'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' beat out Cameron Diaz's raunchy romantic comedy.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes beat out Cameron Diaz's raunchy romantic comedy Sex Tape, but it was really a battle of sequels at this weekend's box office.
Apes was the returning champion, throwing down against The Purge: Anarchy, a film that capitalizes on the premise that all crime is legal for one night of the year. Despite a commendably strong showing from the horror film, it couldn't take down the mighty force of Andy Serkis' ape army.
While horror fans have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Purge 2, watching psychos murder each other in the streets of LA didn't carry as much weight as watching psycho primates murder humans all across the country.
WATCH: How Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Made the Ape Come To Life
As for the weekend's other newcomers, they didn't even stand a chance. Not even Disney's sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue or Diaz and Jason Segel's comedy Sex Tape could make a dent in the weak weekend box office numbers.
Here's a breakdown of the weekend's top 10.
1. Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - $36 million. This weekend's haul brings the film's domestic total to $138 million, still $30 short of its $170 million budget.
2. The Purge: Anarchy - $28.3 million. While it didn't have quite as big an opening as the first film – The Purge opened with $34 million last year – Anarchy does seem to be getting better reviews. It has a 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. The first film got 38%.
WATCH: Mayhem Takes Over In Purge: Anarchy Tease
3. Planes: Fire & Rescue - $18 million. The legendary vocal talents of Dane Cook, Curtis Armstrong and Ed Harris couldn't rescue this Disney sequel's opening weekend.
4. Sex Tape - $15 million. Columbia Pictures was really hoping that people would want to watch Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel getting caught having sex. There are real sex tapes that have made more money.
5. Transformers: Age Of Extinction - $10 million. It no longer matters how much this movie makes, because it's already taken in $659.1 million overseas.
6. Tammy - $7.6 million. While it might not have taken the world by storm, it's already made over three times its $20 million budget.
RELATED: Cameron Diaz Exposed In Sex Tape! 'You See Everything'
7. 22 Jump Street - $4.7 million. This weekend's take brings its total to $180.5 million off of a $50 million budget.
8. How To Train Your Dragon 2 – $3.8 million. While under-performing significantly in comparison to the original, How To Train Your Dragon franchise makes so much money in merchandising that the planned HTTYD 3 is likely not in danger.
9. Maleficent – $3.3 million. This weekend brought Maleficent's domestic box-office earnings to $228.3 million.
10. Earth To Echo - $3.2 million. Unless it can hold onto its 10th place spot or somehow gain ground, this children's alien tale may fall out of the top 10 after only three weeks.
RELATED: Last Weekend-- Apes Rule the Box Office
Next weekend will see the release of Dwayne Johnson's Hercules, Scarlett Johansson's sci-fi thriller Lucy, comedian Gabriel Iglesias' The Fluffy Movie, Step Up All In, Zach Braff's indie drama Wish I Was Here, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's A Most Wanted Man and Woody Allen's new project Magic In The Moonlight.
Can any of those films topple Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' reign as box-office king?
