EARLY WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: No Parades For This Holiday

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Although ticket sales were up from July 4th, preliminary numbers at Deadline indicate that they remained very soft on Saturday, and in general, current releases will be at the low end of their weekend expectations.  That starts with TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount), which climbed less than 35% on Saturday to perhaps $14.5M.  That may bring it to $35M for the 3-day weekend (down a huge 65% from last week) and $173M by Sunday, and perhaps a US total no larger than $250M, which would be an amazing $100M below the last Transformers installment.

TAMMY (Warners) had an even slower Saturday, up less than 30% to $8M or so, and not much more than $20M for the weekend.  (Plus $11.5M from Wed-Thurs.)  Its low cost may save it from red ink, but not by much.  DELIVER US FROM EVIL (Screen Gems/Sony), oddly enough, fared better on Saturday, up over 50% to $4M, although it started off so low that it’s still headed for only a $9M weekend and quick oblivion.  Most disappointing of all in a way was EARTH TO ECHO (Relativity), which got a miniscule bump from Saturday matinees of 2-3% and may have a deadly $7.5M weekend.  Both Deliver and Echo are unlikely to get beyond $30-35M box office totals.

The top non-Transformers holdovers were 22 JUMP STREET (Columbia/Sony) and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (DreamWorks Animation/20th), respectively a bit above and below $9M for the weekend, which would be down 40-45% for both.