We have now reached the end of the 2013 Summer Movie Season and for the third weekend in a row, it was Lee Daniels’ The Butler atop the box office. The historical drama took in $20 million over the holiday frame which was right on target with my $19.8M prediction. Gold star for me!
The concert film One Direction: This Is Us surpassed my expectations for a #2 debut with $18 million (above my $14.9M estimate). The hit comedy We’re the Millers continues to do brisk business with $15.9 million for third place (in line with my $15.1M projection). Disney’s Planes saw a solid increase for fourth place with $10.7 million (above my $9M estimate).
The true surprise of the weekend was the performance of the Spanish language comedy Instructions Not Included. The pic opened at #5 with an incredible $10 million. This is notable for a couple of reasons: it’s the biggest Spanish language debut domestically ever and the movie was only showing on a small 347 screens. Due to the latter reason, Instructions wasn’t even on my radar screen to predict.
The other surprise (at least to me) was just how badly the two other newbies performed. The Ethan Hawke/Selena Gomez action flick Getaway managed just $5.5 million over the holiday time frame. I predicted it would do over double that number with $11.8M. Oops. The Eric Bana thriller Closed Circuit was DOA opening at #16 (ouch) with $3.1 million from Wednesday to Monday. I predicted it’d do $7.2M in that time frame.
Tonight on the blog, I’ll have my prediction for next weekend’s only new entry, Riddick with Vin Diesel. Stay tuned!
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