As the summer blockbuster season starts to heat up, so ends the period when movies can actually expect to enjoy more than a week or two at the top of the American box office charts. X-Men: Apocalypse is the latest title to learn that lesson, dethroned after one week by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. The new Turtles outing won the weekend despite lacklustre returns, snagging $35.2 million, according to studio estimates.
While it placed at the top, the sequel rook in roughly half of the original's total. And that's despite a (vaguely) better response from critics. It doesn't seem like Turtle power will keep carrying the rebooted franchise, but we could be looking at a third. Apocalypse, meanwhile, slipped to second on $22.3 million, losing 66% from last week and unlikely to ever reach the heights of Days Of Future Past despite decent international business. Worldwide, the new film is up to $307.3 million.
Romantic comedy drama Me Before You was the counter programming alternative to the new mutant action, and it made $18.2 million, which is decent given its $20 million budget. Alice Through The Looking Glass was down to fourth, earning $10.6 million, while The Angry Birds Movie fell to fifth on $9.7 million.
Captain America: Civil War has begun to fall more swiftly down the charts, but is still earning, adding $7.5 million this weekend after five weeks on release. In seventh we find Bad Neighbours 2 (AKA Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising), taking home $4.7 million and proving yet another sequel this year unable to duplicate the original film's success. There was worse news for the Lonely Island guys, as Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping flopped badly, earning just $4.6 million, which is less even than 2007's unjustly unsuccessful Hot Rod, since the stuntman comedy opened to $5.3 million. It seems even Judd Apatow's touch as producer couldn't help it. Compare that to The Jungle Book, which has now been on release for eight weeks and earned $4.2 million – at least Popstar didn't have the latter's $175 million budget to make back... Also on the list of movies that deserved to do better? The Nice Guys, which sank from its seventh place opening to 10th and $3.5 million. Shane Black's latest has made $29.1 million in the States so far.