It was a tale of two movies. One movie went for box office gold and the other simply was nearly dead on arrival.

Universal Pictures’ “Despicable Me 2” grossed over $82.5 million over the weekend. Its total box office receipts were over $142 million since Tuesday night. The sequel earned far more than the 2010’s original film with $56.4 million opening weekend.

People just loved those minions.

On the flip side, the over budget $200 million action western “The Lone Ranger” couldn’t find that silver bullet at the theaters.

Although it placed second with a little over $29 million this past weekend and $48 million since Tuesday night, it was way under the $60-$70 million projection range from industry experts.

And many news outlets compared this Disney disaster to be on equal footing or worse than last year’s “John Carter.” Yeah, remember that movie?

Unless Johnny Depp’s star power is going to boost overseas box office, “The Lone Ranger” is definitely another tax write off.

“The Heat” dropped to third place with $25 million over the weekend, a decrease of 36.1 percent. Last week’s number one “Monsters University” fell to fourth place with $19.59 million, a drop of 57 percent. And finally in fifth place, “World War Z” earned another $18.2 million, a decrease of 38.9 percent.

One more note: “Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain” opened in eighth with $10.1 million on 876 screens. That’s a good draw for Lionsgate as they already approved another Kevin Hart film in the future.

Here’s the Box Office Chart below:

SOURCE: Box Office Mojo