Weekend box-office – 13th to 19th of September 2014 – can Guardians continue box-office reign?

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy completely conquered the fairly barren month of August and is now continuing its run into the early autumn. This week the sci-fi phenomenon is competing for its fourth week on top of the box office and once more there’s very little competition. To its credit it’s capitalising on a surprising financial slump. Meanwhile in the UK, comedic box-office disappointment Sex Tape makes its debut, hoping for a much needed recovery. Find last week’s predictions here.

US:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – Director: James Gunn – $10.2 million
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman – $6.5 million
3. If I Stay – RJ Cutler – $5.7 million
4. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield – $5.4 million
5. The November Man – Roger Donaldson – $4.2 million

UK:

1. Sex Tape – Jake Kasdan – £1.4 million
2. Lucy – Luc Besson – £1.2 million
3. Before I Go to Sleep – Rowan Joffe – £0.8 million
4. The Hundred Foot Journey – Lasse Halstrom – £0.7 million
5. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – £0.7 million

The Guardians have done what no film this year has done: four weeks at the number one spot at the US box office, defying the worry that it’d be Marvel’s undoing. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is continuing impressive form while Let’s Be Cops is proving to be a sleeper hit. Pierce Brosnan’s spy thriller The November Man was intended to be a franchise starter but these numbers go against its favour. The UK saw three new entries, of which Sex Tape is number one. The film’ll be pleased with these statistics but it’ll hardly lift the spirits of a dismal box-office run. Star studded drama thriller Before I Go to Sleep has received a fairly mediocre reception also. This week I’ve scored a disappointing 3/10.

US:

1. Dolphin Tale 2 – Charles Martin Smith
2. No Good Deed – Sam Miller
3. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman
5. If I Stay – RJ Cutler

UK:

1. The Boxtrolls – Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi
2. Pride – Matthew Warchus
3. Sex Tape – Jake Kasdan
4. Lucy – Luc Besson
5. A Most Wanted Man – Anton Corbijn

Zoe Saldana and Benicio Del Toro in Guardians of the Galaxy, this week’s US number one.

Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel in Sex Tape, this week’s UK number one.

Weekend box-office – 30th of August to 5th of September 2014 – will Jessica Alba redeem Sin City?

Released in 2005, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City not only became a cult hit, praised for its unique comic book styling, but raked in box office goods with $160 million from a $40 million budget. Nine years on, Miller and Rodriguez are back with Sin City’s sequel A Dame to Kill For with the first film’s ensemble of Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Powers Boothe and Bruce Willis as well as the huge additions of Joseph Gordon Levitt, Eva Green, Ray Liotta and Josh Brolin. The production cost has been upped to $70 million this time around so big things are expected for this film to lift the spirits of a relatively deadbeat summer. It ought to succeed seeing as the only heavyweights have been kicking around for nearly a month. Last week we predicted that it’d enter the chart in second but let’s find out where it did finish. 

US:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – Director: James Gunn – $17.2 million
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman – $16.7 million
3. If I Stay – RJ Cutler – $15.7 million
4. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield – $10.8 million
5. When the Game Stands Tall – Thomas Carter – $8.4 million

UK:

1. Lucy – Luc Besson – £3.1 million
2. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris – £2.4 million
3. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – £1.3 million
4. Into the Storm – Steven Quale – £1.2 million
5. Deliver Us From Evil – Scott Derickson – £0.6 million

That’s right, Sin City 2 didn’t scratch the top 5 and in fact landed in eighth and will have to go down as perhaps the year’s biggest mainstream flop. It was beaten into submission by teen weepie If I Stay and sports drama When the Game Stands Tall. It’s R/18 rating may have been its undoing. Marvel’s space opera Guardians of the Galaxy is back on top of the box office in its fourth week of release, a new property overtaking behemoth sequel Transformers: Age of Extinction to become the biggest domestic hit of the summer. Sci-fi thriller Lucy has made a solid entry in a packed week in the UK. Disaster thriller Into the Storm and horror Deliver Us From Evil both made mediocre debuts while Daniel Radcliffe rom com What If failed to chart. This week’s shocks meant I scored a dismal 3/10.

US:

1. The November Man – Roger Donaldson
2. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
3. As Above So Below – John Erick Dowdle
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonthan Liebesman
5. If I Stay – RJ Cutler

UK:

1. Lucy – Luc Besson
2. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris
3. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
4. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
5. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield

Zoe Saldana and Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy, this week’s US number one.

Morgan Freeman and Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, this week’s UK number one.