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Summary Hollywood may have run out of summer hits, but an anti-Obama documentary is helping to fill the gap
Holdover movies easily topped the weekend box office again, led by Sylvester Stallones The Expendables 2 at No. 1 for the second-straight weekend with $13.5 million.The weekends new wide releases were overshadowed by 2016: Obamas America, which expanded from limited to nationwide release and took in $6.2 million to finish at No. 8.The documentary is a harsh conservative critique of what the country would look like four years from now if President Barack Obama is re-elected.Released by Rocky Mountain Pictures, Obamas America nearly matched the $6.3 million debut of the No. 7 movie, Joseph Gordon-Levitts action tale Premium Rush, a Sony release that played in more than twice as many theaters as the Obama documentary.The weekends other new wide releases opened weakly. Dax Shepard and Kristen Bells road-chase comedy Hit & Run, released by Open Road Films, debuted at No. 10 with $4.7 million, and the Warner Bros. fright flick The Apparition opened at No. 12 with $3 million.The weak openings are typical of late August, a dumping ground for movies without much audience appeal as the summer blockbuster season winds down and young viewers switch to back-to-school mode.But with less competition from Hollywood releases, it also opens the door for surprise successes.Obamas America opened in a handful of theaters in mid-July and did strong business as it gradually widened to more cities. It jumped into the top-10 this weekend as it expanded into 1,091 theaters, leading all other wide releases with an average of $5,717 a cinema.Thats a solid average, especially for a political documentary. But it pales next to the king of political documentaries, Moores George W. Bush assault Fahrenheit 9/11, which opened at No. 1 with $23.9 million in June 2004, averaging $27,558 in 868 theaters. Fahrenheit 9/11 went on to become the top-grossing documentary ever with $119.1 million domestically.Obamas America is based on the book The Roots of Obamas Rage, written by Dinesh DSouza, who co-directed the movie with John Sullivan.The documentary now has climbed to a $9.1 million domestic total, with prospects for strong business as the Republican National Convention unfolds over the next few days.Released by Lionsgate, The Expendables 2 raised its domestic total to $52.3 million after two weekends.In limited release, IFC Films Sleepwalk with Me had a huge debut with $77,400 in a single New York City theater.Produced and co-written by Ira Glass of National Public Radios This American Life, Sleepwalk with Me stars writer-director Mike Birbiglia in a semi-autobiographical story of a stand-up comic struggling with career and romance, along with bad bouts of sleepwalking.
