There was a lot of uncertainty going into the weekend with the box office as to how well Maleficent would do because while it is playing with a beloved property’s character, it had a darker feeling to it that could keep a lot of parents away from taking their kids. It did have a good marketing campaign and kept people interested, but there’s always that worry and it seemed like it didn’t have a huge amount of buzz. But the film did well with a $70 million opening domestically while doing another $100 million internationally while opening in 48 territories. The film is likely to do well overall and continue to build on it since there isn’t a lot falling into that category.
The non-surprise for the weekend was how A Million Ways to Die in the West performed as the Seth MacFarlane feature had a hard time scrabbling up the $17 million it did make. I ended up seeing it on Friday night as my daughter and a few of her friends wanted to see it. It’s obviously not this generations Blazing Saddles – a film that can’t be done anymore – but the audience laughed quite a lot throughout the film and generally seemed pleased. But you have to be kind of in tune with MacFarlane’s style of humor. The film is likely to sink even further as time goes on and Universal is doing a meager international rollout as it only did another $10 million in 22 territories.
Godzilla is holding on nicely as it did another $12 million to bring its total to $175 million while Amazing Spider-Man 2 continues to crash hard, drawing in just $4 million to bring its domestic take to $192 million. It has pulled in $690 million worldwide since it’s debut, but obviously the bulk of it is coming from overseas where there’s a lot more interest in the character.
X-Men: Days of Future Past had a significant drop this weekend as it brought in another $32 million, bringing its domestic total to $162 million while doing another $95 million overseas. It’s doing the best of any X-Men film to date overall as it’s now at $500 million.
The summer front-loading continues with new big budget films every weak and it’s basically further cementing the need to have a huge opening and scrape up whatever you can afterwards while hoping that the international numbers build well. With so many films opening in quick succession, the ability to have any kind of hold – or post-release marketing – diminishes quickly and the films basically start eating themselves at that point. And it gets moviegoers to make hard choices about what to see since as we all know, it’s an expensive venture to go out to the movies, particularly if you’re a family.
| RANK | TITLE | DISTRIBUTOR NAME | WEEKEND REVENUE | CUME REVENUE | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REVENUE | # OF LOCATIONS* | LOC AVG | ||||
| 1 | Maleficent | Disney | $70,000,000 | 3,948 | 17,730 | $70,000,000 |
| 2 | X-Men: Days Of Future Past | 20th Century Fox | $32,600,000 | 4,001 | 8,147 | $162,069,103 |
| 3 | Million Ways To Die In The West, A | Universal | $17,068,990 | 3,158 | 5,405 | $17,068,990 |
| 4 | Godzilla | Warner Bros. | $12,225,000 | 3,501 | 3,491 | $174,656,557 |
| 5 | Blended | Warner Bros. | $8,425,000 | 3,555 | 2,369 | $29,631,536 |
| 6 | Neighbors | Universal | $7,714,875 | 2,939 | 2,625 | $128,600,595 |
| 7 | Amazing Spider-Man 2, The | Sony | $3,775,000 | 2,152 | 1,754 | $192,732,297 |
| 8 | Million Dollar Arm | Disney | $3,700,000 | 2,329 | 1,588 | $28,097,000 |
| 9 | Chef | Open Road | $2,009,000 | 624 | 3,219 | $6,923,883 |
| 10 | Other Woman, The | 20th Century Fox | $1,425,000 | 1,114 | 1,279 | $81,112,148 |
| 11 | Belle | Fox Searchlight | $1,280,000 | 525 | 2,438 | $6,209,933 |
| 12 | Rio 2 | 20th Century Fox | $1,045,000 | 983 | 1,063 | $124,249,504 |
