This weekend at the box office Scarlett Johansson’s action film Lucy overpowered Dwayne Johnson’s Hercules to take the No. 1 spot with $44 million.
Universal Pictures’ estimation of a $40 million opening weekend for the sci-fi film was exceeded as it debuted across 3,173 locations. Regardless of its top spot victory, moviegoers gave Lucy a poor C plus CinemeScore, and awarded its competitor Hercules a B plus.
Director Brett Ratner’s Hercules, based on the graphic novel “Hercules: The Thracian Wars,” scored $29 million over the weekend from 3,595 locations. Considering its $100 million product budget, it was a feeble debut for the Paramount film.
The story of the mythical son of Zeus scored a 63 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, moderately higher than the 57 percent rating the drug-enhanced brain thriller received.
Lucy centers on a woman who gets injected with a drug that allows her to access the unused part of her brain. The R-rated film is the highest debut for Johansson outside of her roles in Marvel Universe films.
“Her bankability is beyond reproach and her street cred is beyond comparison,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “She can bounce gracefully between indie movies and esoteric movies and then rise to the top box office charts.”
After a solid two weeks in the top spot, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes fell down to No. 3 at the box office this weekend with $16.4 million. Following at No. 4 was The Purge: Anarchy with $9.9 million, and Planes: Fire & Rescue with $9.3 million.
See what films made the top 10 list at the box office this weekend by clicking “Next”!
