Box Office: ‘2 Guns’ opens on target, ‘Smurfs 2’ stands small

The action movie “2 Guns” showed some firepower Friday night, earning an estimated $10 million on the path to what’s expected to be a weekend topping the box office rankings.

The respectable opening night tally comes despite mostly mixed reviews, including that of The Times’ Kenneth Turan, who described the film starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as “briefly diverting” but concluded “the film inevitably leaves an empty taste behind it once it’s done.”

The weekend’s other major opening, the animated sequel “Smurfs 2,” is performing as expected with an estimated $5.5 million earned on Friday, which takes its total thus far to roughly $15 million since its opening on Wednesday. The film should land in third place on the box office rankings, and these numbers place the film on track to open behind the 2011 original, which earned $35.6 million in its three-day opening weekend.

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But the makers of “Smurfs 2” are banking on a repeat of the original film’s strong showing abroad, which accounted for 74% of the original’s $563.7 million in earnings. In expectation of similar success, the sequel also opened in 43 foreign markets this weekend.

Tracking for second place in the rankings, Fox’s “The Wolverine” earned an estimated $6.4 million on Friday, which took its total to $79 million in its second weekend. With an estimated $4 million earned on Friday, horror hit “The Conjuring” should soon break the $100-million mark, and “Despicable Me 2” rounds out the top 5 with an estimated $3.1 million.

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Twitter: @chrisbarton