Subtlety? Art? These are not the things a summer movie is typically made of. In the dog days of August, sometimes folks just want to see a big, dumb hound of a flick. And let’s face it: The Expendables 2 is as big and as dumb as they come.
Featuring Sly Stallone and basically every action star you’ve ever heard of from the 1980s, The Expendables sequel invaded theaters, attacked moviegoers’ senses of sight, sound and especially taste as it plundered the box office for an estimated $28.8 million. It wasn’t quite the haul that some were expecting (the original Expendables collected $34.8 million), but it was still plenty good enough for the weekend win. And considering there were four new releases this weekend, that’s saying something.
The Bourne Legacy, last week’s champ, held off ParaNorman, a surprisingly adultish animated PG comedy, for second place. The fourth Bourne movie (and the first one not to actually feature some guy named Bourne) collected about $17 million, while Norman’s band of ghosts and zombies could only scare up a frightening $14 mil.
The Campaign, an R-rated political satire starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, might scare some viewers in an altogether different way. But that didn’t prevent the thing from sliding into the No. 4 slot—its $13.4 million eking past the $12 million earned by the Whitney Houston-driven drama Sparkle.
Alas, the week’s sweetest family-friendly movie, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, failed to crack the Top 5 this week. Disney’s strange, touching fable finished seventh with $10.9 million, settling closely behind The Dark Knight Rises ($11.1 million). Will the film take root next week at the box office? It seems unlikely, but perhaps it’ll find new life on video.
While The Dark Knight Rises might’ve also fallen out of the Top 5, Batman fans can be slightly assuaged by the knowledge that Christopher Nolan’s capper officially passed The Hunger Games as the year’s second-highest grossing film (so far). Its $409.9 million cumulative gross slots it in at No. 12 all time, domestically speaking (about $5 million behind Toy Story 3), but it’s a loooong ways away from The Avengers’ $617.6 million.
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