- We have one more week before we’re out of August and into September, and while you ponder the slow, unstoppable progression of time and how it slowly steals away our mortality, as a candle burns through wax, we have some good news: According to BoxOfficeMojo, Guardians of the Galaxy is officially the highest-grossing movie of the summer! Take that, existential dread! It climbed back to number one with a $17.6 Million weekend, and it might even edge out The Winter Soldier for the top money making movie of the year. Which is really good for a ragtag group of heroes no one had ever really heard of before this year.
- Meanwhile, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles finally descended to #2, with a gross of $16.8 Million. So in one weekend, Guardians of the Galaxy managed to beat TWO Michael Bay movies. I don’t know why I feel good about that, I just do.
- If I Stay was the biggest opening of the weekend’s three newbies, taking in $16.3 Million on a budget of $11 Million. Which is great lesson for all of us: If you want to make easy money at the box office on a safe bet, look at what your daughter is reading. Is it a good book? Can it even be qualified as a book? Doesn’t matter. Make it into a movie. Teenage girls will watch it.
- Let’s Be Cops once again profited from being the only comedy in what is otherwise a grim, dramatic August. Seriously, the highest-grossing comedy after LBC? What If, which was the 19th biggest movie. And that’s why you don’t rule out a comedy, especially when there’s a big open spot with no competition.
- And now, to lump in the weekend’s two other new releases. When The Game Stands Tall climbed to #5 with a $9 Million opening. I haven’t seen the movie, or even read the plot synopsis, but it’s about football so I can spoil the ending for you right now: They win the football game. Hold on, let me check the Wikipedia page for back-up … yup, they win the football game. In fact, they win 151 games in a row. So I was REALLY right about that one.
Which brings me to the final big opening of the week, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Surprisingly, it bombed pretty hard, coming in at #8 with a $6.4 Million opening. Not even Eva Green’s nipples in the movie poster could convince people to see the movie.