Final Box Office: 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' is No. 1 With $73 Million
Friday was big for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Saturday was even bigger. So it's no surprise that the movie has succeeded in knocking Transformers: Age of Extinction from the top spot at the box office.
Yes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is officially the No. 1 movie in America, pulling in a smashing $73 million, above and beyond the $54.8 million debut of 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This victory at the box office makes 20th Century Fox the first major Hollywood studio to cross the $1 billion mark in domestic ticket sales this year, after factoring in the huge grosses for X-Men: Days of Future Past and The Fault in Our Stars. It's the fastest the studio has ever reached this milestone.
But Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is not only a hit here, it's also pretty big overseas already. The movie opened to $31.1 million from 26 markets, bringing its worldwide gross to $104.1 million. In short, the movie is well on its way to recouping its full $170 million budget, since it's already pacing far ahead of what Rise of the Planet of the Apes was doing at the same point in its run. That film ended its run with $176.8 million in North America.
As for last week's champ, Transformers: Age of Extinction dropped to No. 2 with a $16.5 million for its third weekend. However, the movie has surpassed $200 million domestically, which makes this one of the most successful films of the year so far. It's even bigger internationally, as the sequel grossed an extra $102 million to bring its international gross to $543.5 million, and its worldwide haul to a whopping $752.5 million. So while Transformers has lost the top spot, it's not really losing at all.
Nor is Melissa McCarthy's Tammy, honestly. I mean, sure, it took a 40 percent hit in its second weekend, bringing in just $12.9 million. But this was still enough to come in at No. 3, bringing its domestic gross to $57.4 million. Considering that New Line Cinema made the movie for $20 million, I'd think this would have to be considered a success, even if just a soft one.
Also a success is Richard Linklater's Boyhood, the ambitious drama that was shot over a 12-year period and features star Ellar Coltrane growing up on screen. The movie grossed $359,000 from the five theaters across New York and Los Angeles at which it debuted. And Boyhood is hardly the only smaller release finding huge success this weekend, as Once director John Carney is earning raves with his latest sort of musical, Begin Again, which features Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, and Adam Levine. The movie, which is slowly expanding to more theaters across the country, earned $2.9 million to crack the Top 10. Honestly, if the movie is anywhere near as good as the soundtrack, I'm going to need to seek this movie out.
Check out the full Top 10 below:
1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ($73 million)
2. Transformers: Age of Extinction ($16.5 million)
3. Tammy ($12.9 million)
4. 22 Jump Street ($6.7 million)
5. How to Train Your Dragon 2 ($5.9 million)
6. Earth to Echo ($5.5 million)
7. Deliver Us From Evil ($4.7 million)
8. Maleficent ($4.2 million)
9. Begin Again ($2.9 million)
10. Jersey Boys ($2.5 million)
Credit: 20th Century Fox