Box Office: 'No Good Deed' Gets Last Laugh with $24.5M Debut

1. No Good Deed- $24.5M
In news that is sure to convince Sony never to pre-screen another movie again, the Idris Elba/Taraji P. Henson thriller No Good Deed scored $24.5M in its opening weekend. This comes after the studio pulled press screenings for it at the last minute, stating they didn't want early reviews to spoil the twist ending. That was a bunch of bunk, of course, and once critics did see it the film got slaughtered. But this is a case where the film was probably always going to do well. Elba and Henson have both cultivated sizable audiences, in particular in rather trashy films like this. Let's not forget one of Elba's biggest movies was Obsessed, which opened to similar numbers back in 2009.
2. Dolphin Tale 2- $16.5M
It looks like the same Dolphin Tale...cost the same as Dolphin Tale...and has the same cast as Dolphin Tale...but Dolphin Tale 2 opened a bit lower with $16.5M, compared to the first film's $19M debut and $95M run in 2011. The sequel brings back some heavy-hitters like Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd (if only this was a Kiss the Girls sequel!) so there's a good chance for a long, lucrative run, especially with few family-friendly options on the way.
3. Guardians of the Galaxy- $8.0M/$305M
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $4.8M/$181M
5. Let's Be Cops- $4.3M/$72.9M
6. The Drop- $4.2M
A slow rollout for the Dennis Lehane-penned crime drama, The Drop, opening at only 809 theaters. It's a quietly strong debut for the final performance by the late James Gandolfini, surrounded by a phenomenal cast that includes Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Matthias Schoenaerts, and the cutest pit bull puppy ever. Never underestimate the power a cute dog can have on a movie's box office! This is a small-scale effort, costing barely $10M to produce, and given the solid reviews, cast, and the aforementioned pup it could be a solid indie hit.
7. If I Stay- $4M/$44.9M
8. The November Man- $2.7M/$22.4M
9. The Giver- $2.6M/$41.3M
10. The Hundred-Foot Journey- $2.4M/$49.4M

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Box Office: 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Still #1, Now Top Movie of 2014

1. Guardians of the Galaxy- $16.3M/$274.6M
Not only is Guardians of the Galaxy #1 for the second week in a row after reclaiming the spot last week, it's now the top-grossing movie for all of 2014 at $274M. A couple of days ago it surpassed Marvel's other superhero flick, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, meaning the House of Ideas has the top two movies for the entire year. This is what we like to call "dominance".  Obviously it won't come near the $612M domestic haul of The Avengers, but there's every chance it will surpass the $300M+ of Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3. Guardians of the Galaxy has also been a hit internationally with an additional $273M.
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $11.7M/$162.4M
3. If I Stay- $9.2M/$29.8M
The Chloe Moretz tear-jerker If I Stay held strong, only slipping 40% in week two. The YA drama only cost about $11M so it's performing well enough. 
4. As Above, So Below- $8.3M
Labor Day is notoriously awful for new releases, and obviously this one is no different. The first new flick of the week is the low budget horror, As Above So Below, a film that comes with few credentials other than the presence of Devil and Quarantine director John Erick Dowdle. Do those even count as credentials?
5. Let's Be Cops- $8.2M/$57.3M
6. The November Man- $7.6M/$9.3M
James Bond just got his ass royally kicked by the bumbling boys in blue of Let's Be Cops, and they've been at it for nearly a month. There was a lot of hope for Pierce Brosnan's The November Man, which he produced and has been developing for a decade, simply because people like him as a suave secret agent-type. Or maybe they only like it when he's Agent 007 because nobody showed up for The November Man, which actually opened on Wednesday and still managed to do worse than most of the week's holdovers. Kinda makes that decision to greenlight a sequel so early a little sketchy, right? The film has been racked by poor reviews (including my own) although audiences gave it a 'B+' Cinemascore for some reason.
7. When the Game Stands Tall- $5.6M/$16.3M
8. The Giver- $5.2M/$31.5M
9. The Hundred-Foot Journey- $4.6M/$39.3M
10. The Expendables 3- $3.5M/$33.1M
While its numbers here are pretty terrible, The Expendables 3 has earned $50M overseas. Is it enough for Sly to consider getting the band back together? Probably not.

