It is really hard to take a franchise away from what made it a success, especially when most people consider the lead actor the pivotal piece of the franchise. Yet that was the task of The Bourne Legacy, which was comfortable swapping lead actors, but not in giving that actor billing in the title.
From the Box Office perspective the risk paid-off as the Damonless sequel managed a very respectable $40+ Million in its opening weekend. The Bourne Legacy actually preformed on par with the first two Bourne films, it fell way off the heights of the last film, but with all the factors playing against the movie that has to be considered a major win.
Coming in third was, the also strong performing, The Campaign which pulled in $27 Million. The number looks small for a Will Ferrell summer comedy, but when you take into consideration the film is R-rated and it has a political subject matter, the film did really well. Most of the time R-rated comedies do not do Ted numbers, and political campaign films rarely make much money, so again context makes this weekend look like a win for the studio.
Third place went to The Dark Knight Rises which dipped another 45% for another near $20 Million weekend. Batman continues to rake in the bucks, but yet again the film is haunted by the only other two films that have thus outperformed it. In any event, the film still is a massive financial boon for Warner Bros. who should use this round of comic book monies more wisely than their last windfall.
Nothing really else of note with this week’s box office numbers, next week unfortunately wont be too exciting either. I say unfortunately because Paranorman comes out, and if their was justice in the world it would be a big hit. It wont be, mostly because The Expendables 2 comes out, which will probably be a fine film and will enjoy box office the win. Once again The Expendables franchise goes head to head with a film that deserves much more love than it will get at the Box Office (the first Expendables went head to head with Scott Pilgrim vs The World).
Total Weekend Box Office Numbers:
1 The Bourne Legacy $40,265,000
2 The Campaign $27,440,000
3 The Dark Knight Rises $19,540,000
4 Hope Springs $15,600,000
5 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days $8,200,000
6 Total Recall (2012) $8,100,000
7 Ice Age: Continental Drift $6,750,000
8 Ted $3,290,000
9 Step Up Revolution $2,850,000
10 The Amazing Spider-Man $2,200,000
