Weekend Box Office Report

September may traditionally be a wasteland of half-baked films unfit to open in a proper month, but the lack of competition can actually be a good thing. Could 'Prisoners,' a film made specifically for an adult audience, have opened as well as it did if it was released in a busier month? Probably not.

The summer is over and September is upon us. The result? One of the most boring weekend box office reports in months. Months! The month or so following the end of the summer movie season is traditionally one of the worst of the year, the time when Hollywood unleashes all of the films that they have little faith in, a buffer between the blockbuster months and the award season months. In other words

Despite a bunch of new releases with all kinds of wide and varied appeal, this weekend's box office top 10 looks suspiciously like last week's. Apparently, none of the newcomers could match Lee Daniels' 'The Butler,' which effortlessly claimed the top spot once more.

There's something thematically appropriate about a movie telling the story of a butler who quietly influenced the United States taking the number one spot at the box office over its flashy, bigger rivals. Lee Daniels' 'The Butler' took multiplexes by storm this weekend, taking down last week's competition as well as a handful of seemingly strong newcomers.

Ah, the continuing appeal of the one and only Denzel Washington. How much do people love this guy? They love him so much that they'll transform just about any movie he appears in into a respectable hit, even if that movie is a poorly marketed (but well-reviewed) action movie based on a comic book that no one read. We shouldn't be surprised that '2 Guns' shot to the top of the box office, but we ar

What happens when two new releases that look like sure-things smash into the unstoppable wall that is a Pixar movie? Well, you get one second place hit and one severe disappointment. 'The Heat' still looks good next to the continued success of 'Monsters University,' but it made 'White House Down' stumbling at the starting line look all the more horrible.

Zombies may be really hot right now, but there's one thing that is (and probably always will be) a bigger deal: Pixar. Brad Pitt's 'World War Z' performed quite well in its opening weekend, but even the biggest zombie movie of all time couldn't keep pace with 'Monsters University.'

After months of feverish anticipation and a marketing campaign that left everyone at ScreenCrush practically speechless, 'Man of Steel' has arrived (amidst a flurry of mixed reviews) and taken its place at the top of the box office chart. Although the latest Superman film broke June box office records, it's yet to be seen whether or not the film is truly prepared for the long road ahead.

How rare is it for a Will Smith sci-fi blockbuster to not open at number one at the box office? Also, how horrible must it feel for a Will Smith sci-fi blockbuster to not only get beaten by the second week of a long running franchise about fast cars, but by a magician thriller headlined by Jesse Eisenberg?

What looked like one of the big box office showdowns of the summer turned out to not be battle at all. Not only did 'Fast and Furious 6' take the number one spot at the box office, it did it while shattering records, leaving 'The Hangover Part 3' coughing on its exhaust.