Weak 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' box office still wins the weekend
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows emerged from its opening weekend with an estimated $35.3 million at the domestic box office. It's enough for a first place finish in the weekend race, but still bad news for the Paramount franchise.
Shadows follows the 2014 reboot, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which arrived in August of that year with an opening weekend finish (domestic) of $65.6 million. It was a middling debut by summer standards, though understandable coming one week after the smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy arrived.
Meanwhile, Shadows earned even less in the summer season's opening month, which is arguably a more advantageous position. Its biggest competitors from last week are Alice Through the Looking Glass and X-Men: Apocalypse, both of which saw attendance drop-offs of more than 60%.
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It didn't fare much better overseas, either. Opening in more than 50 markets outside of the U.S., Shadows only managed to bring in an estimated $34 million. In other words, there was a lot of opportunity for Turtles to capitalize on this weekend, but it failed to bring out any big crowds.
At this point Paramount has to be wondering if Out of the Shadows, which was said to be budgeted at $135 million, will manage to break even. The movie still isn't out in a number of key foreign markets -- including China, which is historically friendly to American blockbusters -- so all is not lost.
X-Men: Apocalypse clocks a distant second-place finish with an estimated $22.3 million at the domestic box office. It's a steeper-than-expected drop-off of 66% after a $65.8 million opening, which probably has more to do with last week's Memorial Day weekend padding Sunday sales than this week's Turtles creating competition.
Newcomer Me Before You finishes at #3, with an estimated $18.3 million. Warner Bros. can thank stars Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) for giving this date night romance some extra box office juice.
The week's other big new release, The Lonely Island mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, turned out to be a disappointment. Its estimated $4.6 million box office is only good enough for a #8 finish. Apparently, Osama bin Laden jokes are more outdated than the musical comedy trio thought.
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Topics Film
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
