The long Fourth of July weekend ended with some real fireworks for the folks at Illumination Entertainment with their followup film, Despicable Me 2. The movie banked in over $82.5mil dollars. Looks like Gru and his Minions knew how to steal some more box office success. That couldn’t be said for The Lone Ranger, which rumored to cost more than $200mil and brought in a paltry, $29mil.

This doesn’t at all surprise me, given the horrible reviews and tepid looking film. The film is super long, has two back-stories, and is about a franchise that’s almost as old as cinema. Even the trifecta of Johnny Depp, Gore Verbinski, and Jerry Bruckheimer couldn’t strike gold twice.

 Title Weekend Total
1.  Despicable Me 2 $82,500,000 $142.1
2.  The Lone Ranger $29,430,000 $48.9
3.  The Heat $25,000,000 $86.3
4.  Monsters University $19,590,000 $216.1
5.  World War Z $18,200,000 $158.7
6.  White House Down $13,500,000 $50.4
7.  Man of Steel $11,415,000 $271.2
8.  Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain $10,100,000 $17.4
9.  This Is The End $5,800,000 $85.5
10.  Now You See Me $2,770,000 $110.4

Next week, it’ll be no surprise when Guillermo Del Toro destroys the Box Office with his Monsters vs Robots film, Pacific Rim. I hope that movie makes over a Billion dollars overall and people bow down to the Spanish director; forcing him to start shooting Hellboy III the next morning. Ah, we can hope.

~Chaz

pacific-rim-art-cherno-alpha