It was close all along, but Elysium , the sci-fi action flick with Matt Damon took the top spot at the box office with $30.5 million over the three-day weekend.
In second place was Jennifer Aniston’s R-rated comedy We’re The Millers took in $26.5 million for the same period of time, even though it made $38 million for its five days opening.
The Disney family movie Planes took third place with $22.5 million and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters rounds up the list with only $14 million.
This was an unusually busy weekend at the box office, with three main stream movies opening almost simultaneously, an playing against each other’s numbers.
Everyone of these films could have performed better if they had opened on their own, but as it stands the results were close to the predictions by analysts.
Percy Jackson performed almost up to estimates, making $23.5 million since opening on Wednesday.
Elysium is Neill Blomkamp’s second sci-fi blockbuster following his surprising District 9 in 2009, However Elysium cost Sony $115 million, while District 9 had a budget of only $30 million and went on to reap $219 million worldwide.
Sony was expecting a $35 million weekend for the action packed flick starring Damon and Jodie Foster. It came short of estimates, so now the studio’s sights turn to the foreign markets.
The film’s first major overseas opening this weekend was in Russia, which Sony has called “huge” for Elysium and early numbers show the movie opened at No. 1 with $6.8 million.
Sony’s head of Distribution told The Wrap , “There’s a lot of summer left in the US and the tracking from overseas looks very good, so we’re confident. Elysium rolls out in most of Europe and Australia next week, and in Latin America the following week.”
The sci-fi adventure received a B CinemaScore from moviegoers, which was in tune with critics.
Elysium is set in the year 2154, when the wealthy live in space station, while the rest of the world does so on a destroyed Earth. Matt Damon is trying to bring equality to the status quo.