Box Office: 'Planet of the Apes' Tops With $22.2M Friday as 'Star Wars' Plunges 82%

'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' should earn around $55 million in its debut weekend, giving Disney a rare relative win for a 20th Century Studios franchise

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes started with $22 million at the Friday box office, implying an over/under $55 million opening weekend. That’s on par, inflation notwithstanding, with the prior trilogy’s debut weekends and represents a key win (for now) for Disney. The hope is that, even with seemingly mixed word-of-mouth, it’ll stand out as one of the few all-quadrant, PG-13 fantasy franchise flicks during an oddly R-rated summer. If not, well, most of the IP they got from buying Fox turned out to be worth… well, so far, it’s $71 billion just for Avatar and The Simpsons…