Scarlett Johansson was firing on all cylinders as her late summer ride Lucy finished in first place with a $44 million domestic debut. This latest effort from French action maestro Luc Besson focuses on the heartpounding adventures of a woman who gains the ability to use 100% of her brain (and body) to do things like blow open concrete walls and split atoms. Its North American opening is the biggest in Johansson’s career outside of her supporting appearances as Black Widow in Marvel pics Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The film, which strayed into quite a more thoughtful place than its pure adrenaline trailer would suggest, earned a C+ Cinemascore. It had a 50/50 gender split, and was especially popular among Hispanic Americans, who made up 29% of its viewers. It is also the second biggest US opening for a French film behind Taken 2, also from Luc Besson, which made $49 million in its debut weekend. It’ll be another ten days or so until Lucy starts to trickle into foreign markets. Muscling into second place on the domestic front was Hercules starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson with its $29 million opening. This is Johnson’s second biggest title role opening after 2002’s The Scorpion King. Paramount and MGM, who spent $100 million on this production, hope for a leggy run but so far are happy to have avoided the disappointment that several insiders were predicting. Overseas figures weren’t bad either. The bulk of its $28.7 international cumulative came from Russia, where audiences put aside international tensions to give the American flic a $12 million opening. The UK was good for $2.5 million, and Australia contributed $3.1 million. There was also a string of number one finishes in the smaller Asian markets. Malaysia was good for $1.6 million, both the Philippines and Taiwan came in at $1.2 million, and Singapore added $1.1 million from 27 of the city-state’s gigantic multiplexes.
First place globally belonged to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Fox’s big summer gun came back with another $54.4 million, much of which hailed from Latin America where audiences reluctantly tore themselves away from their television sets after the dramatic conclusion of World Cup mania.
Godzilla, true to form, ran amok in Japan where it made its late and final international opening. The old terror of Tokyo tore apart the box office in the land of the Rising Sun, finishing with $6.95 million, roughly on par with Transformers: Age of Extinction and last year’s massive monster film Pacific Rim.
More good news poured in from the East. Transformers: Age of Extinction, which had already surpassed Avatar to become the biggest movie in Chinese history, became the first film to reach the $300 million milestone in that market. Paramount’s lingering behemoth finished 7th with just $4.6 million at home, while overseas it legs still refuse to buckle. $37.5 million is a far cry from its previous $100 million plus international outings though certainly nothing to sneeze at. It now sits at $966.36 million, and will take at the very most 2 more frames to become 2014’s first billion-dollar movie.
And so it Goes, Clarius entertainment’s Diane Keaton and Michael Douglas comedy for the 60+ plus crowd, went into theatres without making so much as a creak. The virtually un-marketed picture earned just $4.5 million from 1,762 screens.
Boyhood continued its quiet march into the mainstream with an expansion into 107 theatres, earning $1.6 million this weekend. It now sits at $4 million, while fellow holdover The Purge: Anarchy picked up $9.8 million in fourth place to give itself a $51.2 million international cumulative.
Next weekend we’ll see the release of Marvel’s next potential blockbuster Guardians of The Galaxy and James Brown biopic Get On Up.
Lorenzo Soria