Box Office Week: Star Trek Beyond opens at #1 to a solid $59.2 mil, a 15% drop from previous entry Into Darkness. Lights Out surprises at #3 with $21.6 mil while Ice Age: Collision Course becomes first in the series to open domestically under $40 mil, coming in at #4 with a poor $21.3 mil.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Star Trek Beyond	$59,253,211	$89,253,211	1
2	The Secret Life of Pets	$29,607,210	$324,245,251	3
3	Lights Outs	$21,688,103	$30,188,103	1
4	Ice Age: Collision Course	$21,373,064	$199,106,650	1
5	Ghostbusters (2016)	$21,009,831	$122,266,570	2

Notable Box Office Stories:

• While it wasn't the most auspicious start Star Trek Beyond still managed to come in #1 for the weekend with $59.2 mil. However as mentioned in the title this isn't the best start for the third film in the rebooted franchise, as it's coming in 15% lower than the opening weekend of previous entry Star Trek Into Darkness ($70.1 mil). While fans are divided on the Nu Trek films, the critics and audiences are mostly in agreement with Beyond earning a Cinemascore and RT rating consistent with the other two films. It's hard to say then exactly what caused the downturn this time. In general it felt like the world was less blanketed with ads than the previous two and perhaps the negative fan backlash to Into Darkness caught up with the series. With an A- Cinemascore, Beyond could prove to be a solid earner domestically, particularly as the summer winds down with less sci-fi options on the horizon. Still the film needs a much better international opening than the previous films if it's going to make that barely profitable margin the last two had to justify their sequels. It could happen but Suicide Squad seems to be more and more of a threat as it's tracking numbers grow and grow.

• It's hard to know if the mantra for Hollywood should be always bet on horror or always bet on James Wan but either way Lights Out is the latest "surprise" horror hit breaking through the pack to come in at #3 with $21.6 mil. The film, which is based on a fairly popular short film, was a bit of a risk with first time feature director David F. Sandberg (who directed the original short) at the helm but the film's slightly positive critical reviews and James Wan producer credit likely drove the film to a quite hefty opening for a film costing only $4.9 mil. The film's audience had a slightly higher split towards the female side, a new trend in horror which could by why more and more horror films starring women seem to be doing well. However the film has a not so great B rating on Cinemascore which means expect the standard megadrop horror films often experience, somewhere in the 60-75% range for next weekend. Still since it was made on such a shoestring budget the film is already a success and another example of how effective the get in and out method is making horror the safest genre in the box office world right now.

• Dynasties can't last forever and it seems at least domestically Ice Age: Collision Course has finally pushed the Ice Age franchise too far as it was the first Ice Age film to open below $40 mil, earning more than half the previous entry coming in #4 with $21.3 mil. The only excuse for this opening has to be franchise fatigue as Dory is finally leaving the majority of theaters and Pets is on it's third week, Ice Age should have proved a stable option for families who'd already burned through the other two. The film also received the worst Cinemascore of the franchise, a B+ which will likely not help it stretch it's legs into the $100 mil category. However Ice Age has always been an insanely huge international property, with the last film Ice Age: Continental Drift earning a whopping $715 mil international which accounted for 81.5% of it's overall gross. So clearly the future of Ice Age relies on international sales 100% and in that department the film is already off to a good start, earning $178.9 mil so far in international markets. However Dory and Pets still have several major markets to open in which could mean more competition than Ice Age is used to. Domestically it seems Ice Age is done for but the international sales on Collision Course are going to be very closely monitored by Fox who now have to base the future of this franchise on potential international sales alone.

• Normally I wouldn't discuss Ghostbusters (2016) this week as my policy is mainly to hit the newest releases and any major records or stories from older releases. Ghostbusters second weekend was pretty typical for it's opening but because of the large negative reaction to the film there has been a frustrating amount of posts calling Ghostbusters a flop even before it's second weekend, so this will be my last Ghostbusters post here until it closes. Once it falls out of the top 5 it will be followed as well. Anyways that was probably too much preamble so let's get into it. Flop or not? Well still the answer is...kinda yes and kinda no. This week the film fought it out with Lights Outs and Ice Age and barely lost coming in at #5 with $21.6 mil. In terms of Melissa McCarthy and Paul Fieg films that's bad, but as I said the release and budget was always going to make this a classic 50% summer drop. Right now the film stands at $86.2 mil domestic which puts it at a solid if not very inspiring pace to end up around $120 mil -$140 mil when all is said and done. Internationally though the film is definitely not performing as well. So far the film has only managed to pull in $36 mil. Particularly hard hit was UK, where the film opened this week under the third week of Ice Age (yeah that's some ammo for some of you guys). The biggest hurdle of course internationally is that Ghostbusters is banned in China so unless Japan or South Korean randomly loves this franchise it's not exactly going to break the bank. So of course the big question remains is this the end for this iteration of the Ghostbusters and honestly it's hard to say. Normally I'd say a studio would bury it but this is Sony who have been horribly struggling to find a viable franchise for years now. Sony's main goal in this film really was to breathe life into Ghostbusters in all forms, so if the backlash caused tons of old toys to sell or the new toys actually turn it around then Sony doesn't care. The film will scratch past it's budget and marketing so no, it won't be a horrible flop. The result really comes down to what Sony takes from how their product sells and who it sells to. So in that we can't know baring a future North Korean hack, but all I can say is please, just wait till the film opens in a few more territories before you call it a flop. You can wait at least two or three more weeks I promise!

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
Zootopia	$341,233,778	$1,022,652,778	21
The Jungle Book (2016)	$361,647,897	$938,433,897	15
Captain America: Civil War	$406,794,345	$1,151,194,345	12
X-Men: Apocalypse	$155,149,510	$534,164,533	9
The Nice Guys	$36,146,304	$57,146,304	9
Warcraft	$47,158,090	$433,058,090	8

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
Miracles from Heaven	$61,705,123	$73,574,270	$13,000,000
Eye in the Sky	$18,704,596	$32,848,185	$13,000,000

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Submitted July 26, 2016 at 03:54AM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2aGakIA