It was a good weekend for "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes." The film was a box office hit and made an estimated $73 million domestic debut the first two days it was released, Yahoo! reports.
On July 11 the thriller was released across 3,967 theaters in the U.S. and received rave reviews from both critics and fans. Overseas, the movie was also a success and ranked in $3.1 million from 26 markets.
"It's one of those rare times when critics and audiences agree and the confluence created a perfect storm for a phenomenal opening," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution at Fox to Yahoo!. "A lot of the movies over the last couple of weeks have been received on the tepid side, shall we say, so the market was ripe for a high quality, visually-stunning film."
Because of its success, "Dawn of the Planets of the Apes" has quickly become of the best debuts this summer, according to studio estimates. In 2011, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," garnered $54.8 million in its opening weekend.
According to CBS News, a sequel to be directed by Matt Reeves is already in the works. "Dawn of the Planets of the Apes" follows Andi Serkis' character, lead ape Caesar, and his tribe after they come across a colony of humans living on a planet that was overrun by the apes.
Jason Clarke and Kerri Russell are also in the film and star as humans who want to peacefully live on the same planet with the intelligent animals.
"If every summer movie had this kind of release, that would be amazing," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak, to CBS News. "It combines all the elements of what a smart summer film should be."
There have been reports that summer box office numbers have been failing and the success of the ape thriller has definitely helped pushed those numbers forward. According to Rentrak, this weekend's numbers were down 24 percent compared to last year's numbers, and overall down 20 percent compared to last summer.
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