July 22, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
Another week, another flop. R.I.P.D., a supernatural action comedy starring Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds, bombed horribly in its opening at the very crowded domestic box office over the weekend. The Men in Black rip-off didn’t even make 10% of its $130 million budget and finished in seventh place behind three holdovers and three other new releases. Action comedy sequel RED 2, an honorable mention on our list of most anticipated movies of the year, opened in fifth place, and DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo, which features Ryan Reynolds as the eponymous racing snail, settled in third place after being released with a couple days’ head start.
The big winner was low-budget true horror story The Conjuring, which cost less than a quarter to produce than any of the other three new major releases. Its $41.9 initial take broke The Purge‘s record set just last month for the highest debut ever for an original R-rated horror movie, and it’s the second-highest opening ever for a horror movie, only trailing Paranormal Activity 3. The success of The Conjuring also prevented reigning champ Despicable Me 2 from becoming the first movie of 2013 to three-peat at the domestic box office and bumped the animated sequel to the runner-up spot.
Next weekend, one of the most popular comic book characters returns to the silver screen in The Wolverine.
Here are the numbers for the top five over the weekend via BOM:
- The Conjuring — Weekend Gross: $41.2 million — Total Gross: $41.2 million (new)
- Despicable Me 2 — Weekend Gross: $24.9 million — Total Gross: $276.0 million (#1 last week)
- Turbo — Weekend Gross: $21.3 million — Total Gross: $31.0 million (new)
- Grown Ups 2 — Weekend Gross: $19.9 million — Total Gross: $71.4 million (#2 last week)
- RED 2 — Weekend Gross: $18.0 million — Total Gross: $18.0 million (new)
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