3rd UPDATE, Friday, 5:32 PM: Based on 4 PM numbers, this three-for-the-money weekend looks like of the newcomers, Fox’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes could take anywhere from $36M for the three-day in its second weekend out. The Purge: Anarchy is starting to see its Friday Night horror crowd on the East Coast so the estimates below are still on the mark. However, Sony’s Sex Tape is, by all accounts, looking a bit weaker and now looks like it might be in the $18M range Same holds true for Disney’s Planes: Fire & Rescue which may end up under t he $20M mark after the dust clears. It’s still early, but that’s what the box office ticker tape looks like tonight. Rounding out the Top Five is, of course, Paramount’s Transformers: Age of Extinction in its fourth week which is estimated to take in roughly $8M for the three-day.
2nd UPDATE, Friday 1:15 PM: Matinee grosses are starting to roll in and it is quite clear that Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes will take the No. 1 spot as expected, on track at the moment — and this can change — for a three-day weekend take of an estimated $35M after a Friday take of around $10M. It has been playing well during the week.
The Purge: Anarchy‘s audience will really come out in force tonight but on the matinees, they are doing respectable numbers so it looks like maybe a $28M-$31M weekend at the moment for Universal Pictures as it is tracking to about a $12M-$15M Friday haul (includes those $2.6M late nights). The first pic, buoyed by the starpower of Ethan Hawke, took in $34M when it bowed last year.
Sony’s Sex Tape which started out strong and now is running behind its comps at the moment — and probably at around 60% of Bad Teacher‘s business, which also starred Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel — may come in around $20M+ for the three-day as it is expected to have about a $7M Friday (includes the $1.1M from last night). There is a very good chance that the R-rated comedy even could come in mid-$20M mark (could it do $25M or $26M?). 
These kind of comedies usually have a pretty strong multiple if it’s a quality film. It’s getting snarked on by the critics, but actually it’s a great couples movie (especially if you have children). And, let’s face it, if something as bad as Tammy could hold, why not Sex Tape ? It’s a heck of a lot funnier.
Disney’s Planes: Fire & Rescue will likely take in around $7M to $9M tonight, but it doesn’t mean much as the audience for this film will come out on Saturday and Sunday. This picture probably plays best to the kiddies but after seeing it, the writing is way above their heads. 
It has a great marketing campaign and a good distribution date to try to capitalize on the family market. I don’t expect this one to hold as well as the studio’s Maleficent or even Fox’s How to Train Your Dragon 2 as they were much better films … much, much better … and appeals to a wider age range. Right now, maybe $17M to $20M. The first one made $22.2M on its opening weekend.
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UPDATE, Friday, 7:20 AM: It’s going to be a crazy ride of a weekend as three pictures battle for position under Fox’s Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes. Universal just announced that The Purge: Anarchy took in $2.6M in late nights which started at 8 PM. That does not beat the first installment which bowed last year to $3.4M on late nights starting at 10 PM, but is a decent start for this dystopian horror pic which bowed last night in 2,194 theaters. Friday night should be a strong as the horror crowd always packs the theaters on this night.
Sony also just announced that its R-rated comedy romp Sex Tape grabbed $1.1M in 2,457 theaters starting at 7 PM. Since Bad Teacher (which stars the Sex Tape duo of Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) started at midnights, Sony is looking for other comparisons which started earlier. So, Fox’s The Other Woman grossed 550K at 9 PM and then went onto gross $23M for the weekend, while Heat grossed $1M starting at 10 PM and had a $39M weekend and We’re The Millers pulled in $1.7M at 8 PM for a $26M haul (but that one opened on a Tuesday).
Disney’s Planes Fire & Rescue opened at the same time as the first installment so this is a fair comparison: It grossed about 450K in late nights starting at 7 PM, pretty much the same kind of business they did last year when it opened August 9. That opened to a $22.2M three-day weekend. We’ll see how this one fares as it heads into the family-going days of Saturday and Sunday.
The Purge: Anarchy is currently the 2nd most socially active pic in July behind Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and its YouTube views (as expected for the horror film) have popped in the last week with the domestic teaser trailer on the Universal channel getting around 7M views and a holdover trailer from last year continuing to grow every day. Its FB page just passed 2M likes and superfans are reposting materials on an average earned/owned ratio of 8 to 1, according to RelishMix. And while this one doesn’t have the social power of last year’s star power of Ethan Hawke, Michael K. Williams “is by far the most social cast member with his 118K Twitter followers,” they say.
