To see our other box office top 10 breakdowns please go here.
So, here’s what happened this weekend at the domestic box office: The Fault in Our Stars and Maleficent gave women something to geek out over, combing for dang near $82 million in combined domestic gross. This meant that even though his movie is apparently 10 kinds of awesome Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow was overshadowed by carryover business for an Angelina Jolie film and the combined might of teenage girls embracing the catharsis of watching Shailene Woodley find the Fault in Our Stars. Let’s break it down:
Top 10 Estimated Domestic Totals (6/6-6/8)
1. The Fault in Our Stars (Opening Weekend)
- Opening Weekend Gross=$48.2 million
- Budget=$12 million
Foreign: $17 million from 17 markets, including Brazil, Australia, and Mexico. Outside of Jamaica, it beat Edge of Tomorrow in every market, making a $65.2 million worldwide debut.
With more attention being given to box office totals than ever before, there is an argument to be made about whether or not studios habitually under-report how much they expect a film to make during its opening weekend so that whatever total they actually reach can seem all that more impressive when it happens. Case in point, earlier this week it was widely reported that The Fault in Our Stars had set a new record for advanced ticket sales for a romantic drama/comedy in Fandango’s 15-year-history, besting the Channing Tatum/Rachel McAdams hit The Vow, which bowed with $42 million over Valentine’s Day weekend two years ago. Logically, wouldn’t you then expect Fault in Our Stars to be on pace for an even bigger opening than The Vow? Nope. Instead, the studio aired on the extremely conservative side, placing their ceiling in the low $30 million range.
Shouldn’t we be all the more impressed, then, since Fault in Our Stars blew that out of the water by debuting with $48.2 million? However, there was reason for the studio to not get their hopes too high. Those advanced ticket sales guaranteed them a huge Friday, which they got to the tune of $26 million. That right there was probably enough to put them into profit considering their $12 million budget. So, who cares that 54% of the total weekend gross came from Friday alone, making this one of the most front-loaded Hollywood opening weekends since 1982, joining the similarly teenage-girl skewering Hannah Montana: The Movie and Twilight films? What nobody quite agreed on was how well Fault in Our Stars would actually do if it only reached the young, mostly teenage girl market, failing to attract older female viewers.
Well, here’s the opening weekend demographic splits from THR:
Females made up roughly 82% of Fault‘s audience, an even bigger percentage than the first Twilight (75%), and 79% of the audience was under the age of 25, an almost unheard of ratio (that compares to 55% for the first Twilight).
They mostly played to teenage girls, and it worked out beautifully for them. Plus, if you are a male and over the age of 25, and you went to see Fault in Our Stars this weekend you are among a very, very rare breed.
2. Maleficent
- Weekend Gross=$33.5 million
- Total Gross to Date=$127.3 million
- Budget=$175 million
Foreign: $59.7 million from 52 markets for a new international gross of $208.1 million and 10-day worldwide total of $335.4 million. Maleficent has yet to open in China and Japan.
Declining just 52%, Maleficent just posted what is easily the best second-weekend hold of the summer’s big blockbusters, among which Godzilla’s 67% drop remains the worst and Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s 57% had been the best. It’s a good thing, too, because Maleficient‘s $175 million budget meant it couldn’t merely coast on its $69 million opening weekend. Heck, even after this strong second weekend Disney is most likely still in the red on this thing. Of course, with openings in China and Japan still on the way that won’t last much longer.
It’s still pacing behind prior revisionist fairy tale films Alice in Wonderland and Oz The Great and Powerful, whose 10-day totals stood at $209 and $144 million (vs. Maleficient’s $127 million) respectively. However, both of those also cost at least $200 million to make.
3. The Edge of Tomorrow (Opening Weekend)
- Opening Weekend Gross=$29.1 million
- Budget=$178 million
Foreign: $82 million from 64 markets for a new international gross of $111 million and 10-day worldwide total of $140 million
A sub-$30 million opening for a movie which cost $178 million to make simply is not good enough, keeping in mind that Maleficent carries the almost exact same budget and scored a $69 million debut last weekend. As a further point of comparison, Tom Cruise’s most recent sci-fi flick, Oblivion, cost $120 million to make, and opened with $37 million but petered out after that, ending with a domestic total of just $89 million. That was for a movie which opened in mid-April against far lighter competition whereas Edge of Tomorrow is just the latest action blockbuster this summer, and Transformers: Age of Extinction is juar around the corner.
The vexing thing is that Edge of Tomorrow is the best dang Tom Cruise film in years. You can sense the frustration from Warner Bros.’ executive vice president of distribution Jeff Goldstein, “We have a movie that has incredible reviews, including an 89 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. We have an audience that likes what it sees, and we believe more moviegoers will embrace it in the weeks to come. It’s tough when you have a new concept.”
The lesson is simply that reports of America’s love affair with Tom Cruise having been re-kindled after Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol were greatly exaggerated. Since Ghost Protocol, he’s released 3 domestic disappointments 3 years in a row: Jack Reacher, Oblivion, and now Edge of Tomorrow. However, while we may be cool on the man with the oddly wide smile and laugh which seems to never stop, he remains huge in Asia, Edge of Tomorrow scoring $25 million from China alone. Oblivion ultimately ended up with a healthy foreign gross of $197 million, which Edge of Tomorrow will likely top.
