Box Office: '22 Jump Street' Debuts With $60M; 'Dragon 2' Hits $50M

Yahoo Movies
Updated

By Pamela McClintock

Laughing its way to the second-best opening of all time for an R-rated comedy, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill’s 22 Jump Street beat out How to Train Your Dragon 2 for the top spot at the Father’s Day weekend box office with $60 million.

The Hangover: Part II remains the record-holder for top R-rated comedy ($85.9 million).

22 Jump Street, costing just short of $50 million to produce, is a win for Sony and MGM, debuting 65 percent ahead of the first Jump Street, which debuted to $36.3 million in summer 2012. 

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Earning stellar reviews, Jump Street also nabbed an A- CinemaScore from moviegoers. In this installment, Hill and Tatum, playing two bumbling undercover cops, are assigned to infiltrate a local college.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie) directed both the original and the sequel. Moviegoers between the ages of 17 and 34 are the most ardent fans of Jump Street. The audience was evenly split between males and females, with an impressive 56 percent of the audience under the age of 25.

From DreamWorks Animation and Fox, Dragon 2 took in $50 million, marking DWA’s best opening in two years and coming in ahead of the first Dragon, which opened to just north of $36 million in March 2010. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s DWA needs a win after a series of box office misfires, and Dragon, costing $145 million to make, marks the company’s best opening in two years.

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Based on Friday’s traffic, projections had showed Dragon 2 debuting to $53 million, but a 7 percent drop from Friday to Saturday made that impossible. Generally, family films see a jump on Saturday.

Dragon 2 also earned glowing notices, plus an A CinemaScore, portending good word of mouth.

Dean DeBlois returned to direct Dragon 2, which follows the heroic Viking Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his faithful dragon as they try to save the world from the power-hungry Drago. The voice cast also features Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera and Hill.

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Overseas, Dragon 2 is opening in 20 international markets this weekend, including Russia. The family film hopes to benefit by providing counter-programming to the World Cup, which got underway in Brazil on Thursday.

Disney’s Maleficent continued to bewitch audiences, placing No. 2 in its third weekend with $19 million for a domestic total of $163.5 million and worldwide total of $436.4 million, becoming Angelina Jolie’s No. 2 live-action title of all time after Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($478 million).

Tom Cruise’s troubled sc-fi epic Edge of Tomorrow didn’t find much relief in its second weekend, grossing $16.2 million for a domestic total of $56.6 million. The Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow title fell to No. 4.

Edge of Tomorrow did beat out Fox’s YA adaptation The Fault in Our Stars, which tumbled a steep 67 percent in its second weekend to $15.7 million for a North American cume of $81.7 million. The movie’s drop underscores how fan-fueled the property is (younger females make up the vast majority of the audience). Nevertheless, the film — costing just $12 million to make — will be one of the most profitable properties of the summer.

Furthering Fox’s strong summer, X-Men: Days of Future Past crossed the $200 million mark over the weekend at the domestic box office, eclipsing Godzilla and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which will finish the weekend with estimated totals of $191 million and $198 million, respectively.