Channing Tatum rules, Dragon disappoints

22 Jump Street easily claimed the top spot at the box office with $60 million which is a huge improvement over the opening of the first film which two years ago grossed $37 million on its first three days. This is also the second best opening ever for an R-rated film and surprisingly lured more younger audiences (56% under the age of 25 mostly male). The film will easily end with over $150 million and $200 is a possibility.

How to train your Dragon 2 debuted in the second spot with $50 million estimate. That is a bit lower than predictions since it was a highly anticipated family film since the first one is a well loved film. Maybe because it took four years to release a sequel plus the animated tv show, which is after all free might have tampered the chances o this film opening higher. Add to that 22 Jump Street stealing a chunk of younger audiences (Dragon's audiences was 53% female 56%under 25) and you have a one, two, three punch to the gut of this animated film.

Claiming the third spot again is Disney's Maleficent with an estimated $19 million for a total of $163 million domestically. Worldwide the film has made so far $436.4 million. Moving down to the fourth spot, Tom Cruise's scifi actioner Edge of Tomorrow took $16.2 million for a two week total of $56.6 million. Taking a skydive plunge of 67% drop, last week's #1 champ The Fault in Our Stars falls to fifth place with $15.7 million. The decline was expected, but not this low. Still the film has grossed $81.2 million in ten days which is great for this $12 million budget film.

With just a mere 37% decline in its fourth week, Fox X-Men: Days of Future Past takes the sixth spot with $9.5 million and a total of $205.9 million domestically becoming now the most successful movie of Summer 2014 so far. The Fox film is also the second most successful film of the year so far (Marvel's Captain America The Winter Soldier released way back in Spring is still the champ).

Godzilla drops one notch to the seventh spot with $3.1 million. The monster mash film has now grossed $191.3 million domestically, $436 million worldwide which justifies the studio decision to greenlight a sequel.

And finally, in a head scratching move from its studios, the two Christian films Heaven is for Real and God's Not Dead were removed from theaters while still making some money with final grosses of $89 million and $60 million respectively. There are a bunch of other films making less money lower in the chart and being kept in a few screens, but theater chains sell certain amount of screens to the studios would be blockbusters thus justifying to pull out smaller films (after all the combined budget of the two Faith-based films barely made $14 million).