Weekend Estimates: Guardians Go Big, Up Opens Okay
August 3, 2014
It was a big, big weekend at the box office with Guardians of the Galaxy pulling in an estimated $94 million. The majority of analysts thought it would break the August weekend record, but very few thought it would have one of the top five openings of the year. Additionally, the film earned some of the best reviews of the year and could become the biggest hit of the year... at least untill Mockingjay, Part 1 hits theaters in November. Get On Up did not do as well earning $14.03 million and grabbing third place along the way. This is barely more than Jersey Boys opened with in June. Its reviews should help it earn better legs and it wasn't an expensive movie to make, so the studio should be relatively happy with this start.
As far as holdovers are concerned, both Lucy and Hercules fell around 60%. Lucy managed $18.3 million over the weekend for a total of $79.6 million after two. It will reach the century mark, but it will take a week or two to get there. $100 million is out of reach for Hercules, which has $52.4 million so far, including $10.7 million this past weekend. If it can grab $200 million worldwide, it will break even sooner rather than later. And So It Goes fell just 31% to $3.34 million over the weekend for a total of $10.47 million after two. This is a good hold for a sophomore stint, but it is also clearly a case of too little, too late.
Calvary was the best of the new limited releases with $72,798 in four theaters. I was hoping for at least $20,000 on the per theater chart, but this is still a great start. It does pale in comparison to A Most Wanted Man, which grabbed tenth place with $3.32 million for a total of $7.06 million after just two weeks of release. Another limited release, Boyhood, just missed the top ten with $2.52 million over the weekend for a running tally of $7.57 million after four weeks of release.
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hercules, Get on Up, Jersey Boys, Lucy, Boyhood, A Most Wanted Man, Calvary, And So It Goes