A very tepid weekend for new films was particularly bad for Vince Vaughn — as his “Unfinished Business” became the actor’s fifth movie in a row to underperform in its opening weekend.
“Chappie,” the sci-fi/robot flick from director Neill Blomkamp and starring Hugh Jackman, Dev Patel and Sigourney Weaver, came in first — but with a pretty unimpressive weekend take estimated at $13.3 million. No. 2 honors were snared by Will Smith’s “Focus,” with a tad over $10 million.
The senior-oriented “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” the sequel to the surprise 2011 hit, starring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Patel and Bill Nighy, came in with a respectable third place finish and $8.6 million — opening in about half the theaters as “Chappie.”
In fourth place was the spy romp “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” whose $8.3 million pushed it very close to breaking the $100 million mark since it bowed on Valentine’s Day weekend.
The remaining films in the domestic box office Top 10 were “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,” “Fifty Shades of Grey,” “McFarland, USA,” “The Lazarus Effect,” “The Duff” and Vaughn’s “Unfinished Business,” limping in with $4.8 million in 10th place — even worse than the actor’s critically trashed “Delivery Man,” which had a $8 million opening weekend in 2013.
The good news for Vaughn, who grew up on the North Shore and was just back in town for the highly publicized “Polar Plunge” last weekend: Perhaps his new dramatic turn on “True Detective” on HBO will turn things around for him career-wise.
