U.S. Box Office
Once again, a new installment in a burgeoning animated franchise soundly defeated a live-action superstar at the box office in the U.S.
First, Pixar's Monsters University thrashed Brad Pitt in World War Z, and now DreamWorks' Despicable Me has easily bested Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger, with the voice of Steve Carell and the ubiquituous minions raking in an estimated $82.5 million over the Friday-Sunday weekend, and $142.1 million for the extremely long holiday weekend that began last Tuesday evening, according to Box Office Guru. Internationally, it made $88.8 million in 45 territories, so it's already made nearly $300 million all told so far.
Stumbling badly out of the gate, The Lone Ranger made just $29.4 million over the weekend and $48.9 million since last Tuesday evening. Internationally, it's grossed $73.2 million so far in about 30% of the marketplace. With a production budget reported at $215 million, and a marketing budget that must run in the tens of millions, it will need huge returns worldwide to make a dent in its debt.
Indie Box Office
In limited release, coming-of-age comedy The Way, Way Back made more than half-a-million dollars, according to Indiewire, averaging an estimated $30,263 per screen at 19 locations. It expands to 75 more theaters on Friday and goes nationwide on July 26.
Richard Linklater's critically-praised Before Midnight continues to motor along strongly, still playing on more than 200 screens in its seventh week of release and totaling more than $6.6 million. Indiewire notes that music doc Twenty Feet From Stardom pulled off "a rare feat" by seeing its per-theater average rise even as it doubled its theater count. The film, directed by Morgan Neville, becomes only the third documentary this year to total more than $1 million in its earnings.
Theatrical Releases This Week
Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim will test how much audiences want to see robots battle monsters, while Adam Sandler's Grown Ups 2 will test how much audiences still love that particular brand of comedy. (The first one in 2010 made $162 million in the U.S. and $109 million overseas.)
Fruitvale Station, pictured above, enters the Oscar sweepstakes early, with the Weinstein Co. starting its campaign on Friday. Inspired by true-life events, the film emerged from Sundance as a critical darling; our own Sean Smithson described it as "for anybody who believes in community, love, and being able to better yourself through the advent of those attributes. To see a film named after, and in many ways about that very area, where I myself learned these things? It was a little magical. Highly recommended." The film opens in seven theaters.
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, a biographical sports film from India, is heading into more than 125 theaters; Farhan Akhtar stars as Milkha Singh, a springter who represented India at the Olympics in 1956, 1960, and 1964. Pawn Shop Chronicles gambles on 15 theaters nationwide. Three stories are told, featuring items from a small-town pawn shop; Brendan Fraser, Elijah Wood, Vincent D'Onofrio, Matt Dillon, Norman Reedus, Thomas Jane, Lukas Haas, and Paul Waker star.
