The Purge: Election Year Wins Friday Box Office

The Purge: Election Year was expected to do well this weekend, but one thing most did not expect it to do was to beat the bigger budget The Legend of Tarzan in Friday box office.

That’s exactly what it did, though, pulling in $14.47 million on Friday ahead of Legend of Tarzan’s $14 million, Finding Dory’s $13.4 million (in its 2nd week), and The BFG’s $7 million (via Box Office Mojo). The series continues to make positive returns on a rather small investment, with The Purge: Election Year only costing $10 million to make. It’s already made its production budget back in just one day. It is estimated to make a holiday weekend total of around $37 million.

The Purge Election Year features Frank Grillo returning as former police officer Leo Barnes, who is now the head of a security company attempting to protect Senator Charlie Roan (played by Elizabeth Mitchell) on Purge night, as her goal is to get rid of the Purge when she is elected.

As for Legend of Tarzan, it has a bit more of an uphill climb to recapture its budget, which sits at $180 million. The film is on track to bring in around $45 million over the same time period. As for Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, the $7 million dollar Friday is actually ahead of most estimates, but with a budget of $140 million, the studio is hoping that positive word of mouth will carry it for a few weeks to recoup that heavy budget. The film is estimated to pull in around $23 million over the four day weekend.