Box Office RESULTS August 30, 2013 - September 1, 2013

Alright ladies and gents, here are the latest box office results. The conversation for a lot of the summer has revolved around how bad so many of this year's movies have been and yet, Exhibitor Relations reports it was a record summer at the domestic box office with this year's crop of films estimated to have brought in $4.75 billion (10.5% over 2012) with 582 million tickets sold, the highest number of tickets since 2007.

Leading the charge on this final weekend was Morgan Spurlock's One Direction: This is Us concert documentary, which opened with an estimated $17 millionand received an "A" CinemaScore from the groupies in attendance. Expectations are for the film to cross $20.5 million by the end of the four day weekend.

Moving on to the Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez thriller Getaway I have to wonder, what kept fans away? Was it the 2% RottenTomatoes rating or were the trailers enough? Maybe it was simply word of mouth as opening night audiences gave it a "C+" CinemaScore, which pretty much translates to an "F" and for good reason, the movie is terrible and it reflects in its $4.5 million opening.

The biggest news of this weekend, however, is the staying power of Lee Daniels' The Butler, which only dropped 11% in its second weekend for $14.7 million, bringing its domestic cume to $74 million. Oscar talk may be ramping up with screenings out of Telluride and Venice, but The Butler is putting money where its mouth is and has assured us it will be part of the conversation over the coming award season. 

Below that we have Focus' new thriller Closed Circuit, which the studio opened on Wednesday and played in only 862 theaters this weekend and it wasn't playing to full houses. The film brought in an estimated $2.5 million and it's likely the last time we'll even hear of it.

Just below Closed Circuit is Wong Kar Wai's Grandmaster, which expanded into 749 theaters this weekend and brought home $2.4 million. Check out the list below for the remainder of the top 12 films in theaters. 

TW	LW	Title	Studio	Weekend
1	-	One Direction: This Is Us	TriStar Pictures (Sony)	$17,000,000
2	1	Lee Daniels' The Butler	The Weinstein Company	$14,742,000
3	2	We're the Millers	New Line Cinema (Warner Bros.)	$12,610,000
4	5	Disney's Planes	Walt Disney Pictures	$7,756,000
5	-	Instructions Not Included	Lionsgate (Pantelion Films)	$7,500,000
6	7	Elysium	TriStar Pictures (Sony)	$6,300,000
7	3	The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones	Screen Gems (Sony)	$5,200,000
8	4	The World's End	Focus Features	$4,759,000
9	-	Getaway	Warner Bros. Pictures	$4,505,000
10	8	Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters	20th Century Fox	$4,425,000
11	10	Blue Jasmine	Sony Pictures Classics	$4,021,000
12	6	You're Next	Lionsgate	$4,000,000