Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes blew away predictions that had the franchise-rebooting prequel earning $30-$35 million as it easily took the box office crown with an estimated $54 million, the 5th biggest August debut in history (9th when adjusted for ticket price inflation).  Rise’s strong debut powered the box office to a fourth straight year-over-year “win” as the total of the top 12 films was up 22% from the same frame last year when The Other Guys opened with $35.5 million.

 

Bowing on 5,400 screens at 3,648 theaters Rise of the Planet of the Apes earned a potent $14,803 per venue.  While its debut can’t compare with the 2001 opening of Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake, which earned $68.5 million ($96.5 million adjusted), Rise was a franchise origin prequel—an updated remake as it were of 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which earned just $9 million during its entire domestic box office run. The audience for Rise was 46% female, which is quite good for a science fiction film, and 56% was over 25, with a full 20% of the crowd over 50—basically folks that grew up with the franchise.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): August 5 - 7, 2011
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Rise of the Planet of the Apes	$54,000,000	3,648	$14,803	$54,000,000	1
2	The Smurfs	$21,000,000	3,395	$6,186	$76,202,000	2
3	Cowboys & Aliens	$15,748,000	3,754	$4,195	$67,368,000	2
4	The Change-Up	$13,502,000	2,913	$4,635	$13,502,000	1
5	Captain America: The First Avenger	$13,000,000	3,620	$3,591	$143,182,000	3
6	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	$12,160,000	3,175	$3,830	$342,801,000	4
7	Crazy, Stupid, Love.	$12,100,000	3,020	$4,007	$42,185,000	2
8	Friends with Benefits	$4,700,000	2,398	$1,960	$48,538,000	3
9	Horrible Bosses	$4,620,000	2,025	$2,281	$105,162,000	5
10	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	$3,015,000	1,854	$1,626	$344,173,000	6

 

Rise’s opening total was very similar to X-Men: First Class, another successful Fox 2011 summer series reboot, which opened with $55.1 million.  But Rise, with its replacement of actors in ape suits with motion-capture animation and computer-generated effects, represents more of a stylistic departure from previous films in the franchise, and thus more of a gamble.  The film’s success does not represent a vindication of mo-cap animation as a separate genre, though it does provide the best example yet of how the technique can be used as a great special effect in a live-action film—and it clearly puts Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop at the forefront of motion capture technology.  It also should enshrine Andy Serkis as the leading mo-cap "actor," who definitely deserves recognition of some sort for his stellar work in this field (Academy, are you listening?).

 

Rise, which scored a solid 61% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, earned an equally solid “A-“ CinemaScore from audiences. Attendance dipped just 2% from Friday to Saturday, which is a sign of great word of mouth.  With no major action film opening until the new Conan the Barbarian debuts on the 19th, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the 12th major action film to bow this summer, appears to be set for a strong August run.  With a $93 million budget, Apes will need to do well overseas and it’s off to a good start.  It earned $25 million outside North America this weekend in limited release finishing first in each of the four markets where it opened (Australia, Spain, Russia, and Taiwan).

 

Meanwhile The Smurfs completed their conquest of Cowboys & Aliens.  The 3-D animated/live action hybrid fell just 41% in its second weekend as it earned an estimated $21 million, giving it a domestic total of $76.2 million, compared with Cowboys & Aliens (which actually narrowly nosed out The Smurfs last weekend in final numbers), which fell 57% and earned $15.7 million, which brought its total to $67.3 million.  Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens, which cost $163 million to produce, will have a hard time making more than $100 million at the domestic box office.  It will have to do three times as well overseas in order to make it into the black.

 

Another film with dismal money-making prospects is The Change-Up, Universal’s “R” rated “body-switching” comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, which debuted in fourth place with $13.5 million, which is well below expectations for the $52 million film.  It appears that even more than the disappointing Friends With Benefits, The Change-Up was one “R”-rated raunchfest too many.  This summer audiences have spent over $675 million to watch a long list of “R” rated comedies including The Hangover Part II, Bridesmaids, Bad Teacher, Friends With Benefits, Horrible Bosses, and Crazy Stupid Love—and the last 3 films on the list are still in the “Top 10,” which spells too much direct competition for The Change-Up, which could manage just a mediocre “B” CinemaScore from its audience, which was primarily female (58%) and older (50% over 30).

 

Marvel Studio’s Captain America: The First Avenger dropped 49.1% and settled in 5th place with an estimated $13 million.  This brings its domestic total to $143.2 million, which is very close to Thor’s $145.4 million 17-day total. Cap tends to do better than Thor on weekdays, but then falls behind on weekends, which is understandable since Thor was released in early May when school was still in session.  Still Captain America’s domestic performance is impressive since it is facing far more direct competition than Thor did.

 

Close behind Cap is the Harry Potter finale, which earned an estimated $12.2 million, bringing its domestic total to $342.8 million.  Early this coming week The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 should surpass Tranformers: Dark of the Moon and become the highest-grossing film in the domestic market so far this year.  Worldwide, the Potter finale ($1,133,901,000) is already well past the third Transformers film (1,037,673,000) in a battle of billion dollar franchises.