‘Ant-Man’ Topples ‘Pixels ‘ At The Box Office This Weekend

The box office weekend was quite similar to the last one as Ant-Man continued its domination. The movie about the ant-sized superhero managed to topple Adam Sandler’s Pixels.

Disney and Marvel’s Ant-Man, picked up first place, netting $24.8 million in its second weekend, while Pixels wasn’t a huge disappoint as it clocked in $24 million at the domestic box office. However, comparing recent films, the collection made for one the weakest chart-topping performances since April 24. In the last week of April, Furious 7, then in its fourth week of release, had managed to earn just $17.8 million.

Minions and Trainwreck earned $22.1 million and $17.3 million, respectively, placing them in the third and fourth spots. Interestingly, the R-rated movie Southpaw made $16.5 million and surpassed box office expectations by managing to stay in the top five grossing films over the weekend.

Ant-Man may have collected just $24.8 million this week, but overall, the movie has made $106.1 million stateside according to Rentrak estimates. Studios always hope to secure the bragging rights of a No. 1 debut, but Adam Sandler’s Pixels has a lot more ground to cover and not being at the top in its first week of release at the box office weekend is certainly the least of its worries.

Pixels production budget was $88 million dollars and clearly it is falling way short even of recovering the money that went into producing it. Unfortunately, the critics haven’t been kind about the movie and many are even claiming Sandler’s star appeal has taken a significant hit, reported MSN. Speaking about Pixels, Rentrak’s senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said,

“Sandler can still attract an audience, but the expensive film has a lot of ground to make up. They’re really going to have to count on the international component. That’s going to be key,”

Interestingly though, there a couple of factors that could justify the slack box office movies have encountered.

A gunman had opened fire during a Thursday night screening of Trainwreck in Louisiana. The gruesome attack had left two women dead and injured nine people. Apparently, after firing randomly at innocent moviegoers, the gunman had turned the weapon on himself. It is beyond doubt that such acts of violence seriously question the safety and security protocols and may have forced hundreds of regulars to stay back in their homes and steer clear of cinema halls. Additionally, the box office is overall experiencing a lull and is down 3 percent from the same weekend last year, when the sci-fi action movie Lucy had opened strong, reported Fox News.

[Image Credit | Jonathan Wiggs / Getty Images]