Rise of the Planet of the Apes (RotPota) bested four new films and remained at the top of the weekend box office chart for the second week in a row with an estimated $27.5 million.  Close behind was The Help, the harbinger of a wave of “awards season” adult dramas to come, which surpassed expectations with a stellar $25.5 million.  Final Destination 5 had a mediocre bow in spite of a strong 3-D showing, while 30 Minutes or Less and Glee The 3D Concert movie were pretty much DOA.  The total of the top 12 films was up 6% from the same weekend in 2010, which gives Hollywood a five-week winning streak.

 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): August 12 - 14, 2011
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Rise of the Planet of the Apes	$27,500,000	3,691	$7,451	$104,876,000	2
2	The Help	$25,525,000	2,534	$10,073	$35,399,000	1
3	Final Destination 5	$18,400,000	3,155	$5,832	$18,400,000	1
4	The Smurfs	$13,500,000	3,427	$3,939	$101,546,000	3
5	30 Minutes or Less	$13,000,000	2,888	$4,501	$13,000,000	1
6	Cowboys & Aliens	$7,613,000	3,310	$2,300	$81,476,000	3
7	Captain America: The First Avenger	$7,125,000	2,835	$2,513	$156,885,000	4
8	Crazy, Stupid, Love.	$6,930,000	2,635	$2,630	$55,402,000	3
9	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	$6,875,000	2,414	$2,848	$356,961,000	5
10	The Change-Up	$6,219,000	2,913	$2,135	$25,751,000	2

 

RotPota dropped just 49.8% in its second frame, which qualifies as an excellent hold in the current world of summer blockbusters.  With $104.9 million through ten days the Apes reboot is doing noticeably better than Fox’s other attempt to resuscitate a franchise X-Men: First Class, which had earned $98 million at this point. While the extent of this potentially potent hit will be determined by its overseas performance, the future looks very good for the Apes movie, which cost just $93 million to produce (a lot of money, but a relatively small figure by summer movie blockbuster standards—X-Men: First Class for example cost $160 million).

 

It was supposed to be Final Destination 5 that gave RotPota a run for its money this weekend, but it turned out to be The Help instead.  This adaptation of the 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett about a young white woman and her relationship with two black maids during the Civil Rights era in early 1960s Mississippi opened on Wednesday but still had plenty of strength left over for the weekend.  Emma Stone, who plays Gwen Stacy in the new Spider-Man movie, has the lead role, though it’s Viola Davis who is collecting most of the kudos so far.  The audience for The Help has been overwhelmingly female (74%) and older (60% over the age of 35), which probably corresponds to the readership of Stockett’s novel.  The movie’s debut audience gave the film a rare “A+” CinemaScore. Movies with that grade like 2009’s The Blind Side tend to have great “legs” at the box office.

 

The fate-themed horror film Final Destination 5 took third place with an estimated $18.4 million, which was well down from 2009’s The Final Destination, which opened with $27.4 million.  Interestingly enough a full 75% of Final Destination 5’s opening gross came from 3-D screens, which indicates that audiences will pay a premium for 3-D if they feel it fits the subject.  The bridge collapse TV promos evidently did their job in piquing the interest of the audience to see those action set pieces in 3-D. 

 

The “R” rated dark comedy 30 Minutes or Less followed the downward trend of “R” rated comedies as it earned just $13 million, debuting even lower than last week’s The Change-Up, though it should be said that 30 Minutes lacks the star power (and cost) of The Change-Up (Ryan Reynolds & Jason Bateman), so it’s probably not as disappointing to Sony, but after some huge early successes (The Hangover Part II, Bridesmaids) “R rated comedies have definitely fall on hard times.

 

Among the holdovers, The Smurfs fared the best, dropping just 34.8% in its third weekend.  The live action/animated hybrid has earned more than $101.5 million, which puts it ahead of all other cartoon hybrid films at this stage with the exception of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies.

 

In its third weekend Cowboys & Aliens dropped 51.6% and earned an estimated $7.6 million, which put it just ahead of Captain America, which brought it $7.1 million in its fourth.  Cowboys & Aliens has now earned $81.5 million, and will be lucky to reach $100 million, while Cap has soared past the $150 million mark with an estimated domestic cumulative of $156.9 million.  Cap is also performing somewhat better than expected overseas, where it has now earned $128.3 million (see “Captain America Doing Well Overseas”).

 

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, which is playing in 3-D only at some 2040 theaters, earned just $5.7 million, but since it cost just $8.5 million to produce it should break even over its exclusive 14-day run, though it appears that only the dedicated portion of the show’s shrinking TV audience is willing to pay to see the Glee cast in action.

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2 added an estimated $6.9 million to its year-to-date leading domestic total of to nearly $357 million.  But the film’s North American earnings represent less than 30% of its enormous worldwide $1.2 billion take.

 

Next weekend Millennium Films attempts to reboot its Conan the Barbarian franchise, a move which if successful would pave the way for a Red Sonja film as well as a Conan sequel.  Check back next Sunday and find out how it went with the new incarnation of Robert E. Howard’s Cimmerian hero.