If you are paying attention, you’ll notice that today is Thursday not Friday and this post is up. A voice somewhat more intelligent than I suggested that this post should go up on Thursdays for a variety of reasons that mostly made sense. So, here’s your movie guide for the weekend at the theaters plus a movie that you can pick up at Redbox tonight. But first, a recap of last weekend.

2 Guns was the top movie last weekend. However, according the Box Office Mojo, only $138 million was spent at the movies last weekend. That mark was the lowest since the weekend of April 26-28 ($92 million). The two releases that we included in last weekend’s movie guide, 2 Guns and Smurfs 2, were #1 and #3 respectively last weekend. They were the biggest two releases, but The Wolverine outdid Smurfs 2 $21 million to $17.5 million to take the second spot over the weekend. 2 Guns did just over $27 million on 3,025 screens nationwide for a $8,945 per-screen take.

Two big-budget movies are set to open this weekend with Elysium and the second movie in the Percy Jackson series. Jennifer Aniston’s latest attempt at a blockbuster, We’re The Millers, also opens this week.

Elysium

This is the one you may have seen previews for this summer and thought to yourself “Matt Damon looks really creepy when you make him half-robot”. Along with Damon, Jodie Foster also stars in this flick. It’s set in 2154 where the rich live on one awesome planet and the less-fortunate live on not-so-awesome Earth. If you are looking for the answer to what exactly Foster has been thinking lately when picking projects, you are in the wrong place. I went to Foster’s IMDB page to try and find out. I found this instead:

“Her parents divorced three years before she was born, and she was conceived when her mother, Brandy, was visiting her father, Lucius, for child support.”

I have no clue why that needs to be in her bio, but that fact that it is there is a pretty good reason to have it in this post I reckon.

Back to Elysium. The budget came in at well over $100 million according to some sources, like this post titled “Why Matt Damon’s Elysium Will Be This Summer’s Latest Flop”. Director Neill Bloomkamp, who last directed District 9, apparently originally wanted this to be a low-budget film and considered rapper Eminem to star instead of Damon. Considering District 9 was made for an estimated $30 million and grossed over $115 million, it probably would have been a good idea to let Neill do the project he wanted, but what do I know?

Even if Elysium isn’t a great movie, it is still guaranteed to be a better experience on the big screen. Here’s the trailer

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

The second movie releasing this weekend with a budget near $100 million, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, is the sequel to the 2010 film, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The sequel again follows the adventures of Percy Jackson, who found out in the first movie that he is the son of Greek god Poseidon. The first movie grossed $88 million back of it’s $95 million budget. The sequel opened yesterday and with a “PG” rating, it’s a solid choice if you need to keep the kiddos occupied for a couple hours. If you’d rather make your kid read a book, Amazon has the first three books in the Percy Jackson series in a boxed set for under $15.

We’re The Millers

If you follow the celebrity gossip information train, this is the film where Jennifer Aniston plays a stripper...poorly. The film centers around a veteran drug dealer (Jason Sudeikis) who recruits a fake family to run some marijuana from Mexico to the U.S. By far the smallest budget here at $30 million, the film stands a good chance of making its money back, even if it is getting terrible early reviews. Here’s the trailer:

 

Catch It While You Can

The Purge

Made for an estimated $3 million, The Purge opened to the tune of $34 million in its opening weekend back in June. The film stars Ethan Hawke and is set in 2022. The world is apparently well on its way to Elysium levels in 2022. “The purge” is a 12-hour period that occurs every year where criminal activity is just kind of overlooked and emergency services take a break. During this period, people try breaking into the home of Hawke’s family and all hell breaks loose. Watch the trailer and catch The Purge on the big screen before it is gone at Keller Plaza Cine 8 this weekend.

Make It A Movie Night At Home

While Admission with Tina Fey and Paul Rudd looks like it could be a nice heart-warming story and definitely worth the $1.20 rental I can’t resist featuring this one.

Mud

It’s impossible for me to resist a movie with Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and a character named Neckbone. Any combination of two of those things is easily enough to get me to spend the $1.20 at the red box outside of a Walgreens or inside a McDonald’s.  It’s really hard to believe McConaughey and Witherspoon have never been in a movie together before.  Considering Reese famously got arrested shortly before Mud was released, maybe the Dazed and Confused star and her are better off not being in movies together. The movie got a pretty good review from Rolling Stone and is one of the higher-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. Mud grossed $21 million at the domestic box office on a $10 million budget despite never being in more than 1,000 theaters nationwide at a time. By comparison, something called The Way, Way Back was in 1,001 theaters last weekend five weeks after its initial release.  Check out the trailer for Mud then find a Redbox.

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