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Box office: ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ starts weekend on top

In this image released by Sony Pictures Animation, from left, Dracula, voiced by Adam Sandler, Dennis, voiced by Asher Blinkoff, Mavis, voiced by Selena Gomez, and Jonathan, voiced by Andy Samberg appear in a scene from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation's "Hotel Transylvania 2."

In this image released by Sony Pictures Animation, from left, Dracula, voiced by Adam Sandler, Dennis, voiced by Asher Blinkoff, Mavis, voiced by Selena Gomez, and Jonathan, voiced by Andy Samberg appear in a scene from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s “Hotel Transylvania 2.”

(Sony Pictures Animation / AP)
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“Hotel Transylvania 2” sank its fangs into the weekend moviegoing audience, sucking up an estimated $13.3 million on Friday.

Columbia Pictures’ sequel to the 2012 original features the voices of Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg and Kevin James, and has been projected to bring in $32 million to $37 million during its opening weekend, with some industry estimates running as high as $45.5 million.

It hasn’t fared well with critics, however, and one of the more generous reviews came from Charles Solomon, writing for The Times, who called it “more sentimental and less raunchy” than the original, while suggesting that Genndy Tartakovsky “is a talented director [who] deserves a more interesting assignment than trying to wring laughs out of bodily function jokes.”

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The first “Hotel Transylvania” brought in $43 million on its first weekend. Industry analysts had noted strong competition the sequel might be facing from “The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.”

But the family–friendly flick swooped past “The Scorch Trials,” which landed at No. 3 with a Friday estimate of $4.1 million, and easily sailed ahead of Warner Bros.’ “The Intern,” which took in an estimated $6.2 million out of the gate to place second.

The Robert DeNiro-Anne Hathaway comedy “The Intern” has drawn mixed reviews, scoring a 54 out of 100 on the review aggregation website Metacritic.com. Writing for The Times, Mark Olsen praised it as another “bright, contemporary American comedy,” and the Chicago Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper lauded the film’s “genuinely insightful dialogue.” But the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern zapped it as a “clumsy comedy.”

Rounding out the top five on Friday, “Everest,” Universal Pictures’ telling of the 1996 ascent on the world’s highest mountain that turned deadly, came in fourth with an estimated $4 million, and Warner Bros.’ “Black Mass,” the Johnny Depp vehicle delving into the life of Mafioso Whitey Bulger, landed the No. 5 slot, starting the weekend with $3.5 million.

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