Gregg Kilday of THR:
Riding a wave of largely positive reviews and enthusiastic audience response, Lee Daniels’ The Butler took the top spot at the North American box office, taking in an estimated $25 million as it bowed in 2933 theaters. The Weinstein Company release, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, easily out-performed the weekend’s three other new wide releases.
Universal’s Kick-Ass 2, the sequel to the 2010 movie about would-be superheroes, checked in in third place with $13.6 million. Jobs, the biopic about Apple founder Steve Jobs distributed by Open Road, failed to create much of a stir, collecting $6.7 million for a seventh place showing, and the thriller Paranoia, from Relativity, lagged further behind with just $3.5 million, landing outside of the top ten in thirteenth place.
Among the holdovers, Warners' We're the Millers showed remarkable staying power. Rawson Marshall Thurber's comedy about a drug-dealing psuedo-family, starring Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston, pulled in $17.8 million to secure the second spot on the box-office list in its sophomore outing. It fell just 33 percent from its opening weekend, the best hold for any of this summer's wide releases. Its domestic cume now stands at $69.5 million.
Sony's sci-fi tale Elysium, also playing its second weekend, scored $13.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $55.9. That left Elysium and Kick-Ass 2, which reported $13.56 million, effectively tied for third place in the rankings.
Disney's animated Planes rounded out the top five. Grossing $13.1 million for the weekend, its domestic purse is currently $45.1 million.
The Butler's performance represented a coup for TWC, which originally planned to release the movie, inspired by the true story of White House butler Eugene Allen, on Oct. 18. However, in May, after seeing positive test results for the film, independently produced at a cost of about $30 million, Harvey Weinstein decided to move up its opening to August.
"We saw an opportunity to stand out and be different," said Erik Lomis, TWC president of theatrical distribution. Still, even though the movie got a lot of attention earlier in the summer when TWC battled with Warners and the MPAA over the use of the title The Butler and Winfrey herself led a full-court publicity effort in recent weeks to further raise the profile of the PG-13-rated film, heading into the weekend, most observers expected the title to bow in the mid-to-high-teen range. "We're absolutely thrilled," Lomis said. "We were extremely hot on Friday and never slowed down."
He reported that the movie played well everywhere, from the big cities to the suburbs, but was particularly strong in the Northeast, especially in the Washington, D.C. area, which reflected the movie's setting. But, he added, it also played in smaller towns like Richmond, Va., Columbia, S.C., and Mason, Ga. The movie did open to an older, female audience. Women made up 60 percent of the opening weekend audience, while 76 percent were over 35 and 71 percent were college graduates. "I think younger people will find the movie," Lomis said. "I think the opening will draw them in."
Word of mouth should be strong, since The Butler picked up an A Cinemascore, and TWC reported that exit polling was extremely positive, with 90 percent of those surveying saying they would definitely recommend the film. Potentially, the film could perform along the lines of The Help, another racial drama, which opened to a comparable $26 million in August, 2011
As Summer 2013 starts to wind down...Wednesday will see the arrival of the big screen adaptation of Cassandra Clare's first book in the supernatural novel series The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones; John Cusack Nicolas Cage and Vanessa Hudgens tread on The Frozen Ground in theatres and VOD; Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost meet up to survive The World's End; Guess what Davison family? You're Next...
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