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As with last week, we're essentially through with the gigantic summer films, but we have a surprisingly deep roster – such that the sequel to an international hit is the low man on the totem poll of this weekend's four new films.

Two of them got a jump start on the weekend, with We're the Millers taking top spot on Wednesday with $6.8 million. Jason Sudekis' first real attempt to carry a film as a lead, Millers sees him as a low-level pot dealer roped into a scheme by a drug kingpin (a mincing Ed Helms) into importing a “smidge” of marijuana from Mexico. In order to cover his tracks, he creates a fake family from a stripper (Jennifer Aniston, in the least believable part of this movie), a runaway (Emma Roberts) and an impossibly nerdy and virginal neighbour (Will Poulter, who threatens to steal the movie straight away). Of course, because otherwise there'd be no movie, the pot proves to be a bit more in volume than advertised, and chaos ensues as the road trip back from Mexico starts to decay into chaos.

Warner Bros. is obviously hoping this becomes their 2013 version of The Hangover (as opposed to becoming The Hangover Part III). Wacky chaos loosely tied together with a “naughty” plot structure has proven itself to be a winner (it's Vince Vaughn's whole shtick, for instance) and the promise of a stripping Aniston is likely a good pull as well (though I mean really – if you think that's actually the “nudity” referred to in the rating, I have a bridge to sell you) The Wednesday figure of $6.8 million is a solid one, although not too spectacular. However, I don't think anyone's expecting all that much from Sudeikis, who to date has only had Horrible Bosses and Hall Pass as films where he was asked to do anything other than fill in comedy holes. This should extrapolate out to about $27 million this weekend.

Second up on the early opening is Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, sort of a Clash of the Titans for pre-teens, which makes me wonder exactly who Clash of the Titans was supposed to be for. The first film in this YA adaptation series opened in 2010 to a decent $31 million, but failed to get a lot of carry over. Internationally, the story is a bit different, and its $226 million worldwide total was enough to get this sequel made, albeit with a slightly less star-studded adult cast. Logan Lerman returns as the title character, the son of Poseidon, but instead of Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman, we have Nathan Fillion and Stanley Tucci. Which is not to denegrate Messrs. Fillion and Tucci, but James Bond they are not.

Wednesday's debut at $5.4 million puts it in a similar range with recent kids films The Smurfs 2 and Turbo – which aren't amazing places to find yourself, particularly if your budget is approaching nine figures. I'd expect a significant tail off from the first film's opening weekend to around $20 million here.

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