Weekend Box Office: August 23-25

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Lee Daniels' The Butler -  $17 million

2.  We're The Millers - $13.5 million

3.  The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones - $9.3 million

4.  The World's End - $8.9 million

5.  Planes - $8.5 million

6.  Elysium - $7.1 million

7.  You're Next - $7 million

8.  Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters - $5.2 million

9.  Blue Jasmine - $4.3 million

10.  Kick-Ass 2 - $4.2 million

A bunch of new releases this weekend could not move Lee Daniels' The Butler and We're The Millers off of there respective first and second place spots from last week.  In its second weekend, The Butler dropped a mere 30% from its $24 million opening last week, earning an estimated $17 million.  The film has turned out to be quite the late-summer hit, having earned $52 million domestically so far.  Audiences looking for laughs continued to find it with We're The Millers, which now has $100 million in its sights with another $13.5 million this weekend.   

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, is not going to be the next Twilight.  The adaptation of the popular young adult book series has earned a weak $14 million since opening last Friday, and could only muster a third place finish for the weekend.  Meanwhile, The World's End, the finale to director Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, opened pretty well with $8.9 million.  That's the best opening for the trilogy (previous films being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), although it opened in more theaters than either of those films did.

The last new release this weekend was the horror thriller You're Next.  Although horror films usually do well on opening weekends (and are pretty much forgotten after that), this one didn't quite have that kind of pull this weekend, landing in seventh place with just $7 million. 

Summer movie season officially comes to a close next weekend, as the Labor Day holiday weekend brings us the Riddick sequel no one really asked for, the Ethan Hawke action thriller Getaway, and...you know you can't wait for it: One Direction: This Is Us.  Then, we're on to fall movie season!