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Box Office: 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Back on Top; Audiences Skip 'Sin City 2'

1. Guardians of the Galaxy- $17.6M/$251.8M
It's rare that a film leaps back into first place after four weeks of release, but that's what Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy has done. The remarkably long-legged film slipped 31% and has surpassed Transformers: Age of Extinction as the top earner for the season. It's also only $6M shy of passing Captain America: The Winter Soldier as the top domestic film of the year. And Marvel thought it may be their first dud! Ha! Overall it still lags behind 'Winter Soldier' and its $700M worldwide total but Guardians of the Galaxy has to be Marvel's greatest success story.
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $16.8M/$145.6M
3. If I Stay- $16.3M
The top new release of the week was If I Stay, another one of those YA adaptations audiences love so much. This one has been compared to The Fault in Our Stars, mainly because they both involve a teen romance met with medical complications, but the truth is If I Stay was never expected to be on the same level. So when one looks at the meager $11M budget and Chloe Grace Moretz as the only marketable name that $16.3M debut isn't all that bad.
4. Let's Be Cops- $11M/$45.2M
Quick name one person in Let's Be Cops. No big stars, but smart marketing has turned this lowbrow buddy comedy into a surprising hit. So where's the sequel announcement?
5. When the Game Stands Tall- $9M
In a year that has seen faith-based movies assert a certain box office dominance, When the Game Stands Tall's $9M is pretty weak. But if the football drama, which stars Jim "Jesus Christ" Caviezel, Laura Dern, and Michael Chiklis, performs like the studio's other efforts (Fireproof, Soul Surfer) it won't need a big weekend to be successful. These movies have shown extraordinary staying power, and maybe it will get an added boost with the NFL season on the verge of kickoff.
6. The Giver- $6.7M/$24.1M
7. The Expendables 3- $6.6M/$27.5M
8. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For- $6.4M
Oof. Audiences weren't exactly dying for Robert Rodriguez's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which opened with a dismal $6.4M. Perhaps it was the eternal 9-year wait after the groundbreaking 2005 film, which opened with $29M and went on to earn $158M worldwide, not bad for a dark and brooding adaptation of a non-superhero comic. But one of the problems faced by the sequel, and this is something I've mentioned numerous times on the site, is that technology has changed by leaps and bounds over the years and Sin City 2 looked dated by comparison. So while adding new names like Eva Green and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were a big plus, the marketing can't really focus on them because of the vignette-style of the movie itself.  With Rodriguez and Frank Miller already talking up a Sin City 3 they're going to need to pull huge international numbers to justify it.
9. The Hundred-Foot Journey- $5.5M/$32.7M
10. Into the Storm- $3.8M/$38.3M

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Box Office: 'The Expendables 3' and 'The Giver' Flop, 'Let's Be Cops' Debuts Strong

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $28.4M/$117.6M
It was supposed to be a tough second weekend for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but it turned out be a cakewalk. Slipping a customary 56%, the film hauled in another $28M and now has $185M worldwide, enough for Paramount to move forward on a sequel. Turtle power is still alive and kicking.
2. Guardians of the Galaxy- $24.7M/$222.2M
Trailing just behind TMNT was Guardians of the Galaxy, and it has so much momentum at this point it should cross the domestic totals of X-men: Days of Future Past, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and The Lego Movie. Yeah, it's doing that well. Crazy, right?
3. Let's Be Cops- $17.7M/$26.1M
No, the top new release this week is not The Expendables 3. It's actually the lowbrow comedy Let's Be Cops, which has zero marketable stars compared to Sly Stallone's literal army of them. What does that tell you when a $17M buddy film can best a starry behemoth of a franchise so easily? In this case it probably says more about the viability of The Expendables than anything else, but it's also a feather in the cap of rising star Jake Johnson. The New Girl star has been making waves on the big screen for a little while now, and with a role in next year's Jurassic World we could be seeing a lot more of him. Perhaps in Let's Be Cops 2? You know it's coming.
4. The Expendables 3- $16.2M
Oh, there's The Expendables 3; buried behind two holdovers and a minor comedy with a fraction of its budget and star power. So what happened? Sylvester Stallone and his aging crew of action heroes added some legit names in Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, and Mel Gibson, but the results are the franchise's lowest debut by a wide margin. It's possible the DVD-quality leak from a few weeks ago had a bigger than expected impact, and that's likely to be the studio's talking point on the issue. There's still hope in the cast's worldwide appeal to power international grosses, but this is looking more like the Expendables' final mission.
5. The Giver- $12.7M
Hey, remember The Giver? Yeah, that came out this weekend, too, and apparently you weren't the only one who forgot about it. The latest interchangeable YA adaptation didn't have a lot of heat behind it, despite the presence of Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, and Taylor Swift. On the plus side, it only cost $25M and should manage to make that back with no problem even with the terrible reviews. But it's also unlikely this will grow into the Hunger Games-level franchise The Weinstein Company was hoping for. 
6. Into the Storm- $7.7M/$31.3M
7. The Hundred-Foot Journey- $7.1M/$23.6M
8. Lucy- $5.3M/$107.5M
9. Step Up All In- $2.7M/$11.8M
10. Boyhood- $2.1M/$13.8M

