It was a no-brainer at the North American box office as The Expendables 2 took the top spot this weekend with an estimated $28 million in ticket sales. The Stallone-led action orgy easily took the top spot in an overcrowded weekend filled with a lot of diverse product opening a little softer than the original. While the slight sequel drop is expected, the more positive reviews are not, with critics saying the second time out is a vast improvement over the original. The rest of the field took a pretty even split of the remaining box office. The Bourne Legacy had a typical week over week fifty percent drop to earn $17 million in its second weekend. The fourth Bourne film isn't going to be a breakout hit and will end up financially justifying it's existence. What this means for the franchise is anyone's guess. There's a strand of logic that there's some life left to the series, that Legacy will end up with 100+ million in North America, but the Bourne series was one of the rare franchises that was building.
The original The Bourne Identity made $121 million. The Bourne Supremacy made $175 million, and The Bourne Ultimatum made $227 million. This was a series that was well liked and had momentum. The key words there are "had momentum". No one is exactly doing cartwheels over losing half the box office from the last installment. Yes, it's a quasi-reboot. Yes, it's a new lead actor in Jeremy Renner and not Matt Damon. But I have to wonder if a fifth installment in the Bourne series can exist without some involvement from Damon in front of the camera.
The new animated film ParaNorman opened up with $14 million edging out The Campaign by a slim margin to take third, while the Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis political comedy pulled in another $13 million in its second weekend. The musical drama Sparkle featuring an appearance from the late Whitney Houston grabbed $12 million in its first week of release. On the low end of the newcomers, Disney's The Odd Life of Timothy Green took in $10 million over the weekend with a cume of $15 million since its Wednesday launch.
Next week's line up is sparse with just two wide releases - the chase comedy Hit and Run featuring Dax Shepard and a dreadlock-clad Bradley Cooper, as well as the high octane bike messenger action film Premium Rush starring Batman's hand picked replacement Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Here's your top films for North America...
1. The Expendables 2
Weekend Estimate: $28 million
2. The Bourne Legacy
Weekend Estimate: $17 million; $69 million total
3. ParaNorman
Weekend Estimate: $14 million
4. The Campaign
Weekend Estimate: $13 million; $51 million total
5. Sparkle
Weekend Estimate: $12 million
Anghus Houvouras
