Box Office Report

It’s easy to win when you don’t have any to compete against. It’s easier when you have a Hulk. “Avengers: Age of Ultron” stayed in the number one spot without any problems at all over the weekend and will most likely stay fairly high up next weekend. With a 60% fall they kept pretty much in step with “The Avengers” and is closing in on $900 million worldwide with the Chinese market yet to open. 

“Hot Pursuit” opened Friday to a very small $13 million. Reese Witherspoon hasn’t had a movie in 4 years and this wasn’t a great start. Her and co-star Sofia Vergara can expect to drop out of the top 5 next weekend. 

Next weekend will see “Pitch Perfect 2” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.” There is a lot of buzz around both. Fury Road because it’s George Miller making an installment of his franchise that looks just batshit crazy awesome and it could do very well. “Pitch Perfect 2” also has good reviews and could be a surprise hit just like the original. 

 

TW   Title Studio Weekend Gross % Change     Total Gross   Week #
1   Avengers: Age of Ultron BV $77,203,000 -59.6%       $312,589,000   2
2   Hot Pursuit WB $13,300,000       $13,300,000   1
3   The Age of Adaline LGF $5,600,000 -9.7%       $31,529,000   3
4   Furious 7 Uni. $5,272,000 -20.7%       $338,420,000   6
5   Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Sony $5,190,000 -11.7%       $58,075,000   4

 

A quick note on budgets and dollar figures:
Films making back their budgets is a good sign, but that is just the money to film. It doesn’t include distribution and marketing. Marketing can cost as much as a film. That big Superbowl spot is spendy. So take that into account when judging a film’s success. Hitting $100 million isn’t the same as it once was.

All dollar amounts in the top 5 come from estimates based on ticket sales unless noted otherwise. Occasionally this article will be published when actual results come out, which is usually late Monday afternoon. For more about this and other ins and outs of movie tracking click here.