weekend box office

This weekend saw two movies named after their lead characters go head-to-head. In one corner, you have 'Lucy.' In the other, 'Hercules.' If you asked the average person who would win in a battle between Dwayne Johnson and Scarlett Johansson, most would probably side with the guy whose nickname is "The Rock." But the box office this weekend went in a completely different direction.

Despite three very different new challengers, 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' continued to rule over the box office this weekend. This doesn't spell disaster for the newcomers, but it does spell further success for the sequel to 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes,' which is riding extremely positive word of mouth to a big box office tally.

Riding a huge wave of strong reviews and even stronger buzz, 'Dawn of the Planet Apes' opened big for a non-superhero, non-Transformers movie, leading a top 10 that's full of just as many hits as misses. How about we just start at the top and work our way through?

Major holiday weekends are often huge for the box office, with millions of Americans taking advantage of their extra time off to head out to the movies. But this fourth of July weekend? Not so much. Despite three new releases, it was a surprisingly quiet time at the movies these past few days and it's hard to imagine anyone being particularly overjoyed with these numbers...

Look, everyone knows that it's your obligation as a human being to go see a new 'Transfomrers' movie when it comes out whether you want to or not. It's the only explanation for the success of the past three films (since no one actually likes them) and it's the only explanation for the massive first weekend of 'Transformers: Age of Extinction,' which had the biggest opening of 2014 so far.

Unless your movie was named 'Jersey Boys,' this was a pretty excellent weekend at the box office for all parties involved. A new film opened big in the number one spot, last week's champions held on strong, and others continued to perform well further down the charts. But boy, it really kinda' sucks to be 'Jersey Boys.'

Everyone expected '22 Jump Street' and 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' to open well, but you won't find many people who expected the raunchy R-rated comedy to open bigger than the family friendly animated adventure. But here we are! Both films opened well, but '22 Jump Street,' like the first film, is has taken a hammer to all expectations.

Ah, the summer. The time of the year where the box office is ruled by superhero movies, science fiction extravaganzas and, uh, slightly quirky cancer weepies. What? For reasons that will baffle some people, 'The Fault in Our Stars' effortlessly took the number one spot at the box office this weekend, gliding past its bigger, more expensive and more ferocious competition and making it look easy.

We're knee-deep in the summer movie season and the hits just keep on coming. Despite mixed buzz, 'Maleficent' opened very strong, not coming close to the massive numbers of the past few weekends, but certainly holding its own. However, the success of Disney's latest live action effort meant that the weekend's other big release, Seth MacFarlane's 'A Million Ways to Die in the West,' fared less well.

The Memorial Day weekend brought with it the third Marvel superhero movie of 2014 and like 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' and 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2,' 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' opened to over $90 million at the box office. Sure, people online keep on wondering if audiences are getting tired of comic book films, but the box office keeps on saying otherwise.