Holiday Weekend Box Office: August 30 - September 2

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Lee Daniels' The Butler - $20 million

2.  One Direction: This Is Us - $18 million

3.  We're The Millers - $15.9 million

4.  Planes - $10.6 million

5.  Instructions Not Included - $10 million

6.  Elysium - $8.3 million

7.  The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones - $6.8 million

8.  Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters - $6 million

9.  Getaway - $5.5 million

10.  Blue Jasmine - $5.3 million

Summer took its last gasp at the box office this Labor Day weekend - its been gasping all summer, actually - and Lee Daniels' The Butler managed to take the 4-day holiday weekend with an estimated $20 million.  That's its third weekend in first place (although those One Direction kids took the regular 3-day weekend), and the drama has now grossed $79 million domestically, and should cross the $100 million mark as we head right into awards season. 

Now, those tween screams you may have heard while you were watching The Butler most definitely came from screenings of One Direction: This Is Us.  The British pop sensation did just fine with its intended audience this weekend, eaning $18 million over the holiday. 

But the big success of the weekend came from the Spanish-language film Instructions Not Included, which earned a whopping $10 million in less than 350 theaters, landing in a fifth-place spot on the weekend's top ten.  That is pretty damn fantastic.

Not so fantastic was the car chase thriller Getaway, whose positively dreadful reviews drove away all of the potential audience.  It sputtered with $5.5 million in ninth place this weekend.

If its any kind of indication what kind of summer this has been at the box office, World War Z, which was predicted to be one of the summer's biggest flops, managed to cross $200 million domestically, thanks to a double-bill re-release with Star Trek Into Darkness this weekend.  Go figure.

We're The Millers also continues to do well, crossing the $100 million mark over the holiday with $15.9 million.  It's been a great summer for R-rated comedies, with The Heat ($157 million), and This Is The End ($96 million) also proving popular with audiences.

And with that, summer movie season 2013 comes to a close.  Most would agree, not a moment too soon.  We're not done with superheroes and blockbusters yet, as Thor: The Dark World, and the latest installments of The Hobbit and The Hunger Games will still be hitting the multiplexes this year.  But as festival season is kicking off, we've got lots of good grown-up stuff (Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, Prisoners, The Monuments Men, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, to name a few) opening in theaters over the next few months, which is shaping up to be pretty fantastic, so we're looking forward to it.