Summer Films Box Office Hits!

Nearly tripling the grosses of its fellow new wide releases, Star Trek Beyond earned a solid estimated $59.6 million on 3,928 screens over its opening weekend. Still, Beyond’s numbers mark the lowest debut for the franchise since Star Trek: Nemesis flopped with $18.5 million back in 2002.

The Justin Lin-directed film looks ahead to a healthy run with critical (84 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and audience (A- grade on CimemaScore) support driving it forward, as previous titles in the rebooted series dropped just under 50 percent from week one to week two with similar reception in tow.

Paramount also reports that 14 percent of the film’s opening weekend gross was earned from 387 IMAX locations for a global IMAX haul of $11.6 million — an overseas franchise record for the format. Overall foreign grosses for Star Trek Beyond stand at approximately $30 million.

Continuing to flex its muscles at the domestic box office, the Illuminations/Universal family animated title The Secret Life of Pets dips a slight 42 percent to $29.3 million at No. 2, bringing the film’s 17-day North American total to $260.7 million. Overseas, the film has earned roughly $63 million for a worldwide haul of $323.7 million, though it is set to open in an additional 52 territories (including France, Germany, and China) over the next few months.

Grossing an estimated $21.6 million, Ghostbusters is fighting for a third-place finish after its second weekend of wide release, as the decently reviewed New Line/Warner Bros. horror flick Lights Out and Fox animated sequel Ice Age: Collision Course go neck-and-neck with the rebooted action-comedy, bringing in roughly $21.6 and $21 million, respectively.

With a $4.9 million budget, Lights Out marks yet another James Wan-affiliated title that grossed exponentially more during its opening weekend than it cost to make. The inexpensive title also has strong critical reviews in its corner (77 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences weren’t as enthusiastic (its B grade on CinemaScore is in-line with the average genre picture). Though Wan didn’t direct the film (he’s credited as a producer), moviegoers have seemingly come to trust his brand as a filmmaker, as virtually every film he’s made since 2004 has made back its production budget (and then some).

Domestic audiences have finally grown weary of Fox’s Ice Age series, which rounds out the top five with a soft $21 million. This marks the first time in the franchise’s 14-year history that one of its titles has opened to less than $41 million, though the film’s international numbers are keeping the title afloat. Going against the recent trend of animated titles dominating the box office (this weekend marks the first time a live-action title has topped the domestic chart since mid-June), the $105 million picture has earned just under $135 million from foreign territories thus far, so its North American haul is likely of little concern to its parent studio.

Outside the top 10, the well-received cinematic continuation of the popular U.K. TV series Absolutely Fabulous earned a healthy estimated $1.9 million from 313 theaters, averaging approximately $6,006 per screen as it hit with its target niche audience. The Indian gangster drama Kabali also pulled in an impressive $2.2 million on 236 screens for an average take of $9,142 per theater.

Woody Allen’s Cafe Society grew to an estimated $875,000 to its total as it added 45 theaters on Friday, averaging around $17,500 per location for a domestic gross of $1.4 million thus far.

Also in limited release, The Film Arcade’s Mike Birbiglia-directed comedy Don’t Think Twice premiered to 2016’s highest per-screen average thus far, taking $90,126 from a single screen in New York. The film has also garnered some of the strongest reviews of any specialty title of the year, with a 100 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 45 reviews.

July 22-24 weekend box office estimates:

1. Star Trek Beyond – $59.6 million
2. The Secret Life of Pets – $29.3 million
3. Ghostbusters – $21.6 million
4. Lights Out – $21.6 million
5. Ice Age: Collision Course – $21 million
6. Finding Dory – $7.2 million
7. The Legend of Tarzan – $6.4 million
8. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates – $4.4 million
9. Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party – $3.7 million
10. The Infiltrator – $3.3 million