The AVL Can’t Stop Gru! - Box Office Report, July 14th

The AVL Can’t Stop Gru! - Box Office Report, July 14th

Silas Sheepsbutt Ramsbottom and the AVL have been unable to apprehend Gru after he stole the cash from the box office last weekend. What’s worse, he snuck in under their noses and did it again, and made the top spot for the second weekend in a row. What’s worse, Gru beat out one of the big budget summer blockbusters, Pacific Rim. I guess Gru doesn’t too much care if we stop the Kaiju and humanity survives…

#1 - Despicable Me 2

Budget: $76 Million
Totals: $44.7 Million Weekend Gross / $229.2 Million Domestic Total / $243.2 Million Foreign Total / $472.4 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 2

Well, well, he’s unstoppable! I can’t say I’m surprised by the film’s success, I’m only surprised that Despicable Me 2 has faired so well against Pacific Rim. I mean Despicable Me 2 was fun, and funny, but I expected the balance to be shifted toward Pacific Rim a little bit more. I guess all that number crunching about Pacific Rim not tracking well was accurate. In any event, DM2 was better than the first film so I’m not overly irritated by this. Still, I liked Pacific Rim better than DM2 so it’s sort of frustrating.


#2 - Grown Ups 2

Budget: $80 Million
Totals: $42.5 Million Opening Weekend Gross / $1.7 Million Foreign Total / $44.2 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 1

Sigh. This looked so bad. I have no idea why I, or anyone else, would want to watch it. There are far, far better movies at the box office right now. What’s really surprising though, is that it’s ahead of Pacific Rim. Whereas in the case of Despicable Me 2 I think I at least understand it, in this case I think it’s just shameful.


#3 - Pacific Rim

Budget: $190 Million
Totals: $38.3 Million Opening Weekend Gross / $151.1 Million Foreign Total / $91.3 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 1

Not the strong opening I think Guillermo Del Toro, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures were hoping for. And it rubs me a bit because it’s easily a better film than the first two on this list. But then, I tend to look at it a little more in this way, in that they are all movies, and this movie is better than that, etc. But there’s more going on here than that. Despite the fact that Pacific Rim is only rated PG-13, families are much more likely to go see Despicable Me 2 (don’t ask me why people opted to see Grown Ups 2 as well, instead of Pacific Rim, because I have no idea what causes madness on that grand of a scale). So in some respects it’s not about which is the better and/or more enjoyable cinematic experience.

I think too that the marketing campaign that Warner Bros. went with initially went with really hurt them. I’m still turned off by it, and I’ve seen and liked the film okay. But given than Del Torro isn’t really a big selling point with mainstream audiences, they really decided to push the monsters versus robots aspect of the film. I think that appealed to the teenage males of the audience (tracking indicates that 67 percent of viewers were under the age of 35 [oh hai], and 61 percent were male [well, this is embarrassing, I fit that category too]), but general audiences remained uninterested in a special effects driven monster/robot movie with no known actors, no known director, and what looked like a stupid plot.

In reality, there was a good amount of human element involved and a good bit of drama, but the marketing chose largely to ignore that up until the last minute and for whatever other reasons, it failed to capture enough mainstream interest.


#4 - The Heat

Budget: $43 Million
Totals: $14 Million Weekend Gross / $112.3 Million Domestic Total / $15.8 Million Foreign Total / $128.2 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 3

The Heat may have it’s flaws, but those numbers are probably working for the studio. In any event, there was some good and some fun in the film. It just dipped over the top a couple times too many for my taste.


#5 - The Lone Ranger

Budget: $215 Million (talk about budget bloat!)
Totals: $11.1 Million Weekend Gross / $71.1 Million Domestic Total / $48 Million Foreign Total / $119.1 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 2

Let’s see, nope, that’s still a flop. Which is a shame since it’s far better than critics and apparently general audiences think. As I said in last week’s box office report, I think Johnny Depp has just worn himself out a little bit on audiences.


#6 - Monsters University

Budget: N/A
Totals: $10.6 Million Weekend Gross / $237.7 Million Domestic Total / $236.4 Million Foreign Total / $474.1 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 3

We have a winner! I’ve gotta imagine that Pixar and Disney are happy with a worldwide total like this.


#7 - World War Z

Budget: $190 Million
Totals: $9.4 Million Weekend Gross / $177 Million Domestic Total / $246 Million Foreign Total / $423 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 4

This film continues to climb upward. I’m sure we’re looking at a sequel at this point.


#8 - White House Down

Budget: $150 Million
Totals: $6.1 Million Weekend Gross / $62.9 Million Domestic Total / $19.7 Million Foreign Total / $82.6 Million Worldwide Total
Week Number: 3

We have here what we in the biz like to call a flop…