Vin Diesel’s return to the screen as Riddick, the character he brought to life in 2000’s Pitch Black, easily topped the weekend box office during what is traditionally one of the worst movie-going weekends of the year.  Riddick, which Diesel helped finance himself, earned an estimated $18.7 million, easily beating three-time box office champ The Butler, which brought in $8.9 million.  Overall attendance surged a bit as the top 12 films’ total was 29.1% ahead of the same frame last year when The Possession debuted with $17.7 million.
 
Riddick represents a return to the old school John Carpenter-style science fiction action movie formula that Pitch Black exploited so successfully.  Riddick’s opening was a bit lower than many analysts had expected and well below that of the previous film in the series, the 2004 Chronicles of Riddick, which debuted with $24.3 million.  More than 300 IMAX locations provided $2.5 million of Riddick’s $18.7 million total.  The audience was predictably male (59%) with Hispanics making up a substantial 37% of the opening weekend crowd.  Can Riddick use its first weekend box office crown to spur a lengthy stay in theaters?  Perhaps, but the film’s opening weekend mediocre "B" CinemaScore won’t help.
 
Riddick was produced independently for just $38 million, with Diesel, who now owns the rights to the character of Riddick (which he obtained from Universal as part of his price for returning to the Fast and Furious franchise), playing a key role in financing and production that even extended to mortgaging his house.  While Riddick’s opening was a spectacular success, the film’s financial prospects appear fairly solid, particularly if it can gain some traction overseas.

Lee Daniel’s The Butler continues to follow the box office pattern of another civil rights-themed drama The Help, though it now appears unlikely that The Butler will catch The Help’s $124.3 million.  After four weeks The Butler has earned nearly $92 million and should finish well north of 100K, though still short of The Help.
 
The Spanish language comedy Instructions Not Included added 369 theaters bringing its total to 717, by far the lowest of any film in the top ten.  But its per-venue average of $11,297 was also by far the best of any of those films, which explains how it managed to come in third.  Instructions has now earned $20.3 million, and will be setting new box office records for Spanish language films for weeks to come.
 
The "R" rated comedy We’re the Millers just keeps chugging along.  Now in its fifth weekend of release the drug-smuggling laffer brought in $7.9 million, driving its domestic cumulative to $123.8 million.  There is a slim chance the Millers could catch The Heat, which currently leads this summer’s "R" rated comedy derby with a total of $157.5 million.
 
Disney’s Planes also remained solid, dropping just 45% in its fifth weekend in theaters.  If it can stick around long enough, the $100 million mark is still possible for the animated feature, which has earned $79.3 million so far. 
 
The concert film One Direction: This Is Us plummeted 74.1% in its second weekend of release, but still ended up in sixth place ahead of Neil Blomkamp’s Elysium and Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.  Elysium has earned $85 million domestically and $127 million overseas, but still needs to earn more to offset its $115 million production cost.
 
The Percy Jackson franchise remains in trouble.  The $90 million second film in the series, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, slipped to #10 and has earned just shy of $60 million domestically and $92 million overseas.
 
Check back next week when Luc Besson’s mafia-family-on-the-run comedy The Family debuts along with the horror film Insidious: Chapter 2.