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Zac Efron's We Are Your Friends tanks at the box office as it takes just $1.8m... as low budget faith-based War Room makes $11m

Published: 11:19 EST, 30 August 2015 | Updated: 16:19 EST, 30 August 2015

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He's been doing the talk show round promoting his new movie We Are Your Friends.

But that hard work did nothing to help Zac Efron this week, as his new movie took just $1.8million from 2,333 screens at the U.S. box office.

Not only was it worst wide-release launch of the High School Musical star's career, but it was one of the lowest wide-release debuts for a major studio film in history.

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We Are not Your Friends Zac! Efron's new movie took just $1.8million at the U.S. box office

Surprise! Instead viewers flocked to see War Room, with the low-budget salute to prayer defying predictions to take $11million at 1,135 locations

'We're disappointed,' said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. distribution executive vice president. 'We believe in Zac and this was a passion project of his.'

Shunning Efron's dreary look at the electronic music scene, Christian crowds instead flocked to War Room, with the low-budget salute to prayer defying predictions to take $11million at 1,135 locations.

Filmed for a mere $3million and distributed by Sony's Affirm division, War Room more than tripled its production budget in a single weekend.

'These are the kind of outlier events that happen and wake everyone up to the fact that faith-based audiences are passionate and looking for content,' said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak.

Made for just $3m! The film is the latest faith-based hit from director Alex Kendrick and his brother, writing and producing partner Stephen Kendrick, the pair behind Fireproof and Courageous. It marks the biggest debut of their careers

The film is the latest faith-based hit from director Alex Kendrick and his brother, writing and producing partner Stephen Kendrick, the pair behind Fireproof and Courageous. It marks the biggest debut of their careers.

'There is so much love for this film,' said Rory Bruer, Sony's distribution chief. 'It starts with the Kendricks. They're visionaries in this genre.'

Despite the success of the War Room, Straight Outta Compton topped charts for a third consecutive weekend, becoming the first film to manage that feat since Jurassic World.

The rap biopic about the early days of N.W.A. pulled in an impressive $13.2million, pushing its domestic total to $134.1million.

Bombed: Zac's passion project featured the actress from the Blurred Lines music video, Emily Ratajkowski

It is now the highest-grossing musical biopic, trumping the Johnny Cash drama Walk the Line and its $119.5million domestic haul.

War Room reaffirms the potency of faith-based crowds, ranking along previous hits such as God's Not Dead and Heaven is for Real but aside from its success, there was very little to celebrate.

The month of August sputtered to a close as the trio of new releases failed to inject much life into ticket sales.

The overall box office was down more than 20per cent from the year-ago period when Guardians of the Galaxy was still drawing big crowds.

'We believe in Zac': But Warner Bros may change their mind after this money-loser

That comparison is problematic, however, given that Labor Day fell during that period and the holiday has been pushed back a week this year.

No Escape, a thriller about an American family ensnared in a violent political coup in a nameless Asian country, finished in fourth place with $8.2million from 3,355 locations.

It has earned $10.2million since debuting on Wednesday. The Weinstein Company paid just under $5million for rights to the film, which was criticized in by some critics for being retrograde in its depiction of a developing country's culture and politics.

'We'll make money on it,' said Erik Lomis, the Weinstein Company's distribution chief. 'We're not big spenders on the [promotion and advertising] side and we spent late and did a good job getting to our target audience.'

The top five was rounded out by Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, which captured third place with $8.3 million, and Sinister 2, which nabbed fifth position with a $4.7 million finish.

The latest Mission: Impossible has earned $170.4 million since debuting in July, while the second Sinister film has racked up $18.5 million in two weeks.