"War for the Planet of the Apes," the latest film in the rebooted franchise, brought in an estimated $56.5 million at the domestic box office this weekend.

"War for the Planet of the Apes," the latest film in the rebooted franchise, brought in an estimated $56.5 million at the domestic box office this weekend.

The movie in its debut played akin to a non-superhero threequel, off 21% from Dawn, and is considered OK by industry standards. If there’s any kind of sigh here, it’s just that when studios build movies this big, and War carries a $150M production cost before P&A, the expectation is to swell, and 20th Century Fox pulled out all the stops in promoting this threequel 10 months in advance at New York’s Comic-Con with a six minute unfinished scene and a teaser trailer. The gorilla’s horde of cash here will come from overseas, which is where Rise (63%) and Dawn (70%) reaped the most. Heading into the weekend, rival studios had some pretty aggressive estimates out there for War, but Fox never saw the threequel in that upper box office sphere,  especially in this summer marketplace which has been severe for any title that’s not part of a superhero franchise.

The problem this season isn’t so much that there’s been franchise films, rather an overabundance of those further along in their chapters, read Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Transformers 5, Alien 6 (or 8 if you count the two Alien vs. Predator spinoffs) and that overall effect waters down each film’s B.O., and the summer’s ticket sales overall. With sequels nowadays, studios have to justify their reasons even more to ticket buyers as to why it’s worth going to see; and the trick is to turn a sequel inside out, and take its reinvention to the next level, read Spider-Man: Homecoming. 

“War of the Planet of the Apes sets itself apart from any other franchise film in that it’s not just another movie for the sake of another movie. It’s linear episodic storytelling on a grand scale. It is not just a gratuitous sequel. Critics and audiences are align in sync in their praise of this movie, and this is an incredible start,” said 20th Century Fox distribution boss Chris Aronson this morning.

Some promising signs for War‘s legs is that moviegoers loved it just as much as Dawn and Rise with an A- CinemaScore with both titles respectively legging out to $208.5M and $176.8M domestic. Dawn turned a $182M+ profit off a $710.6M global ticket sales, 15% of that coming from China. After grossing $22.1M on Friday including $5M previews, War was down 13% with $19.2M on Saturday. Updated demos via PostTrak show 57% guys 63% over 25.

20th Century Fox

In regards to why War was slower out of the gate, it could be argued the original trailers stalled moviegoers. Did they distinguish War enough from Dawn? You could say that War looked quite similar with its doom and gloom and angry monkeys. Director Matt Reevesshowed off a trio of clips to the press at a Fox reel day last December and billed the film as an homage to modern westerns and Apocalypse Now. It’s debatable whether that cinematic sensibility was sold.

While Fox was able to get the critics on board, social media guru Relish Mix felt that the love wasn’t translating in the online chatter heading into the weekend with mixed conversation, a socially disengaged cast and a “good, but not great” 265M social media universe across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for a sci-fi/fantasy film.

“The naysayers and dubious moviegoers reflect overtones of franchise fatigue and ‘what makes this one new?’  There are even bizarre references to racism and comparisons to today’s political and social spectrum,” points out Relish Mix. The social media monitor further adds, “War has a real problem with its cast.  There really is no social star, although all credit to Andy Serkis for sharing on his Twitter feed and doing a massive amount of PR/interviews for the campaign. Woody Harrelson, the one name the film boasts, is not activated on his Facebook page. Steve Zahn is not activated.  And the rest of the cast that is activated is minuscule (1.5M all in).”

No surprise here in regards to demos. Men turned out repping 58% of War‘s Friday night CinemaScore audience with 64% over 25. Fifty-seven percent attended because they’re Planet of the Apes fans.