Weekend Box Office: 'Star Trek Beyond' Wins, 'Ice Age' Flops
by EG
Star Trek Beyond won the weekend as expected, but the rest of the week's top five ended up in a big jumble that was too close to call as Sunday came to a close. One thing is certain: one of the week's big new releases turned out to be a pretty big flop.
The latest installment in the Star Trek reboot franchise took off over the weekend, pulling in just short of $60 million according to end-of-weekend estimates. That was essentially in line with projections, and although it's behind the openings of the first two films in the J.J. Abrams-produced franchise, it's a big enough take to be considered a success.
Second place for the weekend goes to The Secret Life Of Pets, Universal's animated hit that had taken the top spot for each of the past two weeks. The kid-friendly film took in $29 million this weekend.
The race for third place, however, ended up being a photo finish between two of the week's three new wide releases and last week's number two. The latter is Ghostbusters, which wasn't able to take first place away from The Secret Life of Pets last week; this week, Ghostbusters earned about $21 million and slipped to at least third place for the weekend.
Among the week's new releases, the horror film Lights Out also earned about $21 million, which is a big win for the low-budget film. On the other hand, the $21-million take of Ice Age: Collision Course is a major disappointment for an animated franchise tent pole that was expected to earn nearly twice that much over the weekend.