Weekend Box Office Report: August 2-4, 2013

2 Guns blazing at the box office!

Audiences were seeking a little action this weekend, and Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg cheerfully supplied it, putting 2 GUNS at the top with $27.1 million!

While that three-day total is hardly a record-setting opening (for either star), it's still a solid grab considering the bullet-riddled flick's R-rating and the fact that it's on around 900 fewer screens than either of the next two movies on the chart.

The $60M-budgeted odd-couple shoot-em-up, which reunited Wahlberg with his CONTRABAND director Baltasar Kormakur, seemed to please crowds ('B+' CinemaScore) more than critics (58% on Rotten Tomatoes), but that's fairly typical of straight-up actioners.

Coming in second place was Marvel's most macho mutant THE WOLVERINE with $21.7 million — almost a 60% slash off its opening weekend. While Wolvie's soul-searching solo adventure is just about to stab the $100 million mark domestically, the X-man's trip to Japan is up to $255 million worldwide (ORIGINS finished with $373M globally).

In third place was the new release THE SMURFS 2 with $18.2 million (and $27.7 million since its Wednesday opening), which is not even half of what the first movie brought in over this same weekend two years ago.

After making $563 million worldwide on THE SMURFS, a sequel probably seemed like a safe bet for the studio. But even international audiences (who contributed 75% of the original's total) were cool to the little blue dudes (and Smurfette) — the movie only opened with an additional $52 million overseas. Not a great summer for CG characters that don't come with Minion sidekicks or Pixar's brand.

The R-rated frightener THE CONJURING came in fourth with $13.6 million, floating past the $100 million mark in its third weekend of release (its total is about twice that of director James Wan's previous biggest efforts SAW and INSIDIOUS). DESPICABLE ME 2 continues to keep family crowds amused after five weeks as Gru and his adorable hench-things have collected an impressive $700 million worldwide.

The lower end of the chart begins with GROWN UPS 2 (jeez, half the movies in the Top 10 have a '2' in the title), followed by the stalled CG snail TURBO and the rickety senior spy sequel RED 2. THE HEAT still has some steam as it comes up on $150 million domestically, while PACIFIC RIM is about to plunge out of sight before hitting $100 million.

Outside the chart, THE WAY, WAY BACK and FRUITVALE STATION are still doing strong business on 1000 screens each, R.I.P.D. has been buried, and the limited-release teen drama THE SPECTACULAR NOW started with a decent $50k per-screen opening.

Next weekend brings the sci-fi thriller ELYSIUM (filmmaker Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to DISTRICT 9), Disney's PLANES (the CARS spinoff the toy division probably demanded), and on Wednesday, the R-rated road-trip comedy WE'RE THE MILLERS (with Jennifer Aniston as a stripper) plus PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS (the fantasy sequel someone apparently wanted).

Are you planning to check out ELYSIUM next weekend? VOTE HERE!