- Box Office
World Box Office, July 18-24
Star Trek Beyond shot into warp drive and kicked off its first weekend with a combined $89 million cume at home and abroad. Its domestic take of $59.6 million is the third best in Star Trek’s long series of motion picture openings, and was good for first place on the North American charts. This third installment of J.J. Abrams reboot of the classic sci-fi franchise is directed by Justin Lin and sees the return of the first two film’s core cast. Chris Pine once again plays the role of Captain James Kirk, while Zachary Quinto returns as Spock and Karl Urban takes another turn as Dr. Leonard McCoy. Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg appear again as Uhura and Scott, while Idris Elba signed on to play the film’s bad guy, Krall. After the Enterprise is lured into a trap and crash-lands on a remote alien planet following a devastating attack by Krall’s drone fleet, we learn that its mysterious commander has put into motion a dark plot to destroy Starfleet. Kirk and his crew must overcome their internal struggles and unite to save humanity from this new menace
In a year where sequels are having a hard time matching the success of their predecessors, Beyond finished a relatively decent 14% behind 2014’s Into Darkness. Paramount went into overdrive with promotional efforts for the film. A massive Comic-Con premier generated intense social media buzz, while Rihanna contributed the song Sledgehammer to the film’s soundtrack and galvanized her fan base by coming out as a huge Trekkie. The film also paid tributes to Anton Yelchin, the Pavel Chekov of the series who died in a freak accident last month at just 27 years old, and longtime Star Trek stalwart Leonard Nimoy who passed away last year at age 83.
Overseas figures were quite strong as well with $30 million coming from a collection of 37 international territories. In the UK, where the series has traditionally performed well, it finished behind Spielberg’s The BFG $6.1 million. It made $3.1 million in Russia, and grossed $3 million in Australia. Much of this $185 million picture’s fate depends on how it performs in China, where Into Darkness made $59.1 million in 2014. It opens in the Middle Kingdom on September 2.
Still in China, Jackie Chan’s pic Skiptrace opened to a startling $60 million. Directed by Renny Harlin and starring Johnny Knoxville and Fan Bing Bing, this Hong-Kong detective drama follows Chan’s efforts to capture Knoxville and bring him back to the city-state to face justice. The chase takes the pair across Mongolia and China and offers plenty of action and comedic hijinks along the way.
Also opening at home this weekend, Ice Age: Collision Course made $21 million in its debut run. The fifth entry in Fox’s massive animated series has now amassed $199 million including three previous weeks of international play and has brought the property’s total earnings to $3 million. It has now passed Shrek to become the highest grossing animated series of all time.
On the specialty market right wing director Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America caught the imagination of the nation’s most conservative audience with his conspiracies and opened to $3.7 million.
Next week we’ll see a huge market shake-up as Jason Bourne launches at home and abroad. Also opening is Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell in their comedy Bad Moms.