Weekend Box Office Aug. 16-18: 'The Butler' Wins, 'Jobs' Doesn't
by EG
With the season of big-budget movies officially over, the bar was set pretty low for this weekend's new release. Still, even with expectations at a modest level, only one of the week's new movies managed to avoid disappointing box-office numbers.
As expected, "Lee Daniels' The Butler" was the winner of the week's domestic box-office race. Estimates had the Forest Whitaker-Oprah Winfrey vehicle pulling in $25 million in ticket sales over the weekend. That's a strong showing for a movie that reportedly only cost $30 million to make.
The next-biggest new movie of the week, "Kick-Ass 2," only did about half as well, taking in an estimated $13.6 million. That's more than a 30% drop from the $19.8 million that the original "Kick-Ass" took in back in 2010, and it was only enough for third place this weekend.
The other two new wide releases, "Jobs" and "Paranoia," were even less enthusiastically received. "Jobs," the bio pic with Ashton Kutcher in the role of Apple founder Steve Jobs, took in just $6.7 million, and "Paranoia," a corporate thriller starring Harrison Ford, only drew $3.5 million, which wasn't even enough to get the film into the week's top 10.
Two hold-overs from last week performed on a par with this week's new movies. "We're the Millers," Jennifer Aniston's R-rated comedy, took in $17.8 million and landed in second place. "Elysium," Matt Damon's sci fi extravaganza, took in $13.5 million and tied with "Kick-Ass 2" for third place.