Last weekend, seven films earned $10 million or more at the box office. This weekend, one did. Yep, summer must be almost over.
The Expendables 2—a bombastic tub of bullets, explosions and really bad dialogue—claimed its second straight weekend win. But looking at the box office estimates this week, that’s not saying a whole lot. Sly, Jean-Claude and the film’s legion of geriatric heroes earned an estimated $13.5 million, which last week would’ve only been good enough for fourth place.
But hey, a win is a win, and The Expendables 2 did manage to hold off rival actioner The Bourne Legacy for the weekend title, giving the latter a $9.3-million, second-place consolation prize. Here’s to hoping that the two stalwart franchises join forces and create a blockbuster named, oh, I don’t know, Bourne Expendably. (I realize that the title doesn’t make a lot of sense, but neither did the movies.)
ParaNorman added another $8.5 million to its coffins—er, coffers, once again finishing third. Will Ferrell’s and Zach Galifianakis’ R-rated satire The Campaign settled for fourth place, its $7.4 million barely enough to fund a superpac.
The movie industry’s lackluster grosses allowed The Dark Knight Rises to flap back into the Top 5 after a week’s hiatus, pocketing another $7.2 million. All told, Christopher Nolan’s latest Batman flick has earned $941.2 million worldwide—an admittedly impressive total, but still short of the $1 billion-plus that its predecessor, The Dark Knight, took across the planet in 2008.
The weekend’s grosses were the lowest for 2012, according to Box Office Mojo. Perhaps the totals would’ve been a bit higher had even one new film managed to crack the Top 5.
Of the new releases, Premium Rush was the most successful (using the term loosely), but its $6.3 million haul seemed more like a second-rate stagger than anything labeled “premium.” It finished seventh, just behind The Odd Life of Timothy Green and just in front of Dinesh D’Souza’s wide-rolling documentary 2016: Obama’s America. Hit and Run managed just $4.7 million for ninth place, and The Apparition was truly spooky, landing a miniscule $3 mil.
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