Weekend Wrap-Up: Purge Powers to the Top
June 10, 2013
We have a good news / bad news situation. The good news is The Purge crushed expectations and dominated the box office over the weekend. Additionally, nearly every film in the top ten held on better than expected. The bad new is... it still wasn't enough. The overall box office fell 9% from last weekend to $149 million. Worse still, this was 18% lower than the same weekend last year. This is terrible, but fortunately things should turn around next weekend.
As expected, The Purge opened in first place, but it did so with an unexpectedly strong start. During its opening weekend, the film pulled in $34.06 million, which is nearly double pre-weekend predictions. There are some bad signs looking ahead. The film's reviews are weak, and worse still, the audience reaction is even weaker. A Flixster rating of 43% positive is actually worst than 40% positive reviews, because critics generally don't get to avoid movies that look bad, while moviegoers self-select. There's a good chance The Purge won't make as much during the rest of its run than it made during its opening weekend. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter. With a production budget of $3 million and a P&A that is probably $20 million, more or less, it might already have broken even. If not, it will get there by this time next week.
Fast and Furious 6 held on much better than expected with $19.63 million over the weekend for a total of $202.81 million after three. It became just the third film released in 2013 to reach that milestone, but it won't be the last.
Speaking of milestones, despite mixed reviews, Now You See Me dipped just 35% to $19.04 million over the past three days for a total of $60.91 million after ten. This is enough to make $100 million a possibility. It isn't a lock and it would have to maintain its strong hold next weekend, but you can't ignore the film's chances either.
The Internship lived down to lowered expectations with $17.33 million over the weekend. The film's name recognition wasn't enough to overcome the buzz and its reviews. On the other hand, this isn't as bad as some feared it would be. However, unless its budget is much lowered than reported, the studio is going to lose a bundle on this one.
Epic just held on to a spot in the top ten with $11.88 million over the weekend, putting it less than $500,000 ahead of Star Trek into Darkness. After seventeen days in release, the movie has amassed $83.93 million and could get to $100 million. Unfortunately, direct competition is on the way, so it doesn't have much time to get to that milestone. Meanwhile, by the time you read this, Star Trek into Darkness will have crossed $200 million domestically.
After Earth was the only member of the sophomore class not in the top five. It crashed falling 61% to $10.71 million over the weekend for a total of $46.10 million after two. Unless this film is a hit internationally, the studio won't recoup its initial $130 million investment.
One last note, The Hangover 3 fell to 8th place with $7.34 million. This was enough to get to the century mark, lifting its running tally to $102.34 million after 18 days of release.
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Star Trek Into Darkness, Fast and Furious 6, Epic, After Earth, Now You See Me, The Hangover 3, The Internship, The Purge