Weekend Wrap Up

The Heat keeps box office hot streak going, White House Down disappoints

by Tim Briody

June 30, 2013

They're totally going to kick Channing Tatum's ass.

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The box office hot streak looked to continue this weekend with two new releases, one a seeming carbon copy of a spring hit and the other a buddy comedy starring two reliable box office draws. Hollywood continued to roll along, though not in the way you might have expected on paper.

The number one film of the weekend is, as expected, Monsters University with $46.1 million. Down 44% from last weekend, the Pixar prequel has earned $171 million in two weekends. Don't be alarmed by the seemingly high drop for an animated movie. Pixar films always behave a little differently, as they have a much higher Friday night rush and opening weekend rush factor due to the power of the brand. It's actually less of a drop than last year's Brave (48.6%) and 2011's Cars 2 (60.3%), so there's little to worry about. The biggest concern Monsters University has right now is direct competition in the form of next weekend's Despicable Me 2. It's probably not going to crack the top three of Pixar films (it would need to beat Up's $293 million) but over the next seven days it will pass the entire runs of films such as Cars 2, Ratatouille and WALL-E. At this point, $275 million is a realistic finishing place.

In second is the first of two openers and it's surprisingly not the one that features Washington D.C. getting blown up real good. Instead, it's The Heat, with an awesome $40 million weekend. It's time to admit it, folks: Melissa McCarthy is a legitimate box office draw. Paired with reliable-performer-in-her-own-right Sandra Bullock (who also now has the biggest opening weekend of her career), we have an incredible opening for a female-led, R-rated comedy.




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Starting with $13.6 million on Friday, The Heat landed a solid 2.96 multiplier on the weekend and with a reported $43 million budget, it will have made that back tomorrow. With a 64% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and an A- Cinemascore, The Heat will likely be a strong comedy option for a few weeks. After Identity Thief earned $134.5 million, this is a virtual lock for the second $100 million film of the year headlined by Melissa McCarthy. (And as a Gilmore Girls fan, this makes me very happy.)

Third place goes to Brad Pitt's World War Z, down 55% with $29.8 million. As David Mumpower pointed out yesterday, this figure is where most analysts had anticipated the zombie movie to open as of a couple months ago, which makes the performance all the more impressive. It's earned $123.7 million after two weekends. There's still quite a ways to go before it reaches the reported $190 million production budget, but it's far from a disaster.

Which brings us to White House Down, taking fourth place on the weekend with $25.7 million. Beaten to the punch three months ago by Olympus Has Fallen, the second film this year about a terrorist assault on Washington, D.C., this time starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, was clearly deemed too similar to Gerard Butler's film to make audiences care. Olympus Has Fallen opened to $30.3 million and finished just short of $100 million, taking in $98.6 million. White House Down…will not do that.


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