The Butler Tops The US Box Office, With Kick-Ass 2 Faltering

Going into the weekend, most box office watchers were predicting that Kick-Ass 2 would win the weekend, with Lee Daniels’ The Butler coming second. In the end The Butler did better than expected and took the top spot, with Kick-Ass 2 faltering and only managing fourth place on the chart.

The Butler took $25 million to take the top spot, about on par with The Help, which opened August 2011. It did a lot better than expected, with Hollywood once more underestimating the African American audience, who turned out in large numbers to support the civil rights themed movie. With good word of mouth building, some are saying it could end up taking $100 million.

Kick-Ass 2 ended up fourth with a comparatively dismal $13.5 million, about half what some had expected and six million below the first film’s opening weekend take. However the Kick-Ass only really became a hit on DVD, so the sequel will now have to hope it can do the same.

The only other new movie in the top 10 is Jobs, which took $6.7 million. It’s not a great start but about in line with expectations. It seems that mixed reviews didn’t help a movie that never managed to really sell why you should want to see a film about Steve Jobs.

At least it did better than Paranoia, as despite the presence of Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and Liam Hemsworth, it only took $3.5 million for a 13th place finish. Many expect it to become the lowest grossing movie Ford’s ever starred in.

Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of August 16th-18th.