UPDATE: Friday, 6:55 AM: While we wait for late night grosses from Universal’s The Purge: Anarchy and Sony’s Sex Tape this morning, there are some notable accomplishments to tell you about: Adding another $5.8M yesterday, Fox’s Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, as expected, crossed the $100M mark and now heads into the weekend with a total cume of $102.9M. But, while Apes has been the dominant player, a little boy stood up to them in a couple of its theaters. IFC’s Boyhood, which expands to 34 screens this weekend, has the distinction of being No. 1 midweek in its theaters and beat the Apes back in both of its Los Angeles venues — the Landmark and the ArcLight. It also broke the house record for a week run at the IFC center in New York, finishing up the week with $125K.
PREVIOUS, Thursday, 12:04 PM: This weekend will see the debut of three very different genre films — horror, family and adult comedy — amid the second weekend of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes which is, once again, expected to take the top spot at the box office. It’s playing well during mid-week, audiences love this film so much so that it will pass $100M tonight.
This is going to be a wild box office ride as three of the films are tracking in a similar range. Apes is on track to take in around $32M to $34M, depending on the percentage fall followed by the Universal/Blumhouse horror flick The Purge: Anarchy which is on track to come in second, Sony’s R-rated comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel, Sex Tape may come in third and Disney/Pixar’s Planes: Fire & Rescue looks to come in fourth. That’s how it looks for the moment. Meanwhile, IFC Films Boyhood is sticking with its expansion plans and rolling the film out to 34 more screens this weekend. Will be watching that one as well.
All three bow tonight in late nights. Those late night grosses won’t say much to us about Planes, but will be interesting to see The Purge and Sex Tape‘s numbers tomorrow morning. The Purge may get a nice number tonight from horror superfans. It bows at 8 PM. Right now, Fandango is dubbing it “the biggest pre-selling horror movie” of the year, noting that at the same point in the sales cycle, The Purge is selling more advance tickets than other horror films that opened this year, including Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Oculus, and last weekend’s Deliver Us From Evil. These horror flicks usually tend to open well and then fall off quickly. The first Purge opened to $3.4M in late nights starting at 10 PM and went on to gross $34M; of course, it starred Ethan Hawke which gave it some cachet. That one was done on a shoestring and shot all in one location and ended up grossing $64.4M domestically (about 19 times its budget). This one’s budget is three times the last one … those involved with the film tell us it was around $9M, was filmed outdoors and was churned out quickly to capitalize on last year’s profitable hit. It opens in over 2,800 theaters.
Sex Tape, meanwhile cost around $43M, not counting marketing and distribution costs. The R-rated comedy is getting stung a bit by critics but most people I know who have seen this film thought it was a fun romp (once you get past the opening raunchiness). When I’m laughing aloud at a movie, to me, that’s worth the ticket price. What it has going for it is that it’s going to be the only new comedy out there and it’s much better than Tammy (now in its third week of release). The fact that audiences hung in there for Tammy‘s second weekend shows the appetite for an adult comedy. For the male audience they will be able to gawk at Cameron Diaz’s naked bod and for the female audience, they seem to swoon over Segel. Diaz and Segel last starred together in Bad Teacher and that was a winning combination, taking in a total of $100M domestically and $216.1M worldwide. The adult comedy films usually end up with a decent multiple.
I was told by those in the know that Diaz received $12.5M upfront and will receive some box office bonuses and has significant profit participation (contingent) but no first-dollar gross, so gets a nice piece of change at break-even. Certainly, she got that deal based on the success of Bad Teacher. So, if Sex Tape opens to mid-to-high $20M this weekend, it’ll end up making arou
nd $90M. Late nights for this one also start at 8 PM.
Planes: Fire & Rescue is a new entry for family audiences who are tiring of Maleficent (8-week in release) and How To Train Your Dragon 2 (in its sixth weekend of release) and never really got that much into Earth To Echo (in its third week of release). That is also opening tonight at 7 PM, but it will take until the weekend to see how that will go when family audiences flood the theaters.
For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...
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