The box office this week is all about meatballs, race cars and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Rush and Don Jon all make their debuts at the big screen in what could be only the second $100 million weekend in the last four after 19 straight.

Actually, I should not be predicting box office numbers anymore. I thought Prisoners would have a tough time taking the #1 spot away from Insidious: Chapter 2. I also thought The Family wouldn’t drop very far from its $14 million opening weekend.   I was about as wrong as I could be.  Insidious dropped over 65% to $13.8 million for the weekend and The Family took in only $7 million in its second weekend.  Prisoners  pulled in $20.8 million of its $46 million budget in its first weekend.

So, I won’t even attempt to predict the box office numbers this weekend. We’ll just take a look at what is coming out

Rush

I’ve seen testimonials for Rush that hail it as Director Ron Howard’s best work. That’s saying a lot. We’re talking about the guy who directed Backdraft, Cocoon, Splash, Apollo 13, The Dilemma and Cinderella Man among countless others. According to Box Office Mojo, the 21 films that Howard directed have pulled in a total of more than $1.8 BILLION dollars at the box office for an average take of $81 million each. If you adjust those numbers for inflation from some of his early movies, the take moves to almost $3 billion dollars and an average of $142 million. Dudes, don’t be afraid if your lady drags you out to see Rush this weekend. If you’re curious about how Rush does against the real life events, click here.

Don Jon

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in this film that he also wrote and directed. This one also stars Scarlett Johnansson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza. It deals with a sensitive subject and is getting great reviews for the way it handles it. It’s a good movie for dudes to see.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

This sequel from Sony Pictures features the voices of stars like James Caan, Ana Faris, Bill Hader and Andy Samberg. Mr. T apparently turned down a speaking role in the sequel. He also reportedly turned down an offer to be in the WWE 2K14 video game recently. Apparently, Laurence Tureaud doesn’t like easy money. The original Cloudy opened with $30 million in September of 2009. It made $243 million worldwide on its $100 million budget.  The sequel’s budget is a more modest $78 million. One site is predicting this flick will take in $47 million this weekend.

Catch It Before It Is Gone

2 Guns opens at Keller this weekend. The Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg film has grossed almost $100 million at the box office worldwide, include a $27 million opening weekend back in the first weekend of August.  You can also catch movies like The Heat, Smurfs 2 and The Conjuring this weekend before they leave the big screen.

Make It A Redbox Night
Big budget flicks Iron Man 3 and World War Z are both available now to rent for $1.20. You can also rent episodes 1-6 of Netflix’s House of Cards. Cards recently became the first online-only show to pick up an Emmy when it won three earlier this week. If you want to stick with a movie, pick up Redemption with Jason Statham. I’m fairly confident in saying that no one has ever rented a Statham flick for $1.20 and been disappointed.

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