We had a pretty neat opportunity over the weekend film going audience. Pacific Rim, a phenomenal summer block buster that didn’t rely on existing IP, was going up against the scourge of cinemadom, Grown Ups 2.  A win for the former could signal a turning point in the battle between lowest common denominator and inventiveness. Instead Grown Ups made more than it’s predecessor and Pacific Rim settles for 3rd place. We all screwed the pooch on this one people.

But before we get into that, lets give props where props are due. Despicable Me 2 continues its dominating run by coming in first place against both newcomers this weekend. The $44 Million dollar weekend represents a great 46.4% drop proving that the interest in Gru and his minions is not as front loaded as some had suspected. The movie is homing in on mega-hit territory and should finish it’s run well over $300 Million.

But that’s not why we are here people.

Coming in second place was Grown Ups 2 to a total of over $42 million. I think we might now have that pesky question to the life, the universe and everything Douglas Adams wrote a whole lot about. How many millions are people willing to fork over opening weekend to a lazy, low brow ‘family comedy’? 42!

The Fast and Furious franchise is among the most curious in cinema history. Over a decade ago, when the first film came out, no one could have foreseen half a dozen films and hundreds of millions in total box office. Yet here we stand looking back at yet another weekend where the number 1 film is both speedy and a little irate.

The film brought in an estimated $34.5 Million in its second weekend, which was just good enough to take first place. The film followed suit with its predecessors and took a nasty dip in weekend number 2, but the lack of a big film releasing during the slow, post Memorial Day weekend left enough room for Vin Diesel to have another weekend with the penthouse view.

The big winner of the weekend, however, is second place finisher Now You See Me. The magician/heist film boasted a way-above-expectation $28 Million, which proves once again that putting Morgan Freeman in you trailers is a fast track to box office windfall. The film has a loaded cast, and provided enough of a change of pace to carve out a really nice audience in the middle of blockbuster season.

If you get the clumsy baseball references in the title than you get that this weekend was won by 42. The Jackie Robinson biopic earned an estimated $27+ Million, giving the film one of the strongest baseball movie debuts of all time. The film took advantage of perfect timing and well delivered advertising to get out of the gate strong. Despite the impending the parade of competition, the new baseball season should continue to allow the film to stay relevant for a few more weeks than it really should.

Bombing into second place is Scary Movie 5 which managed to pull in $15 Million, and providing tangible proof that no one cares about the spoof franchise any more. If any one is a victor in this instance it would be the Wayne’s Brothers. They conjured up the franchise with the first brilliant film, but eventually parted ways by the third film. The brothers Waynes got back into the horror spoof game earlier this year with A Haunted House, which shines an even larger light on Scary Movie 5‘s failure.

Sticking in third place is the newest hit from Dreamworks, The Croods. Easing a very light 36%, the film brought in another $13 Million giving the film a total haul of nearly $150 million, which is huge for a new animated IP from a studio with a mixed track record. There still remains scant children entertainment competition in the upcoming Box Office calender, so the film should still perform well in the coming weeks.

The current trend in sequel box office returns is tied to perception. Gone are the days of diminishing returns as a rule, these are the golden times for franchises. How the general public feels about the franchise is now king, and the thing about feelings are, they can be changed.

Case in point, GI: Joe: Retaliation.

The franchise had a below average first film that left a sour taste in the mouths of cinema-goers. It did have a strong opening weekend and final total gross so a sequel was inevitable, but something had to be done to ensure the public perception didn’t bury the new film before it had a shot.

Warming the hearts of movie executives everywhere, GI: Joe Retaliation proved that franchise perception can be fixed and sequels to poorly received films have a shot to come out as strong as its predecessor without waiting on word of mouth or reviews to set in.

There used to be a rule in feature animation. PIXAR was the king of quality and they had a perfect record, Dreamworks had Shrek and a whole train load of Disney and PIXAR knockoffs with star-studded casts. Most of the times those films were turds, and provided a sharp contrast that might have aided in PIXAR’s incredible win streak by providing such horrible comparison.

Well that was the past boys and girls, because the quality gap has been dwindling faster than The Croods just past 100 Million at the international box office. Dreamworks newest animated feature had a solid-to-great opening weekend bringing in over $44 Million. Which puts the film on par with other recent Dreamworks its How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind.

A big weekend was probably expected for The Croods, however, the weekend was not without its shocker. The action flick Olympus Has Fallen surpassed even the most generous of projections to bring in over $30 Million over the weekend. Which is a huge win for an action-centirc film in a year where so many have died horrible box office deaths.

Sam Raimi sure knows how to make a successful crowd pleaser, his prequel to the most famous movie ever came out with the first blockbuster opening weekend of 2013. Raking in over $80 Million in its debut frame, Oz: The Great and Powerful is well on the way to becoming the first mega hit of the year.

The film didn’t quite reach Alice in Wonderland numbers, but considering the advantages that film had, and the disadvantages Oz faced, the $80 Million haul is a massive win. Expect to see a sequel get rolling very soon as Disney will try to avoid the pitfalls of franchising Alice and put the pedal to the metal on their shiny new franchise-to-be.

Coming in second place on the weekend was last weeks bomb, Jack the Giant Slayer. Jack continues to defy odds by doing  even worse than John Carter at just about every turn. Dropping over 63% from an already weak opening debut and bringing in barely over $10 Million Jack is going to struggle to make $60 Million at the end of its run. Good thing Bryan Singer  has X-Men: Days of Future Past to fall back on, because normally a flop like this is death to a big budget director.

