Box Office Report: Scarlett Johansson Powers Lucy To #1

Speaking of sequels surpassing the original film, The Purge: Anarchy held up better than its reviled predecessor in its second weekend, taking in $9.9 million and fourth place. Even though that marked a steep 67% drop from last weekend, The Purge plummeted 76% in its sophomore weekend in June 2013. With a $51.3 million take after 10 days (a sliver shy of the original’s $52 million take over the same period), The Purge: Anarchy should surpass its predecessor. Look for the horror-action sequel to end its run with around $70 million, which should make Universal happy. (The production budget was just $9 million.)

As for sequels that are not raking in the dough, Disney’s Planes: Fire and Rescue dropped a heavy 47% to fifth place, grossing $9.3 million. With little else out there for families, that drop is quite surprising, but it seems that families are abandoning theatres for other summer fun, based on the modest runs of How to Train Your Dragon 2 and now this Planes sequel. With a $35.1 million take after 10 days, expect the sequel to finish its run with around $60 million.

Meanwhile, Rob Reiner’s And So It Goes had a weekend as forgettable as its title. The comedy starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton took eighth place and $4.6 million. It was the second disappointment for Clarius Entertainment, which also released the already-forgotten bomb Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return back in May. With exciting independent films grabbing attention from older audiences, the critically reviled comedy should be on DVD within a few months.

Even with action titles burning up the charts, many independent dramas found big business in limited release this weekend. A Most Wanted Man, featuring the final lead performance of late great Philip Seymour Hoffman, took tenth place with $2.7 million, although from only 361 theatres. Meanwhile, new Oscar favorite Boyhood continues to thrive, jumping 47% and adding 73 theatres, to make $1.7 million in just over 100 locations. With a $4.1 million cume and lots of buzz, the 165-minute drama may enter the top 10 within the coming weekends, as it goes wider.

On the other hand, The Fluffy Movie, starring comedian Gabriel Iglesias, did not reach the same heights as Kevin Hart’s stand-up movie from last summer. It finished in 16th place with a mild $1.3 million from 432 theatres. The news was worse for Zach Braff, as Wish I Was Here continued to disappoint, making only $1.1 million despite expanding to more than 600 locations. The comedy-drama will be lucky to earn a quarter of Garden State‘s total gross, meaning Braff may need to rely (again) on Kickstarter for future projects.

As for Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight, it had a decent but far from amazing start, taking in $426,000 from only 17 theaters. While the film boasts an average of $25,000 per location, Blue Jasmine and Midnight in Paris both brought in around $100,000 per theater in their platform openings. Moonlight will likely not go down as one of the writer/director’s bigger hits. Mixed reviews, strong indie competition and controversy surrounding the director likely contributed to the middling opening.

Here are the box office estimates for the Top 10 films at the North American box office, the weekend of July 25 through 27, 2014:

1. Lucy – $44 million (NEW)
2. Hercules – $29 million (NEW)
3. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – $16.4 million ($172.1 million total)
4. The Purge: Anarchy – $9.9 million ($51.3 million total)
5. Planes: Fire and Rescue – $9.3 million ($35.1 million total)
6. Sex Tape – $6 million ($26.9 million total)
7. Transformers: Age of Extinction – $4.6 million ($236.3 million total)
8. And So It Goes – $4.6 million (NEW)
9. Tammy – $3.4 million ($78.1 million total)
10. A Most Wanted Man – $2.7 million (NEW)

NOTE: These numbers are weekend estimates based on Friday and Saturday’s estimated takes. Actual numbers for the 3-day weekend are reported on Monday afternoon.