After a month in the #1 spot, "Riddick" finally knocked down "The Butler" into the #2 spot. "Riddick" only pulled in $18.6 million, but that was almost $10 million more than "The Butler." This is the third entry to the franchise with a weird history that started with 2000's "Pitch Black." That movie cost $23 million to make, opened $11 million, and made $39 by the end of its run. 2004's "The Chronicles of Riddick" had an insane budget of $105 million, and opened to $$24 million, with a total of just under $60 million by its closing. While not exactly a flop, those kind of sequel numbers usually spell franchise doom. Now, almost a decade later, Universal went back to basics, spending only $38 million to make the picture, and using a very targeted marketing campaign. The $18 million opening is pretty square in between the other two openings, so it should probably do what I'm suddenly going to call "Riddick Business," where all the fans of the franchise see it, but not many others. It will probably land in the $50 - $60 range.
Spanish language "Instructions Not Included" moved up from 5th place to 3rd place after adding the movie to 369 theaters. That only brings the total up to 717(by comparison, "Riddick" opened to 3,107 theaters), but the movie is doing some bang-up business. It has earned $20 million in two weeks on an estimated budget of only $5 million. This is pretty rare for a foreign language film.
The success of "Instructions Not Included" has knocked "We're the Millers" down to 4th place, but that thing is still truckin' along, having made almost $100 million over its budget of $37 million. This is a solid hit, and has performed slightly better than other August comedies like "Superbad" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."
Disney's "Planes" rounded out the top five, and I guess I have to eat my hat on this one. I thought this movie was going to nose-dive into a straight-to-video sequel pit of despair, but with over a month in the top 5, and having made a solid $80 million, this is a pretty stable hit, and shows that Pixar's willingness to hand over a spin-off to one of its most profitable franchises to the regular Disney creative department was actually a pretty decent idea.
"One Direction: This is Us" took a pretty decent tumble from making $15 million last weekend to making $4 million this weekend. That movie's gonna clean up in video sales, though. You just wait.
Nice to see "World's End" still hanging on in the #8 spot. Its done pretty decent business for a Not-a-Sequel from a very specific creative team.
The top Ten:1
"Riddick" $18,673,000
2
"Lee Daniels' The Bulter" $8,900,000
3
"Instructions Not Included" $8,100,000
4
"We're the Millers" $7,925,000
5
"Planes" $4,274,000
6
"One Direction: This Is Us" $4,100,000
7
"Elysium" $3,100,000
8
"Blue Jasmine" $2,688,000
9
"Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" $2,500,000
10
"The World's End" $2,302,000
All numbers courtesy of
Box Office Mojo.
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