Saturday Box Office: 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Is Unstoppable
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is pretty much unstoppable at the weekend box office, as the sequel is on track to earn $73 million in its debut after factoring in a stellar Saturday. This is significantly more than the $54.8 million debut of Rise of the Planet of the Apes in August 2011. Moreover, when factoring in the huge returns for X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Fault In Our Stars, and now Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, 20th Century Fox is now projected to become the first major Hollywood studio to surpass $1 billion in domestic ticket sales for 2014. This will be the fastest that the studio has ever achieved this milestone in a given year.
"It's obviously an incredibly satisfying trip the multiplex," said Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson, citing that the film is a perfect storm of critical and commercial success.
The movie cost roughly $170 million to make, but it should have no trouble recouping its investment, considering that it's already well ahead of the gross for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which ended its domestic run with a hefty $176.8 million, and $481.8 million worldwide.
Meanwhile, Transformers: Age of Extinction has finally fallen from the top spot after two weekends as the No. 1 movie in America. The movie is expected to take in $16.5 million, a fairly steep decline from last weekend's $53.8 million gross. However, the sequel is expected to cross the $200 million mark in North America, while continuing to do stellar business overseas. Transformers: Age of Extinction is projected to take in another $102 million internationally for a foreign cume of $543.5 million, and a global total of $752.5 million. All in all, this was some pretty good news for Paramount Pictures, despite losing the top spot.
The news was also good for Melissa McCarthy's Tammy, which opened to disappointing numbers last week, but managed to drop only 40 percent in week two. The movie earned $12.9 million to come in at No. 3, bringing its North American gross to $57.4 million over two weekends, which is a pretty big success considering New Line Cinema made the movie for $20 million.
More info is still coming, as totals for the rest of the weekend are finalized. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes may be unstoppable, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the box office isn't up for grabs, in many respects. It should be interesting to see how the final totals pan out, come tomorrow.
Credit: 20th Century Fox