Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has topped the box office in the US and Canada for a second week running.
The latest installment of the Planet of the Apes took $36 million in ticket sales in its second weekend.
The movie has made almost $140 million in North America since its release, according the data company, Exhibitor Relations.
It held off competition from horror sequel, The Purge: Anarchy.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a sequel to 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes – tells the story of the early stages of the survival clash between humans and apes.
Andy Serkis has won critical acclaim for his motion-capture performance as the ape, Caesar.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has topped the box office in the US and Canada for a second week running
The movie also topped weekend sales worldwide, with an estimated $97 million ticket sales globally, according to the entertainment statistics company, Rentrak.
The Purge: Anarchy, the follow up to a 2013 summer hit, earned a solid $28 million in the second spot. The movie cost just $9 million to produce.
In third place was Disney animation Planes: Fire & Rescue, the sequel to 2013’s Planes, with takings of $18 million.
Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel romping in the nude in the comedy S** Tape was not enough to attract enough cinema goers to push the film into the top three. It charted at number four with takings of just $15 million.
Transformers: Age of Extinction ranked second in world sales, but was pushed into fifth place.
The action movie, starring Mark Wahlberg and a cast of shapeshifting robots, took $10 million, bringing its US total to $227 million.
North American box office Top 5:
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – $36 million
- The Purge: Anarchy – $28 million
- Planes: Fire & Rescue – $18 million
- S** Tape – $15 million
- Transformers: Age of Extinction – $10 million [youtube 3sHMCRaS3ao 650]
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has topped the North American box office taking $73 million in its opening weekend.
The movie easily topped the chart, which saw Transformers: Age of Extinction slip to second with $16.5 million.
The Apes epic also picked up another $31 million from international markets.
Set 10 years after 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the sequel follows the battle for dominance between humans and intelligent apes.
Andy Serkis has reprised his performance-capture role as Caesar, the ape who leads his species after encountering a colony of humans who survive a deadly virus.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has topped the North American box office taking $73 million in its opening weekend
He also famously played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, which also used performance capture, which electronically tracks an actor’s movements and expressions so they can be translated into computer generated imagery (CGI).
Directed by Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes also stars Gary Oldman, Keri Russell and Jason Clarke.
The sequel opened more strongly than its predecessor, which took $54.8 million during its opening weekend.
A second sequel to be directed by Matt Reeves is already in the works to further extend the franchise which first began with 1968’s Planet of the Apes, based on Pierre Boulle’s French novel.
Four movies followed in the 1970s, as well as a critically panned 2001 reboot by Tim Burton.
Elsewhere on the chart, Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon comedy Tammy – about a fast food worker who gets fired and takes her hard-drinking grandmother on a road trip – was at three with $12.9 million.
Sequels 22 Jump Street and How to Train Your Dragon 2 took the fourth and fifth spots with $6.7 million and $5.9 million respectively.
North American box office Top 5:
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – $73 million
- Transformers: Age of Extinction – $16.5 million
- Tammy -$12.9 million
- 22 Jump Street – $6.7 million
- How To Train Your Dragon 2 – $5.9 million
Source: Rentrak
[youtube 3sHMCRaS3ao 650]
