LOS ANGELES -- With Capt. Kirk and Spock leading the USS Enterprise, Paramount's Star Trek Beyond took over the box office over the weekend, unseating Universal's The Secret Life of Pets.
Star Trek Beyond, the third installment since director J.J. Abrams revived the venerable franchise in 2009, pulled in about $59.3 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters. The film has pulled in an estimated $30 million internationally thus far.
Of the picture's domestic total to date, $8.4 million came from Imax screens. Imax locations accounted for four of the film's top five domestic engagements and 16 of the top 20.
Star Trek has been one of Paramount's most reliable franchises. The 2009 reboot posted $385 million globally, and the followup, Star Trek Into Darkness, took in $467 million. With a production budget of $185 million, the Beyond team took advantage of rebates and tax benefits by producing the picture largely in Vancouver, British Columbia, and in Dubai. That's in contrast with the previous two installments, which Abrams wanted to shoot in Los Angeles. Abrams produced Beyond with Paramount and David Ellison's Skydance Entertainment.
Paramount has already announced a fourth Star Trek, featuring Thor and Ghostbusters star Chris Hemsworth. Last weekend's performance bodes well for the next film.
Dropping to second place was The Secret Life of Pets, adding about $30 million in its third week. The animated picture has grossed $261 million domestically to date. Adding an international take now at $63 million, the film's global gross sits at $324 million.
A new release from Warner Bros.' New Line Cinema, Lights Out, came in third with about $22 million in the United States and Canada, and had an international take of $8.3 million. The PG-13 supernatural horror tale beat analyst expectations of $16 million.
"Whenever you gross more than four times the budget on opening weekend, that's a win," said Jeff Goldstein, the studio's distribution chief.
Costing just $5 million, the film, about a brother and sister who are tormented by a supernatural entity when left home alone, stars Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman and Maria Bello. It's directed by David Sandberg.
Moviegoers and critics alike have received the picture well. Audiences gave it a B CinemaScore, and 77 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics rated it positively.
Lights Out represents another massive success for New Line's line of horror movies. The studio also had success with The Conjuring 2, which has taken in more than $300 million worldwide since its June 10 debut.
"New Line has a lot of experience in this world. They're just really good at it," Goldstein said. "They've cultivated a fabulous portfolio of horror films over the years."
At No. 4 was fellow new release Ice Age: Collision Course, from 20th Century Fox. The computer-animated picture pulled in about $21.4 million, falling below analyst projections of $25 million. But the film already has an international take nearing $180 million.
"This franchise is still very viable on a global basis," said Chris Aronson, the studio's head of distribution. "It's a good business to be in, the Ice Age business."
Audiences gave the film a B-plus CinemaScore, but only 13 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics rated it positively.
The performance of the fifth movie in the Ice Age franchise is not surprising, given the dominance of pictures such as Pets and Disney-Pixar's Finding Dory. But international business, where Ice Age movies tend to do a vast majority of their sales (ticket sales for Ice Age: Continental Drift in 2012 were more than 80 percent international), will be important. Before its U.S. debut, the film, which had a $105 million production budget, had already logged an impressive $127 million internationally.
Aronson said that according to his studio's estimates, Ice Age has now surpassed Shrek as the highest-grossing animated franchise.
Columbia's all-female-led Ghostbusters came in fifth in its second weekend with about $21 million. This brings the film's domestic gross to date to $86.9 million.
Films of note in limited releases include Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, from Fox Searchlight. The R-rated comedy starring Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders took in nearly $1.9 million on a little over 300 screens, for a per-screen average of about $6,000.
Another new release, Don't Think Twice from Film Arcade, released exclusively at New York's Landmark Sunshine Cinema, took in $90,126, giving the film the highest per-screen average of the year. The movie by Mike Birbiglia follows the ups and downs of an improvisation comedy troupe as its members grapple with resentment and jealousy when only one of them is cast on a long-running sketch-comedy TV show.
The picture -- currently at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes -- has a cast including Birbiglia, Keegan-Michael Key and Gillian Jacobs. It expands to Los Angeles and Chicago today and nationwide in August.
In its second week, Woody Allen's Cafe Society expanded to 50 locations and came in with about $850,000. If projections by Lionsgate and Amazon Studios hold, the film's domestic gross to date will near $1.4 million.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:
- Star Trek Beyond, Paramount, $59,253,211, 3,928 locations, $15,085 average, $59,253,211, one week.
- The Secret Life of Pets, Universal, $29,607,210, 4,048 locations, $7,314 average, $260,985,955, three weeks.
- Lights Out, Warner Bros., $21,688,103, 2,818 locations, $7,696 average, $21,688,103, one week.
- Ice Age: Collision Course, 20th Century Fox, $21,373,064, 3,992 locations, $5,354 average, $21,373,064, one week.
- Ghostbusters, Columbia, $21,009,831, 3,963 locations, $5,301 average, $86,266,570, two weeks.
- Finding Dory, Disney, $7,234,806, 2,576 locations, $2,809 average, $460,213,925, six weeks.
- The Legend of Tarzan, Warner Bros., $6,576,417, 2,844 locations, $2,312 average, $115,970,501, four weeks.
- Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, 20th Century Fox, $4,385,285, 2,137 locations, $2,052 average, $40,343,032, three weeks.
- Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party, Quality Flix, $3,964,646, 1,217 locations, $3,258 average, $4,056,170, two weeks.
- Kabali, Cinegalaxy, $3,899,441, 240 locations, $16,248 average, $3,899,441, one week.
- The Infiltrator, Broad Green Pictures, $3,328,382, 1,537 locations, $2,166 average, $12,274,291, two weeks.
- Central Intelligence, Warner Bros., $2,820,284, 1,602 locations, $1,760 average, $123,138,447, six weeks.
- The Purge: Election Year, Universal, $2,379,900, 1,701 locations, $1,399 average, $76,622,120, four weeks.
- Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Fox Searchlight, $1,861,118, 313 locations, $5,946 average, $1,861,118, one week.
- The BFG, Disney, $1,012,646, 686 locations, $1,476 average, $50,955,703, four weeks.
- Independence Day: Resurgence, 20th Century Fox, $902,718, 730 locations, $1,237 average, $101,227,043, five weeks.
- Cafe Society, Lionsgate, $849,937, 50 locations, $16,999 average, $1,352,316, two weeks.
- The Shallows, Columbia, $638,077, 513 locations, $1,244 average, $53,626,202, five weeks.
- Captain Fantastic, Bleecker Street, $597,845, 104 locations, $5,749 average, $1,145,109, three weeks.
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople, The Orchard, $579,283, 200 locations, $2,896 average, $2,316,394, five weeks.
MovieStyle on 07/29/2016