Box Office Aftermath: ‘Monsters University’ beats ‘The Heat’ and Brings the ‘White House Down’

Rounding out the weekend of June 28-30, 2013, Monsters University makes the grade for the second weekend in a row, leaving the box office battlefield victorious. Box Office Aftermath is an ongoing column dedicated to recapping the weekend’s total ticket sales. Each week, combatants enter the cinematic war zone, bloodthirsty for your cash. But there can only be one true winner. In Box Office Aftermath, we will take a look at the numbers, how previous contenders fared, and provide a brief analysis of the results.

Despite having two new releases this weekend, the box office fell over 20 percent from last weekends gross. Even with the star power of Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Melissa McCarthy, and Sandra Bullock, Monsters University pulled up on top again with a $45.6 million haul. Monsters University is now the third movie this summer to take two weekends in a row – first was Iron Man 3 (with a total gross of $405.3 million) and the second Fast & Furious 6 (with a total gross of $233.3 million). As a prequel, Monsters University is the eighth highest grossing film of the category, but as a Pixar film it has some work to do, still in eleventh.

As far as new releases go, The Heat was not hot enough to get the number one spot, but put a fair distance between itself and third place. Taking in $39.1 million, The Heat fared better than expected. The film opened higher than Bridesmaids ($26.2 million), which is great for Melissa McCarthy and director Paul Feig, but for an R-Rated comedy with big stars, it ranks in the upper twenties. Surprisingly, though, this is Sandra Bullock’s highest grossing opening weekend to date, even over The Blindside ($39.1 million). The Heat has a long way to go if it wants to reach the grosses of the most prestigious buddy cop movies: Men in Black ($250.6 million), Rush Hour 2 ($226.1 million), and Men in Black 2 ($190.4 million).

World War Z held on to what life remains in its second weekend gaining third place with a weekend gross of $29.7 million. This proves Brad Pitt’s celeb power is still in tact because it was able to beat out a new release in the form of White House Down with Django and C-Tates. The Roland Emmerich disaster-terrorism flick was only able to squeeze $24.8 million at the box office this weekend, which could be the result of a few contributing factors. First off, Gerard Butler exploded on to the seen earlier this year with Olympus Has Fallen, which opened at $30 million; not the same ideal of terrorism, but the same premise nonetheless. And secondly, although it was a mediocre film, it was very bland and had a PG-13 rating. You would think a PG-13 rating would give folks the benefit of a doubt to want to see it because it’s open to a wider audience to see, but I feel it hurt the movie because it wasn’t as fun as OHF. No one wants to a see practically the same movie that released earlier this year and is less exciting.

Sorry Roland. The director has many blockbusters under his belt, but WHD proved to be a disaster for the director this time around. Right now it trails behind 10,000 B.C. which has a total gross of $94.7 million. It will be hard-pressed for WHD to top that with such a poor start. This was also a disappointing weekend for Tatum, who dominated the box office last year with The Vow, 21 Jump Street, and Magic Mike.

And capping off the top five is Man of Steel with a $20.7 million gross, bringing its total gross up to $248.5 million. Not bad for a rebooted superhero movie. It’s breached the top 10 for the genre, but is far behind the caliber of The Avengers ($623.3 million), The Dark Knight ($534.8 million), and The Dark Knight Rises ($448.1 million). And it most likely not reach another superhero flick that released this summer, Iron Man 3, which has grossed $406 million this year so far and has continued to keep a pulse since its May release. However, this is Zack Snyder‘s highest grossing movie ever and takes him off the hot seat from his flop-trifecta of Legend of the Guardians ($55.6 million), Watchmen ($107.5 million), and Sucker Punch ($36.3 million).

The Purge and Epic lost a decent amount of theaters this weekend, most likely making room for Despicable Me 2 and a few more interesting horrors coming out later this month: The Conjuring and You’re Next. And surprisingly, for an R-rated comedy, This Is The End has almost reached the $100 million club, which would be great for Seth Rogen and crew.

The Fourth of July weekend will really shake things up with Despicable Me 2 and The Lone Ranger put in the mix. We should expect to see Monsters University take a dive. Until next time!

(Click the image below to enlarge the chart. All figures are domestic box office.)