Caesar and the apes are back in theaters this weekend with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The film should have no trouble knocking Transformers: Age of Extinction off its perch at the top, but this isn’t going to be a huge blockbuster to save Hollywood from summer doldrums.
Dawn is earning surprisingly strong reviews, just as its predecessor, 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, also achieved. That film debuted to $54.8 million, a mark Dawn should easily pass. According to Box Office Mojo, the Fox film is hitting 3,967 theaters.
The new film is very different from your traditional sequel. Rise featured James Franco as the human face, but Dawn has Zero Dark Thirty’s Jason Clarke, who is a little less known compared to Franco. It also takes place 10 years later, but still before the 1968 classic Planet of the Apes.
Entertainment Weekly is predicting $60 million this weekend, which sounds fair. Box Office Mojo is looking for it to make even more, though, at $70 million.
Transformers 4 is expected to take another huge plummet this weekend. It dropped a whopping 63 percent over the July 4 holiday weekend. It may struggle to hit $20 million in weekend three.
Melissa McCarthy’s Tammy earned horrid reviews from critics and audiences, who gave it a C CinemaScore grade. It is going to have a hard time passing $10 million in its second weekend.
22 Jump Street and Deliver Us From Evil should round out the Top 5.
You can check out trailers and other movies opening this weekend at Trailer Park.
image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com