LOS ANGELES — Ant-Man crept past new opener Pixels to claim the top spot at the box office this weekend by an ant-sized margin. The superhero pic brought in $24.8 million over the weekend, bringing its domestic total to $106.1 million according to estimates Sunday.
Pixels, meanwhile, just barely missed first place with a $24 million debut. While studios always hope for the bragging rights of a No. 1 debut, the real issue here is whether or not the Ontario-shot Adam Sandler end of the world comedy will make up its $88 million production budget.
Critics were not fond of Pixels, which shows 1980s video arcade game characters attacking Earth, but younger audiences still turned out to theatres – an estimated 62 percent were under the age of 25.
Overall, the box office is down 3 per cent from the same weekend last year, when Lucy opened particularly strong.
Holdovers Minions and Trainwreck took the third and fourth spots with $22.1 million and $17.3 million, respectively.
Meanwhile, the R-rated boxing drama Southpaw surpassed expectations and landed a place in the top five with its $16.5 million opening.
Paper Towns, an adaptation of John Green’s coming-of-age novel, opened in sixth place with $12.5 million. The film only cost $12 million to produce, but considering Green’s fan base and last year’s massive $48 million debut of The Fault in Our Stars, which Green also wrote, it’s a bit disappointing.
The rest of the Top 10 consisted of Inside Out, Jurassic World, Mr. Holmes and Terminator Genisys.
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