Well kudos to Taken 2, it was speculated in this very spot last week that the poor word of mouth and reviews would put a big dip into the action sequel’s take this weekend. The wrongness is strong with this one.

The Liam Neeson punch-fest held off the critical darling Argo for the top spot yet again in the box office trenches. The film brought in an estimated $22.5 Million over the three-day weekend with a relatively healthy dip of only 54.6%. For an R-rated action film with a built-in audience who presumably all went and saw it the first weekend, that drop is pretty strong.

Argo came up in second, with a still very respectable $20 Million weekend. The Affleck directed ‘incredible true story’ did about as well as a movie of this nature can reasonably expect to do, and with the heaps and heaps of love and positive word of mouth this film is getting it should play well for a few more weeks.

Last week I said this was not going to be a big weekend, even with three new films nothing really had good Box Office potential. Even though the final tallies proved that this was indeed a lack luster weekend no film actually had a horrible haul.

The ‘big’ winner of the weekend was The Expendables 2, the sequel to the action extravaganza that dared to load as many action superstars as possible into about an hour and a half ‘splosion. The sequel was probably originally expected to do bigger business than it’s predecessor with its bigger cast and PG-13 rating.

Somewhere along the way expectations tempered and the film’s $28.7 Million take is probably close enough to expectations. Even though it is near expectations, it was still on the lower end, so at this point word of mouth has to be the saving grace for this testosterone fueled franchise.

Second place went to The Bourne Legacy which brought in just over $17 Million. Its drop was on par with the previous films in the franchise, but because the first weekend was weaker the film still lags. That said for a pretty big overhaul, the film has performed pretty well, and there is clearly life left in this series.

Scrapping into third place is the stop motion animated film ParaNorman. The supernatural animated picture hit the stop motion animated glass ceiling with a decent $14 Million which is not great, but hardly bad either. It is nice that the film is playing to some business, but it would have been nice to see the film breakout a little more.

Next weekend sees yet another ‘meh’ weekend at the Box Office, in fact we are starting to see the beginning of the end of summer doldrums where tent pole type films with little box office potential or momentum get a release and bang around for the left overs of the summer season pie.

You may have noticed that there was not a Box Office Report last week. Due to the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado the major studios made a choice to not announce any returns during the weekend, in tribute to the victims. A classy gesture that we at The Flickcast were all to willing to follow.

In any event there was a rather large Box Office event that happened last weekend, so it bears some discussion this week. The Dark Knight Rises debuted to fantastic numbers that fell short of the lofty expectations of we the prognosticators. Still, it managed to break a couple of records and come out the end of a difficult weekend with $160+ Million dollars in the bank.

Naturally people will compare this opening with that of The Avengers and The Dark Knight, and while it is in the same ball park of those two phenomenons, it failed to capture the cultural zeitgeist that propelled them to the next level.

Take this weekend’s returns as an example. The Dark Knight Rises took in another strong $64+ Million to stand number one for a second weekend, however it dropped over 60% in business from its debut frame. A number that is actually solid for a front loaded comic-book film, but is a deeper percentage dip than The Avengers or The Dark Knight ever took at any point in their respective runs.

Remember the big splash The Avengers made at the box office all those weeks ago? Remember how it seemed like the biggest most ridiculous opening ever? Well prepare for some deja vu next weekend.

In advance of the release of The Dark Knight Rises, only the fourth Ice Age ventured as a new release this weekend. Headlining a rather stale weekend as movie goers brace for another massive release.

Ice Age: Continental Drift raked in a solid $46 Million in its opening weekend. The number is neither impressive or disappointing, it just sort if is. These sorts of sequels make money based on the current franchise good will, and apparently Ice Age is holding steady.

Swinging into second place is The Amazing Spider-Man with an estimated $35 Million. It is really hard to label that number a disappointment, but given how much money the previous films made this reboot is lagging behind.

Still you have to chalk this up as a win for Sony despite the knee jerk comparison reaction. The reboot so close off the heels of a successful trilogy is still making a ton of money. Especially compared to other comic book movies not starring the web-slinger.

Many people have been quick to judge PIXAR to be in a slump. Saying that their last film, Cars 2, was horrible and Brave is just mediocre. I have a feeling that sentiment will erode over time, when people look back and see that Mars Needs Moms received reviews more or less the same as Cars 2, people will realize they might have been too quick declare PIXAR’s creative death.

This, however, is a nuts and bolts box office report, so the most important thing is that Brave has brought in PIXAR’s 13th strait number one opening. A staggering string of success that shows no sign of letting up in the near future. Brave‘s $66+ Million opening weekend is pretty par for the course for a PIXAR film.

Coming in second place is Madagascar 3, cooling off from back to back number one weekends with a cool $20 Million. This good hold comes as a bit of a surprise with the seeming direct completion from the new PIXAR film. The sequel seems to have strong enough word of mouth to potentially make this the most successful Madagascar yet. 

Prometheus might have been the polarizing talking point over the weekend, but there is no debate that it made a ton of money over the weekend. Of course even it’s impressive haul was only good enough for second place in a competitive first frame for two new pictures.

Madagascar 3 came from behind after getting slightly edged on Friday with $60+ Million three-day weekend. The third film in the animated series was basically par for the course for the series, which is kind of impressive considering the general perception of the last film.

Coming in second on the weekend was the previously mentioned Ridley Scott film. Prometheus managed to top the $50 Million mark over the weekend which is a major win for the R-Rated horror/sci-fi film. Even though the film is polarizing audiences, its financial success is a win for fans of thought-provoking and edgy sci-fi.