Box Office Report: Audiences cheer for Caesar as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens big

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a huge surprise hit for Fox back in 2011. Tim Burton’s 2001 re-imagining of the 1968 original was a creative disaster, and no-one really expected the reboot to be a success. But the genius decision to cast performance capture legend Andy Serkis in the role of Caesar the ape led to Rise being one of the most thought-provoking and rousing blockbusters of recent years. Audiences have clearly been holding out to see the continued tale of Caesar and his followers, as the sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opened at number 1 over the past weekend. The film has been receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews, and is by all accounts an improvement on the previous film. The film also opened in the top spot in the US, taking US$72.6 million in its opening weekend (an improvement on Rise‘s US$54.8 million opening). Inevitably positive word of mouth will ensure that Dawn sticks around for a long time, especially given the fact that there are no threatening action blockbusters on the horizon until Guardians of the Galaxy hits in a few weeks.

In the rest of the chart, How to Train Your Dragon 2 held strong in second place after five weeks on the chart. The stellar sequel is clearly playing well to school holiday audiences. Meanwhile, last week’s champ Transformers: Age of Extinction dropped to third place, followed by Rio 2 and 22 Jump Street to complete a sequel-filled top five.

The two new releases this week are not films that you would normally expect to hear mentioned in the same sentence, but here goes. This week sees the release of Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel’s raunchy comedy Sex Tape and Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country. Sex Tape sees Diaz and Segel as a couple who make a sex tape and are mortified to find that the file has been uploaded to the cloud for the viewing pleasure of all their friends. Charlie’s Country stars legendary Australian actor David Gulpilil in the title role of Charlie, for which he won Best Actor in the Un Certain Regard section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Sex Tape and Charlie’s Country are both clearly targeting different audiences, and both should do relatively well within their respective contexts.

Sex Tape and Charlie’s Country will be released this Thursday, July 19th.

All figures from The Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia and Box Office Mojo.

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