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past
- Weekend Gross=$14.7 million
- Total Gross to Date=$189.1 million
- Budget=$210-240 million
Foreign: $42 million from 74 markets, upping its total foreign gross to $420.5 million and worldwide gross to $609 million
Pretty much everything for Days of Future Past‘s box office numbers comes with the following caveat, “Yeah, but is that good enough considering its exorbitant budget?” It is the now the highest worldwide-grossing X-Men film ever, well ahead of The Last Stand‘s $459 million. However, when a studio spends somwhere near $250 million to make a movie they usually do so because it’s either a very troubled production or they have hopes of joining the $1 billion worldwide gross club. Days of Future Past is not going to do that.
Basically, it comes down to this: do you think Fox was aiming for Avengers-level success by combining the casts of First Class and the original trilogy in Days of Future Past? Or do you think they were simply trying to stop the bleeding after the disappointing domestic performances of Origins: Wolverine, First Class, and The Wolverine? If it’s the former, then it must be surprising that even with 3D/IMAX prices Days of Future Past’s totals are not higher, but if it’s the former then mission accomplished. Days of Future Past has effectively returned the X-Men film franchise to domestic totals it hasn’t seen since 2006, and foreign totals it has never before approached.
5. A Million Ways to Die in the West
- Weekend Gross=$7.1 million
- Total Gross to Date=$30 million
- Budget=$40 million
Foreign: Currently, it has an international gross of $10.3 million for a worldwide total of $40.3 million.
Universal stroked Seth MacFarlane’s ego after the monster success of Ted by giving him $40 million to go make a comedy western in which both Charlize Theron and Amanda Seyfriend eventually swoon over his character. Why not? Ted was an astonishing worldwide hit to the tune of $549 million, $218 million domestic. However, maybe he should have just rushed a Ted sequel instead. Not even MacFarlane can turn a western into a hit, the meager biz of A Million Ways to Die in the West following recent disappointing takes for westerns like Lone Ranger and Cowboys Vs. Aliens.
6. Godzilla
- Weekend Gross=$5.9 million
- Total Gross to Date=$185 million
- Budget=$160 million
Foreign: Currently, it has an international gross of $208.7 million for a worldwide total of $393.7 million.
Remember last year when the disaster flick World War Z defied odds with its big opening, but ultimately required a theatrical re-release weeks after it had been pulled from theaters to get over the $200 million threshold? Remember how they were so ecstatic early on that they let it be known a sequel was in the works? When is the last time we heard anything about that sequel? Could we be looking at something similar with that Godzilla sequel Legendary announced was in works after that big opening weekend?
Why? Because after its $93.1 million opening Godzilla is quite possibly going to fail to reach $200 million domestic. Either way, nearly half of its total domestic gross will have come from its first 3 days. Last year, WWZ built its audience better than that, its opening weekend only accounting for 33% of its total domestic gross. Plus, there’s the whole deal where after you adjust for ticket price inflation this Godzilla is actually trailing behind the 1998 Godzilla, which would have had just slightly over $200 million at the same point in its run that the current Godzilla is in.
7. Neighbors
- Weekend Gross=$5.2 million
- Total Gross to Date=$137 million
- Budget=$18 million
Foreign: Currently, it has an international gross of $79.3 million for a worldwide total of $217.1 million.
In actual dollars, Neighbors is now the third-highest domestic grossing “college” movie of all time, trailing Animal House ($141 million), which it will soon pass, and Monsters University ($268 million).
8. Blended
- Weekend Gross=$4 million
- Total Gross to Date=$36.5 million
- Budget=$40 million
Foreign: $2.1 million for a worldwide gross of $38.6 million
Blended is now guaranteed to make more domestically than Sandler’s most recent flop That’s My Boy, which topped out at $36.9 million. Initially, Blended was putting up identical numbers, but has actually held slightly better, emphasis on the slightly.
9. Chef
Sue me – I’m using a picture from of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man films instead of Chef because I love Iron Man
- Weekend Gross=$2.6 million
- Total Gross to Date=$10.3 million
- Budget=They’re not telling
Foreign: No official foreign box office information yet.
Chef, a passion project for Iron Man director Jon Favreau, expanded nationwide this weekend. It seems like the classic case of an admirable palette cleanser which does reasonably well for itself while reminding us of why we liked someone (in this case Favreau) to begin with thus helping us forget a recent failure (Cowboys Vs. Aliens).
10. A Million Dollar Arm
- Weekend Gross=$1.8 million
- Total Gross to Date=$31.3 million
- Budget=$25 million
Foreign: Less than $1 million in foreign gross from very, very limited release.
Among recent baseball movies A Million Dollar Arm has performed most comparably (and almost identically) to Trouble with the Curve, and will now end with a higher domestic gross than Curve’s $32 million, albeit just barely.
What Happened Outside of the Top 10?
Who Fell Out of the Top 10?: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (#7 to #?) and The Other Woman (#10 to #13). As of this writing, it does not appear as if ASM2‘s weekend totals have been reported yet meaning once the actual totals come out it’s possible it will have actually finished somewhere near the bottom of the top 10.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com
What’s Up Next?: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill head to college in 22 Jump Street while the latest animated sequel comes along to distract the kiddies with How to Train Your Dragon 2. Both are expected to do big business, and they each open Friday (6/13).
