Box Office

From darkhorizone, Critics have long despised his films, but the appeal of the Adam Sandler comedy label amongst wider audiences seems to be on the wane too. Despite a fun high-concept, the critically derided Sandler-led "Pixels" opened this weekend to $24 million and second place.

It fell behind Disney's "Ant-Man" which scored first place and $24.8 million in its second outing, bringing it to a $106.1 million stateside haul. Both films opened in the wake of a cinema shooting in Louisiana which saw three deaths and nine injuries, and has prompted discussion of consumers steering clear of cinemas.

Two other new films opened. Fox's "Paper Towns," the next film from social media celeb and "The Fault in Our Stars" author John Green, opened to $12.5 million which was only about half what was projected. The $12 million budget means it'll be profitable, but it certainly hasn't gone past the core base like 'Fault' seemed to.

The other was the Jake Gyllenhaal-led boxing drama "Southpaw" which scored $16.5 million and proved better than expectations, helped by Gyllenhaal getting out there and doing publicity on a lot of sporting outlets.

"Minions" and "Trainwreck" picked up $22.1 million and $17.3 million respectively, while "Jurassic World" scored $6.9 million and flew past "Marvel's The Avengers" to score the third highest title on the domestic all-time box-office list with $623.8 million. Bill Condon's "Mr. Holmes" continues going strong in limited release with $2.8 million in its second week.