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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: Straight Outta Compton Raps Its Way to B.O. Gold

August 18, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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Universal’s banner year at the box office went triple platinum over the weekend as the studio hit the $2-billon mark for the year, a full four months earlier than previous record-holder Warner Bros. did in 2009. Adding even more fuel to the studio’s historic box office bonanza was the debut of director F. Gary Gray’s smash hit, Straight Outta Compton, which became the top-opening musical biopic of all time over the weekend with a whopping $60.2M.

Set in the late-1980s, Compton details the meteoric rise of iconic Southern California hip hop group N.W.A. and takes its title from the band’s incendiary studio album debut of the same name. Produced by Gray and founding N.W.A. members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, the film also features Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson, Jr. playing a younger version of his own father. And if the unprecedented groundswell of support for the film, not to mention the often hilarious “Straight Outta” meme generator explosion on social media, is any indication, Compton is one hit “record” that should be on steady rotation throughout the summer.

Also opening wide over the weekend was director Guy Ritchie’s slick, retro-cool The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which snatched up a tidy $13.4M. Based on the hit 1960s spy series of the same name, U.N.C.L.E. stars the once and future Superman Henry Cavill and big screen Lone Ranger Armie Hammer as CIA and KGB agents, respectively, joining forces to make the world safe at the height of the Cold War. Also featuring a head-turning performance by Ex Machina’s killer robot Alicia Vikander, if all else fails, U.N.C.L.E. should be able to defeat anything the international baddies in the film throw at them on sheer star power alone!

And on the limited release front, Oscar-nominated writer-director Noah Baumbach’s (The Squid and the Whale) latest NYC-set art house comedy Mistress America opened with an impressive $93.2K on just four screens for a stellar per-screen average of $23.3K. Starring France Ha’s indie darling Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote the film with Baumbach, Mistress also features a star-making appearance by actress Lola Kirke (Gone Girl, TV’s The Leftovers) as a college freshman pulled into the zany, screwball schemes of her older, and supposedly wiser, future stepsister played by Gerwig.

Complete Box Office Results: August 14 – 16, 2015