This weekend's no. 1 movie, “Think Like A Man Too,” didn't deliver a blockbuster opening, but it reinforced two important trends for Hollywood. The first is that comedy is king. “Think Like A Man Too” opened to $30 million and became the seventh comedy to open to over $25 million this year after “Ride Along,” “About Last Night,” “Neighbors,” “The Other Woman” (technically $24.7 million) and last weekend's champ “22 Jump Street.” And yes, that makes “A Million Ways to Die in the West's” disappointing debut that much worse. It's also a very positive news for Melissa McCarthy's “Tammy” and Fox's “Let's Be Cops!” opening later this summer.
Second, and you may have gathered this from the previous point, Kevin Hart is officially a superstar. “Too” marks his second no. 1 movie of 2014 and should be his fifth profitable hit in the past two years. He's only had one bomb, “Grudge Match,” whose fate pretty much rested on the fact moviegoers have lost interest again in seeing Sylvester Stallone on screen. It's unclear if “Too” will reach the original's $91.5 million, but it'll be close.
Only proving the point on how strong comedies are this year, “22 Jump Street” dropped to no. 2 with another $29 million and $111.4 million in just 10 days. The Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum smash will easily surpass the original's $138.4 million take and could end up with $200 million plus when all is said and done.
Dropping to no. 3 was “How To Train Your Dragon 2.” Most of the industry is asking “How on Earth did this movie not open to more money?” but it found another $25.3 million in its second weekend for $95.7 million so far. Many, including this writer, felt that with so few family films on the horizon “Dragon 2” could be the biggest film of the summer. Instead, the critically acclaimed animated adventure might not even equal the first installment's $217 million domestic.
Fourth place went to Clint Eastwood's “Jersey Boys” which took in $13.5 million. Many are calling this a bomb, but it could have been much worse. However, the film was actually polling at a much worse debut of $4-6 million a few weeks ago. That might seem like much, but it's the difference between ending up with $18-20 million overall or over $30 million. With a $40 million budget, WB will take the latter and hope to make up for it on DVD and overseas.
“Maleficent” dropped to fifth place conjuring up another $13 million with a magical overall total of $185.9 million so far. It should hit $200 million by the July 4th weekend.
Next weekend's only major release is “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”
Box office actuals are released on Monday