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Comic-Con: 20th Century Fox Panels Include Everything But 'Fantastic Four' and 'X-men'

Okay, so if we're to go by the released schedules for this year's Comic-Con the studios are seriously holding back. Lucasfilm isn't bringing Star Wars: Episode VII, Warner Bros. has nothing on Batman v Superman, and now 20th Century Fox isn't presenting Fantastic Four. At least not officially. Their 2-hour presentation will be held in Hall H on Friday July 25th, and will include some crapola like Let's Be Cops (!!?!?), and potentially cool stuff like The Maze Runner and Kinsgman: The Secret Service. Notice there isn't any mention of the X-men, either. *grumble*

Let's Be Cops
Panel participants are Damon Wayans Jr, Rob Riggle and Keegan Michael-Key.
Release Date: August 13, 2014
It’s the ultimate buddy cop movie except for one thing: they’re not cops. When two struggling pals dress as police officers for a costume party, they become neighborhood sensations. But when these newly-minted “heroes” get tangled in a real life web of mobsters and dirty detectives, they must put their fake badges on the line.

The Maze Runner
Panel participants are Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Will Poulter, Writer James Dashner and Director Wes Ball.
Release Date: September 19, 2014
When Thomas wakes up trapped in a massive maze with a group of other boys, he has no memory of the outside world other than strange dreams about a mysterious organization known as W.C.K.D. Only by piecing together fragments of his past with clues he discovers in the maze can Thomas hope to uncover his true purpose and a way to escape. Based upon the best-selling novel by James Dashner.

The Book of Life
Panel participants are Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman, Christina Applegate, Writer/Director Jorge Gutierrez and Producer Guillermo del Toro.
Release: October 17, 2014
The Book of Life, a vibrant fantasy-adventure, tells the legend of Manolo, a conflicted hero and dreamer who sets off on an epic quest through magical, mythical and wondrous worlds in order to rescue his one true love and defend his village.

Kingsman: The Secret Service
Panel participants are Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella and Co-Creators Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons.
Release Date: October 24, 2014
Based upon the acclaimed comic book and directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass, X-Men First Class), Kingsman: The Secret Service tells the story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency’s ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

Hitman: Agent 47
Panel participants are Zachary Quinto and Hannah Ware.
Release Date: February 27, 2015
Based on the top-selling, award-winning videogame franchise, Agent 47 is an all-new motion picture about an elite and genetically engineered assassin, known only by the last two digits – 47 – of a barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. His latest target is a young woman on the run from powerful and clandestine forces. The mission brings startling revelations about the lethal agent and his prey, hurtling them on a collision course with their pasts. And this time, his number may be up.

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Red Band Trailer for 'Let's Be Cops' Hits the Street

20th Century Fox is hoping they can capture some of the magic they've found on New Girl and bring it to the silver screen with the R-rated comedy Let's Be Cops. New Girl stars Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. lead what looks to be a silly buddy comedy about two friends who dress up as cops and, addicted to the power and fame it brings, decide to live it up. That is until they get in the middle of an actual crime involving dirty cops and gangsters, and must stumble their way out of the mess.

The latest red band trailer suggests a mindless and raunchy romp with a terrific supporting cast of Rob Riggle (22 Jump Street), Keegan-Michael Key, Andy Garcia, James D'Arcy, and Nina Dobrev. Johnson's been steadily building up indie cred with Safety Not Guaranteed and Drinking Buddies, but will that carry over into something as wildly different as this? Directed by Luke Greenfield, Let's Be Cops opens August 13th.

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Red Band Trailer for 'Let's Be Cops' Starring Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr.

When Jake Johnson starred in the pilot episode of Fox sitcom, New Girl, one of his co-stars was Damon Wayans Jr. Wayans split before the second episode and went off to star in Happy Endings until that show got cancelled. Wayans has since returned to New Girl, but that's not the only place we'll get to see him and Johnson pair up. The two are starring in this summer's buddy comedy, Let's Be Cops, and the first red band trailer for it has hit the streets.

Directed by Luke Greenfield (The Girl Next Door), the film gives both guys a chance to act ridiculous as two friends dressed as cops who are mistaken for real police. They take full advantage of the respect wearing blue earns them until they run into some genuine trouble.

Let's Be Cops opens August 13th.

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