The Lone Ranger didn't exactly ride to the rescue this past holiday weekend. The reboot of the storied Western hero's tale stumbled on its debut, taking in less than $50 million in the five days stretching over July 4, according to data compiled by Box Office Mojo. That put the movie, with its estimated $215 million production budget, at a distant second place behind another first-weekender, Despicable Me 2. The animated comedy sequel raked in nearly three times as much, with $141 million, $82.5 million of which came from the Friday-Sunday period. That was significantly better than the $56.4 million the original Despicable Me grossed across its opening weekend in 2010.
The Lone Ranger is distributed by Disney (DIS -0.07%) unit Buena Vista, while Despicable Me 2 is put out by Comcast's (CMCSA 1.52%) Universal.
Third place belonged to action comedy The Heat, now in its second week of release. The film took in around $25 million, said Box Office Mojo, bringing its domestic total to $86.4 million. That's more than double its estimated production budget. The Heat is distributed by Twenty-First Century Fox's (FOX) Fox.
Rounding out the top five was a pair of movies that have been in cinemas for several weeks now. Monsters University, from celebrated Disney animation house Pixar, collected $19.6 million in ticket sales, while zombie combat epic World War Z -- distributed by Viacom's (NASDAQ: VIA) Paramount -- took in $18.2 million.
