The summer movie season is a time for pretenders. Studios release their biggest, flashiest products in the hope of hitting a box-office bonanza. But not every high-profile, high-budget film makes it to the top. The Ghostbusters remake couldn’t do it last week. Independence Day: Resurgence was shut out of the top spot a few weeks earlier.
But this week, Star Trek Beyond showed it wasn’t a pretender. It was, in fact, the real McCoy.
Star Trek Beyond, the third film in the rebooted franchise, warped to an estimated $59.6 million during a particularly busy weekend at the multiplex, transporting itself to the No. 1 spot in the North American box office. Granted, the film looked a bit sluggish out of the space dock compared to its predecessors: The original Star Trek reboot cruised to a Ferengi-like $75.2 million during its opening weekend in 2009, and Star Trek Into Darkness banked $70.2 million in 2013. Still, Beyond’s earnings should keep the Enterprise’s dithilium crystals charged up for a wee bit longer.
Even after Beyond’s weekend take, there was still plenty of money to go around. In fact, every Top Five movie this week made more than $20 million—the first time that’s happened, according to Box Office Mojo, since May of 2015.
After spending two straight weeks perched atop the box office, The Secret Life of Pets slunk into the second-place slot this week, having rolled around in about $29.3 million.
There’s still a spectral showdown for third place as of press time, with the new horror flick Lights Out going nose-to-slimy nose against the holdover Ghostbusters. Both banked an estimated $21.6 million in cool Casper cash, and we’ll just have to see how the final figures shiver down before awarding the bronze medal to anybody.
Ice Age: Collision Course proved that just because you make an animated movie, that doesn’t mean people will flock to theaters to watch it. Collision Course earned just $21 million—the lowest debut by far of any Ice Age movie. (The lowest opening weekend for the franchise before now was the $41.7 million, dug up by Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009.) Perhaps the series is just getting a little long in the tusk.
Final figures update: 1. Star Trek Beyond, $59.3 million; 2. The Secret Life of Pets, $29.6 million; 3. Lights Out, $21.7 million; 4. Ice Age: Collision Course, $21.4 million; 5. Ghostbusters, $21 million.
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