Marvel’s Ant-Man, which stars the ageless wonder we mere mortals call Paul Rudd, came in at number one at the box office for the second week. The film trounced Pixels, which stars the poorly-aging frat boy we call Adam Sandler. Ant-Man, of which George R. R. Martin is a fan, pulled in $24.7 million domestically, for a not-so-puny $106 domestic cume. Pixels, a film about Adam Sandler and video games doing dumb stuff, made $24 million, which, while only seven-tenths of a million dollars removed from Ant-Man’s gross, is tremendously disappointing for Sandler. The film’s mix of CGI and live-action aimed at nostalgic Gen-Xers was being compared to last year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which made $65.6 million.
Coming in third, Minions made $22.1 million. Those little, babbling yellow things have now cajoled American moviegoers for $261.6 million. The Amy Schumer-Judd Apatow rom-com Trainwreck made $17.3 in its second week, having now amassed $61.5, while Southpaw, starring a super shredded Jake Gyllenhaal, socked its way to $16.5 million. Paper Towns, starring Cara Delevingne and the world’s greatest eyebrows, was expected to rake in around $20 million, but saw a massive 45-percent drop-off between its Friday and Saturday grosses, earning just $12.5 total this weekend. Rock beats paper. (Paul Rudd is the rock in this case.)
Meanwhile, Jurassic World will, by the end of the weekend, have usurped The Avengers as the third-highest-grossing movie of all time, domestic and worldwide. Roar.
Indie-wise, the German film Phoenix, which has garnered rave reviews so far, made $28,000 in a two-screen release, while Samba earned $24,000 on as many screens.