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Fourth goes to Lights Out, the new horror thriller from Warner Bros.’ New Line division. Made for only $4.9 million, this "little film that could" almost doubled its budget on opening day, pulling in $9.2 million including previews. That led to an absolutely stellar opening weekend of $21.6 million from 2,818 venues. This small film did it the old fashioned way – by making a good film. Lights Out scored a 77% fresh rating at RottenTomatoes, and then followed that up with a B Cinemascore, which is a home run in the horror genre. Warner Bros. did a great job on getting the word out for Lights Out, and ended up picking the perfect weekend to release it. This is how a franchise begins – a strong first film that makes a ton of money, before being followed up by lesser sequels.

Fifth is Ice Age: Collision Course (aka Ice Age 5 or Ice Age: One Too Many), which barely even made a blip on the domestic radar despite a huge budget of $105 million, $30 million more than The Secret Life of Pets. Even with the monstrous budget, marketing here was slim, as Fox is counting on the overseas grosses to keep the cash flowing. Domestically, Ice Age 5 opened to $21 million, about a thousand yards away from the last Ice Age flick, which debuted with $46 million in 2012. That sequel, Continental Drift, finished with $126 million in domestic dollars, but then powered up to $715 million in countries outside of the US and Canada. While this Ice Age likely won’t see the same lofty heights again, it already has $179 million in sales overseas, a number it will never see from North America.

Sixth is Finding Dory, as it continues its climb on the all-time list. Dory earned another $7.2 million this weekend, declining 36%. That brings the domestic total up to an amazing $460.2 million, as it passes Avengers: Age of Ultron’s domestic total at $455 million, and in the next few days will pass the iconic Star Wars at $461 million. Overseas, Dory has picked up $322 million, and that total is only going to continue to grow, turning this one into another monster for Disney and Pixar.

Seventh is The Legend of Tarzan, which has actually held better than expected, but is going to be much too little and way too late considering the budget here is $180 million (I am still scratching my head at that one). This weekend, its fourth, Tarzan earned only $6.4 million and fell 44%. That brings the domestic total up to $115.8 million, and overseas it has earned $146 million.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates failed to recover much from its 54% plunge last weekend. In its third frame, Mike and Dave earned only $4.4 million, off 43% from last weekend. That brings the domestic total up to $40.4 million, which surpasses its $33 million production budget, but will need an impossible push from overseas audiences for it to be successful.

Hilary’s America from Dinesh D’Souza is ninth, as it expands from three screens last weekend (where it had a $25,000 screen average) to 1,216 venues this weekend. The "documentary" earned $3.7 million in expanded release, and brings its domestic total up to $3.8 million.

Broad Green’s The Infiltrator is tenth, after opening in eighth last weekend with $5.3 million. Mixed reviews are damning this one, as it could find only $3.3 million in its second weekend. The total for The Infiltrator has reached $12.2 million.

Despite the lackluster result from Star Trek Beyond, the overall box office still had a decent weekend thanks to a whole bunch of supporting players. This weekend, the top 12 earned $183.4 million, which compares very favorably with last year’s top 12 of $141.7 million. Next weekend’s releases will bring a surefire jolt to the box office as Matt Damon returns to his most popular role in Jason Bourne, and Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Christina Applegate try to light it up in Bad Moms. Opening Wednesday is Nerve, an interesting looking young adult thriller with Emma Roberts and Dave Franco.

On a personal note, I would like to thank anyone and everyone who has read any of my 750 columns on the subject of box office over the last 15 years. It’s amazing how time flies and the amazing changes we have seen in box office behavior since 2001. A big thank you to David Mumpower and Kim Hollis for their support over all these years, and all the Prophets that make this site a success. Thank you for reading.

Top Ten for Weekend of
Rank	Film	Distributor	Estimated Gross (millions)	Weekly Change	Running Total (millions)
1	Star Trek Beyond	Paramount	59.6	New	59.6
2	The Secret Life of Pets	Universal	29.3	-42%	260.7
3	Ghostbusters	Sony	21.6	-53%	86.9%
4	Lights Out	Warner Bros.	21.6	New	21.6
5	Ice Age: Collision Course	20th Century Fox	21.0	New	21.0
6	Finding Dory	Walt Disney	7.2	-36%	460.2
7	The Legend of Tarzan	Warner Bros.	6.4	-44%	115.8
8	Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates	20th Century Fox	4.4	-43%	40.4
9	Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party	Quality Flix	3.7	+4,846%	3.8
10	The Infiltrator	Broad Green Pictures	3.3	-38%	12.2
11	Central Intelligence	Warner Bros.	2.9	-47%	123.2
12	The Purge: Election Year	Universal	2.4	-62%	76.6

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