Weekend Box Office Aug 17-19

The Expendables 2 opened to $28.5m  this weekend, according to final numbers.  While that’s a good opening, it’s weaker than the original film…most attribute that to the novelty wore out as well as a very crowded slate of flicks.  That said, the Cinemascore’s for the sequel are much higher than they were for the original, and word-of-mouth as well as critics reviews have been much stronger, so we’ll see what kind of legs the film has.  We’ll have our review on this weeks Ep 56 of The HO, Wednesday Night.

The rest of the new openers ranged from good to ok.  Paranorman, the new stop-animation film from the makers of Coraline, opened to $14m, not a bad opening for a family film.  With good word-of-mouth, this could play for some time.

Sparkle really didn’t, instead it opened with more of a dull finish at $11.6m, the studio might have elected to stay away from plugging it as Whitney Houston’s last film, but doing so also forgot to remind those buying tickets that it actually was.

The Odd Life of Tim Green, about 2 parents who wish for a son and apparently one just grows out of the ground (yea, cuz no one will just assume KIDNAP VICTIM in that scenario), opened to an ok $10.8.  Again, a family film so we’ll see what the legs are.

For holdovers, The Bourne Legacy dropped -55% for $17m, but also had direct competition.  The awesomely named Aaron Cross / Bourne-less sequel has made $69.6m to date and looks to end somewhere in the $110-120m range…or a little less than the original Bourne Identity.  Matt Damon is somewhere doing a maniacal laugh right now.  Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis’ The Campaign dropped -50% to $13.1m and a total of $51.4m to date.  Should make it to roughly $80m.  Hope Springs held better than most with $9.1m, dropping only -37%, and, unlike the films star’s, should continue to show decent legs for a few weeks.

And The Dark Knight Rises dropped -42% to $11.1m AND crossed the $400m mark bringing its total to $409m, becoming the 2nd biggest flick of the year!  I’m Batman indeed.  Look for a final in the neighborhood of $440-450m.

Come back next week when we see how Hit and Run, Premium Rush and The Apparition manage.  Also, for our new episode (as well as our review of Hit and Run), listen below or here.