In a very crowded field of late-summer contenders, one film stood alone on Friday. The Expendables 2, sequel to 2010’s paean to 1980s action, took in $10.5 million on Friday – twice as much as The Bourne Legacy in second place. Playing in 3,316 locations, the sequel is expected to earn about $30 million by Sunday: a bit less than The Expendables saw on this same weekend two years ago. Two other new releases did well enough to make it into Friday’s top five: ParaNorman, the stop-motion animated feature from the creators of Coraline, earned an estimated $4.5 million from 3,429 runs while Sparkle, the musical drama co-starring the late Whitney Houston, realized $4.6 million from a more-modest 2,244 locations. Both films are expected to fall in the $13 million range after their first three days. Outside of the top five, The Odd Life of Timothy Green earned an estimated $3.4 million while The Dark Knight Rises crossed the $400 million mark in domestic ticket sales. We’ll have complete details tomorrow.
| Title | Friday | Total | |
| 1. | The Expendables 2 | $10,500,000 | $10.5 |
| 2. | The Bourne Legacy | $5,300,000 | $69.4 |
| 3. | Sparkle | $4,600,000 | $4.6 |
| 4. | ParaNorman | $4,500,000 | $4.5 |
| 5. | The Campaign | $4,175,000 | $42.4 |