The Butler holds top spot as The World's End impresses

It's ironic to think that Sony Pictures decided to abandon 'Lee Daniels: The Butler,' placing its 2013 summer bets on 'White House Down' and 'After Earth' instead.

This weekend 'The Butler', whose financing was cobbled together by numerous investors and is distributed by the Weinstein Co., is continuing to dominate the US box office.

The independent film took  an estimated $4.7 million on Friday on its way to an expected second weekend at the top of the chart. Starring Forest Whitaker as a White House employee who served under eight U.S. presidents, with Oprah Winfrey as his wife, the Lee Daniels-directed film opened with $24.6 million last week, and is expected to take around $16 million this weekend.

Good news also for the 'The World's End', the latest film from director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Hailed as a refreshing late-summer comedy, by the critics, it opened ahead of the disappointing 'The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones' on Friday with an estimated $3.4 million.

'The World's End' marks the third instalment in the so-called Cornetto Trilogy, along with the zombie farce 'Shaun of the Dead' and the cop comedy 'Hot Fuzz'. The trilogy takes its name from a British ice cream confection that appears in all three movies, Featuring a reunion of the team behind 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz', the apocalypse-themed British comedy will have already recouped its $20 million budget by the close of the weekend given its international earnings. The film was released overseas in July and has since taken in $16 million.

By contrast, the $60 million 'Mortal Instruments' appears unable to replicate the success of other Young Adult hits 'Twilight' and 'The Hunger Games'.

The five-book 'Mortal Instruments' series sold 24 million copies, but earned only an estimated $3.1 million on Friday on half as many screens as 'The World's End'. The film has taken in a little more than $7 million after opening on Wednesday.

Now entering its third weekend, the Jennifer Aniston/Jason Sudeikis-led comedy 'We're the Millers' appears on track to hold in second place with an estimated $4 million in earnings on Friday. The horror film 'You're Next', another film debuting this weekend, earned an estimated $2.9 million in its first day of release, enough to place it on track to round out the top five.

'The Butler' is not the only independent film enjoying a later summer surge. Fox Searchlight's coming-of-age comedy 'The Way, Way Back' is close to surpassing the $20-million mark, and Woody Allen's 'Blue Jasmine', now in wider release than any previous Allen-directed film, should finish in the top 10 this weekend with a three-day gross for Sony Pictures Classics of more than $4 million, bringing the movie close to $15 million in total revenues.