‘Lucy’ triumphed over the competition this week with a whopping $44 million debut. The film cost $40 million to make and is already marked to surpass the $100 million mark. Outside of Johansson’s Marvel films, the sci-fi action flick is her biggest debut weekend ever. ‘Lucy’ is also poised to be director Luc Besson’s highest grossing movie ever. Currently the title belongs to 1997’s ‘The Fifth Element’ which pulled in $63 million domestically.
Taking the runner up spot is ‘Hercules’ with $29 million. It easily exceeded studio & critics estimates ad received great reviews and could be a sleeper hit. Dwayne Johnson blew Kellan Lutz’s take on the Greek god out of the water. Lutz starred in ‘The Legend of Hercules’ earlier this year which opened to $8.8 million and grossed a total of $18.8 million domestically. ‘Hercules’ is Johnson’s biggest opening weekend since ‘The Scorpion King‘ debuted with $36 million in 2002.
‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ still stands strong in third place in its third week with $16.4 million. This brings its domestic total to $172 million. The film is on track with its predecessor which earned $16.1 million in its third week back in 2011. ‘Dawn’ however is set to out gross the $176 million of ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ in the coming days.
‘The Purge: Anarchy’ is also on track with its first film as it pulls in $9.9 million over the weekend and currently boasts a 10-day total of $51 million. Last year’s ‘Purge’ also had $51 million total in its second week.
Rounding out the top five is the animated sequel ‘Planes: Fire and Rescue’ which earned $9.3 million.
Marvel hopes to retake the top of the box office again when its space adventure ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ lands in theaters on Thursday night.