Luc Besson’s Lucy, which stars Scarlett Johansson, easily topped the weekend box office charts with an estimated $44 million, out muscling Brett Ratner’s Hercules, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, which earned an estimated $29 million. While the two top movies outperformed expectations a bit, the total of the top 12 box office films was still down nearly 15% versus the same weekend a year ago when The Wolverine opened with $53.1 million, and Hollywood summer movie season remains more than 20% below last year’s record performance.It is hard to see the strong debut of Lucy as anything but a major triumph for ScarJo, who is coming off her successful ensemble work for Marvel as the Black Widow, and something of an art house hit in Under the Skin (which just hit video, see "DVD Round-Up: 'Black Dynamite,' 'Orphan Black,' 'Wrinkles,' and ScarJo's Best?"). Even though the somewhat misleading advertising for Lucy resulted in a poor "C+" CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences, it is hard to see how Lucy doesn’t become ScarJo’s first $100 million movie outside the Marvel universe. While Lucy’s debut is way behind those of the Hunger Games films, and Divergent’s $54 million bow, it is in the ballpark with the first Tomb Raider film ($47 million) and considerably better than Angelina Jolie’s female-centric action film Salt, which bowed with $35 million. The question is, will the strong debut for a film ostensibly about a female star who gets superpowers and kicks butt will jolt the powers that be at DC/Warners and Marvel/Disney into greenlighting a Wonder Woman, Black Widow, or Ms. Marvel movie?
The "R" rated Lucy attracted an audience that was evenly split between the genders and 65% over 25. Caucasian’s accounted for 35% of the audience, while Hispanics made up 29%, African-Americans 19%, and Asians 12%.
While critics were all set to declare Hercules, which is based on the Radical Comics Hercules: The Thracian Wars series, a disaster, the film’s opening would tend to indicate otherwise. In spite of bad buzz (see "'Hercules' Takes a Couple of Hits"), Hercules scored a solid $29 million on the domestic front and pulled in an additional $28.7 million from just a few overseas territories (including a stellar $12.7 million from Russia). The fact that Ratner’s Hercules cost just $100 million to produce, means that, even if it flames out quickly from here on, it won’t be a major bomb like Battleship or John Carter. While Hercules will face formidable competition from Guardians of the Galaxy next weekend, Ratner’s film still has a shot at $100 million in the domestic market, which combined with solid foreign grosses should put the film in the black.
The "PG-13" Hercules, as might be expected, skewed male (58%) with 64% over 65. Hercules delivered the goods as far audiences were concerned and received a solid "B+" CinemaScore, which should help the movie become a solid "second choice" over the next few weeks.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): July 25-27, 2014 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | Lucy | $44,025,000 | 3,173 | $13,875 | $44,025,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Hercules | $29,000,000 | 3,595 | $8,067 | $29,000,000 | 1 |
| 3 | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | $16,400,000 | 3,668 | $4,471 | $172,089,000 | 3 |
| 4 | The Purge: Anarchy | $9,896,000 | 2,856 | $3,465 | $51,272,000 | 2 |
| 5 | Planes: Fire & Rescue | $9,303,000 | 3,839 | $2,423 | $35,121,000 | 2 |
| 6 | Sex Tape | $5,975,000 | 3,062 | $1,951 | $26,877,000 | 2 |
| 7 | Transformers: Age of Extinction | $4,600,000 | 2,476 | $1,858 | $236,352,000 | 5 |
| 8 | And So It Goes | $4,552,000 | 1,762 | $2,583 | $4,552,000 | 1 |
| 9 | Tammy | $3,400,000 | 2,562 | $1,327 | $78,147,000 | 4 |
| 10 | A Most Wanted Man | $2,717,000 | 361 | $7,526 | $2,717,000 | 1 |
Meanwhile Fox’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes slipped 55% in its third weekend as it brought in $16.4 million, bringing its domestic total to $172.1 million, which is nearly as much as the $176.4 million final domestic total of Dawn’s predecessor Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Though the summer of 2014 has not been a great season for film box office, the Planet of the Apes franchise appears to be on solid footing with Dawn posed to outstrip Rise in both the domestic and foreign markets.
Universal’s The Purge: Anarchy plummeted 67% in its second frame, but the $9 million low-budget production has already earned $51.3 million, giving it a profit margin far better than most films.
Disney’s Planes: Fire & Rescue continues to disappoint with a ten-day total of just $35 million, while Sony’s romcom Sex Tape slipped 60% in its second frame, earning $6 million and bringing its 10-day total to $26.9 million.
In its fifth weekend of release Transformers: Age of Extinction brought it $4.6 million and pushed its summer leading domestic total to $236.3 million. It doesn’t appear likely, but Michael Bay’s latest Transformers film, which is really crushing it overseas, still has a chance to catch up with Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s 2014 leading domestic total of $257 million.
The geezer romcom And So It Goes starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton was designed as counterprogramming to the youth-skewing summer action movie fare, but a weak marketing effort delivered a poor eighth place debut as the film earned just $4.5 million.
Another bit of counterprogramming, the adult-skewing adaptation of John LeCarre’s A Most Wanted Man, which stars the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, did OK in limited release, earning $2.7 million from just 361 theaters, and Woody Allen’s latest, Magic in the Moonlight, averaged $25K per screen from 17 locations.
Check back here next week to see if Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy, which is currently tracking to open over $60 million on the domestic front, can jolt Hollywood out of its summer doldrums (the summer box office remains more than 20% below last year’s record total). It is a lot to ask of a property that has never been on the screen before, but Guardians has posted stellar reviews, and Marvel has a great track record, so who knows?
