Caesar would be proud.
In it first weekend, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes dominated the North American box office with a total of $56.5 million.
That’s just above what it was projected to make – it was estimated to rake in somewhere between $50-$55 million.
READ: Where The ‘Planet of the Apes’ Franchise Should Go Next…
Surprisingly, that’s still not the franchise’s best opening. That honor belongs to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which opened to $72 million. However, it still opened higher than War and Rise, which each opened to $56.2 million and $54.8 million respectively.
To give you an idea of how much more the film made than its competition, Ryan Gosling’s The Fall Guy only raked in $13.7 million this weekend in second place, while Zendaya’s Challengers only nabbed $4.6 million in third.
READ: ‘Planet Of The Apes’ Franchise Writers Reveal Just How Many More New Films There Will Be
Set nearly 300 years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), Kingdom follows ape civilizations that have emerged from the oasis to which Caesar led his fellow apes, while humans have regressed into a feral state. When the ape leader, Proximus Caesar, perverts the teachings of Caesar to enslave other clans in search for last traces of human technologies, Noa, a common chimpanzee, embarks on a harrowing journey alongside a young human named Mae to determine the future for apes and humans alike.
Directed by Wes Ball from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Patrick Aison, and produced by Joe Hartwick Jr., Jaffa, Silver, and Jason Reed. It serves as the sequel to War for the Planet of the Apes and is the fourth installment in the Planet of the Apes reboot franchise.
The film stars Owen Teague in the lead role alongside Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, and William H. Macy.
