Sequels Ruled This Weekend's Box Office

Between the reviews and the box office numbers, this weekend did not contribute to the long-standing idea that sequels are full of crap. 22 Jump Street and How To Train Your Dragon 2 are this weekend's top two winners — and they've both also got Rotten Tomatoes ratings about 80 percent. Maybe if we close our eyes and wish real hard this will mean that Hollywood's learned it's really in their best interest to actually work to make the sequel stack up to the original?

22 Jump Street — which has been getting pretty damn good word-of-mouth and which currently holds an 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, whatever that means to you — won the weekend with $60 million. How To Train Your Dragon 2, with 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, came in second with a not-paltry $50 million.

22 Jump Street's take-away was higher than expected — the projected numbers put it closer to $50 million — while How To Train Your Dragon 2 hit exactly its projected earnings. Last week's box office ruler was one that was very distinctly not-a-sequel: The Fault In Our Stars , which as of this weekend has now accumulated a total of $81,000,000. It's currently fifth on the list of this weekend's earners, below 22, How To Train, Maleficent, and Edge Of Tomorrow — though Edge Of Tomorrow still hasn't earned back its budget and has a total gross of $51,000,000.

So what's this weekend telling us? Well, you can't expect sequels to be going anywhere anytime soon — but maybe (just maybe!) Hollywood will start realizing people will be way more likely to give them a great box office weekend if they're assured the movie's actually good.

Image: MGM