'Heat' Sizzles, 'White House Down' Disappoints

As moviegoers sought refuge from the summer heat outdoors, The Heat was nevertheless a hot choice at theaters this weekend, pulling in an estimated $40 million domestic in its debut weekend.

The box-office sizzle unfortunately didn't extend to action film White House Down, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, which crumbled with a fourth-place finish of $26 million domestic in its first weekend of theatrical release.

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Although The Heat, a comedy featuring Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock, conquered White House Down in the head-to-head opening-weekend faceoff, it was trumped by Monsters University for the top spot.

In its second weekend, the prequel to the 2002 animated Disney-Pixar film Monsters Inc. raked in over $46 million domestic, increasing its two-week gross total to $169 million.

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Sandwiched between The Heat and White House Down was another second-week film, World War Z, which secured $29.2 million to augment the Brad Pitt apocalyptic action film's domestic total to $123 million.

With Iron Man 3 (11th: $1.4 million, $405.4 million) falling out of the Top 10 for the first time in its nine-week run, Superman flick Man of Steel emerged as the highest-grossing film, improving to $248.3 million with a fifth-place $20.5 million for its third weekend.

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Rounding out the lower half of the box office were mega-franchises Fast & Furious (8th: $2.3 million, $233.2 million) and Star Trek (9th: $1.9 million, $220.3 million), which are both well over the $200-million mark in their sixth and seventh weekends of release, respectively.

Underperforming comedy The Internship occupied the tenth spot with a meager $1.3 million over the weekend. After four weeks, the Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson film is over $17 million away from covering its $58-million production budget.