August 5, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
In its debut, action comedy 2 Guns, a graphic novel adaptation starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, shot down reigning champ The Wolverine at the domestic box office over the weekend. The other new major release, an unnecessary sequel to one of the worst movies of 2011, didn’t have as much luck, trailed the sixth X-Men installment, and settled for third place with the worst opening this summer for a family flick. Continuing to drop a deuce on the childhood memories of past generations while laying fresh turds for new kiddos, The Smurfs 2 wanted to see green like its predecessor ($35.6 million in three days), but it’ll be singing the blues ($27.8 million in five days), thanks to the most family fare-crowded summer in cinema history.
An honorable mention on our list of most anticipated movies of the year, The Wolverine is set to cross the $100 million mark in the next day or so after a couple of weekends of release. The Conjuring, which was the previous box office king when it opened to record-breaking numbers for an original horror movie three weekends ago, dropped to fourth place as it hit the $100 million milestone. Rounding out the top five was Despicable Me 2, which set an animated opening record a month ago and crossed the $700 million mark worldwide.
There’s also some good news abroad. Pacific Rim, which suffered a disappointing debut stateside last month and is finally closing in on $100 million domestically after its fourth weekend here, opened to huge numbers in China, where it scored the biggest opening ever for Warner Bros. and the sixth highest of all time there overall. The monsters-vs.-mechs slugfest has now grossed over $200 million internationally for a grand total of nearly $300 million, way past its $190 million budget.
The upcoming weekend further crowds theaters with four new releases. Fantasy action-adventure sequel Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and drug-smuggling comedy We’re the Millers both open early on Wednesday. They’re joined two days later by Cars spin-off Planes and Elysium, another one of our honorable mentions for most anticipated movies of the year.
Here are the estimates for the top five over the weekend via BOM:
- 2 Guns — Weekend Gross: $27.4 million — Total Gross: $27.4 million (new)
- The Wolverine — Weekend Gross: $21.7 million — Total Gross: $95.0 million (#1 last week)
- The Smurfs 2 — Weekend Gross: $18.2 million — Total Gross: $27.8 million (new)
- The Conjuring — Weekend Gross: $13.7 million — Total Gross: $108.6 million (#2 last week)
- Despicable Me 2 — Weekend Gross: $10.4 million — Total Gross: $326.7 million (#3 last week)
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