weekend

6) The Smurfs 2; $9,500,000; $46,600,000 total; -45.9%; 2nd weekend

7) The Wolverine; $8,000,000; $111,986,000 total; -62.5%; 3rd weekend

8) The Conjuring; $6,700,000; $120,745,000 total; -48.6%; 4th weekend

9) Despicable Me 2; $5,748,000; $338,314,000 total; -43.3%; 6th weekend

10) Grown Ups 2; $3,700,000; $123,800,000 total; -53.4%; 5th weekend