If the Friday box office is any indication, it’s going to be another meh weekend at the movies.  After pulling in an impressive $72.6 million in its debut, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes should remain on top for a second frame – although it was surpassed on Friday by newcomer The Purge: Anarchy.  The successor to last summer’s R-rated thriller earned an estimated $13 million and took first place on Friday.  For its first weekend, however, the sequel is expected to earn $28 million, and that means Apes 2 should overtake it in the three-day race.  In its sophomore frame, Apes is expected to bring in about $34 million, which would give it one of the best holds among this summer’s major releases.

Details on Sex Tape, Planes: Fire & Rescue and Friday’s top five are after the jump.

sex-tape-poster

With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 22 Jump Street, Sony has been having an excellent summer.  That good feeling should come to an end this weekend however thanks to Sex Tape.  The R-rated comedy starring Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz was expected to earn close to $25 million in its debut: the same range that Diaz’s The Other Woman hit earlier this year.  Instead, poor word of mouth (the film stands at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes and received a very discouraging C+ from CinemaScore) seems to have taken its toll.  From 3,062 locations Sex Tape earned an estimated $5.7 million on Friday, making it very unlikely that the comedy can reach $20 million through Sunday.

Planes: Fire & Rescue earned an estimated $6.3 million from 3,826 locations on Friday.  Disney’s sequel to last summer’s surprisingly profitable Planes should bring in just under $20 million through Sunday, or a bit under its predecessor’s $22 million launch.  Planes ended up earning a total of $90 million, which was impressive for a film that was originally conceived as a direct-to-video spin-off to Cars.  Unfortunately, there’s reason to suspect that Fire & Rescue won’t fly as high.  The sequel did receive an A CinemaScore from audiences, but so did How to Train Your Dragon 2 and that particular sequel has failed to match its predecessor in every respect.

Here’s Friday’s top five films.  We’ll have complete details and the top ten tomorrow.

 Title

Friday

Total

1.

 The Purge: Anarchy

$13,000,000

$13

2.

 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

$10,400,000

$113.3

3.

 Planes: Fire & Rescue

$6,300,000

$6.3

4.

 Sex Tape

$5,700,000

$5.7

5.

 Transformers: Age of Extinction

$2,725,000

$219.8