Preliminary figures at Deadline give THE BUTLER (Weinstein) a commanding victory over its competition. Very impressively, on Saturday Butler reportedly increased its take by about 10% over Friday, putting it on target for a $23-25M weekend (The Weinstein Company, which has never been shy about aggressively estimating its weekends, could make a run for the $26M earned by The Help in its first weekend, which probably wouldn’t stand up in final numbers on Monday). That suggests the movie is expanding beyond a frontloaded core audience, and since historical dramas often draw older audiences that don’t come out on opening weekend, it could enjoy a steady run for several weeks.
KICK-ASS 2 (Universal), on the other hand, slumped by more than 20% on Saturday to $4.2M, and may end up with only a $12.5M weekend, a dreadful 35% below the original movie’s $19.8M opening. (The first Kick-Ass only dropped 6% on its second day of release.) No one could quite figure out why a second Kick-Ass was even being made, since the first was only a modest success–but there won’t be any mystery about a third in the series, because it won’t exist.
JOBS (Open Road) dropped about 8% on Saturday and PARANOIA (Relativity) actually increased slightly by about 7%, but at their tiny numbers, those small fluctuations won’t matter much–they’re already done, with respective weekends of $6.5M and $3.5M.
It was no contest among holdovers, either, as WE’RE THE MILLERS (Warners) held beautifully, down just over 30% from last weekend and well on its way to topping $100M, another thorn in the side of Jennifer Aniston’s haters. ELYSIUM (TriStar/Sony) fell by at least 55% from its start, and won’t get beyond $80M in the US, while PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS (20th) dropped around 45% (not as good as it sounds, since the movie opened on the prior Wednesday), and will be lucky to reach $60M. Those two cost more than double (in the case of Elysium, almost triple) the production budget of We’re the Millers. PLANES (Disney) was down 40% from last weekend, and might get to $75M.
Among longer runs, 2 GUNS (Universal) was down 50%, while THE SMURFS 2 (Sony) and THE WOLVERINE (20th) both dropped around 45%.
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