Do you smell what The Rock is cooking? It’s an earth-shaking number one box office opening for his new CGI-filled disaster movie “San Andreas” (his cooking metaphor never really worked in the wrestling world either). While the film was hit with mixed reviews, Dwayne Johnson’s blockbuster took the #1 slot with a big $53 million debut. It’s a milestone for The Rock too, his biggest #1 movie outside of the “Fast And Furious” franchise. The film also scored a strong A- CinemaScore, which bodes well for its continued success, and had a surprisingly strong 51% female audience. 44% of its box-office also came from 3D receipts, which is solid considering how much 3D is on the outs these days. The movie also shook the richter scale internationally, grossing $60 million from 60 markets.
The second biggest new release of the weekend didn’t fare so well though. Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha,” which was roasted by critics, arguably excessively so (read our review, and no, it’s not good, but calm down with the hyperbole), couldn’t crack the top five, nor make more than $10 million in its opening weekend despite being on 2,800 screens. Its lousy B- Cinemascore won’t help despite a terrific cast of Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, and Rachel McAdams. You can almost guarantee that if the Sony leaks didn’t pre-communicate the studios dislike of the film to audience and critics, it would have met a less vicious reception, but coulda, woulda, shoulda. Crowe could use a rethink to his method regardless.
In week two, Disney’s “Tomorrowland” fell 58% to the third spot behind "Pitch Perfect 2," which in week three actually rose one slot to take number two. Universal‘s musical comedy has cracked $225 million worldwide and nearly $150 million at home. Meanwhile, “Tomorrowland" is struggling, currently only at $133 million worldwide.
If you went by critical reception, “Mad Max: Fury Road” would likely be screaming towards $350 million domestically, but the reality is that while critics adored it, and the core demo audience did too, in week three ‘Fury Road’ has only just hit $115 million at home. But in its third week it only fell 44%, which demonstrates a good hold (it should play out long enough to surpass the $150 million mark) and the movie is at $289 million worldwide. At a budgeted cost of $150 million, plus expensive reshoots and promotional campaigns, if Warner Bros. is going to green light a sequel, it probably needs to add at least another $100 million (at least) to its worldwide total to feel good about doing so.
Not a huge smash opening, Fox’s “Poltergeist” plummeted nearly 67% in week two. While it was modestly budgeted, at its current trajectory (only $38 million in week two), it’s probably not going to crack $75 million or make a huge profit. Don’t expect a franchise to launch from this one.
Elsewhere at the box-office, “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” is now at $427 million at home and $1.321 million worldwide, making for the sixth highest grossing film of all time. Meanwhile, “Furious 7” is all of $12.4 million away from passing the original “The Avengers” film as the third highest grossing film ever. Expect the ‘Furious’ film to achieve that mark by next weekend. Fox Searchlight’s “Far From The Madding Crowd” had the best hold of the top 10, dropping only 37.9% in its fifth week. The film is nearing $10 million domestically and $20 million worldwide, so safe to say it’s going to be one of 2015’s biggest indie hits. In theaters for four weeks now, Fox’s “Hot Pursuit” has grossed a paltry $32 million, which is really setting the female buddy comedy back a few years. Dreamworks Animation’s “Home,” meanwhile, is perhaps the 2015 animated hit of the year so far having grossed $170 million domestically and $363 million worldwide; just what the ailing studio needed. But overall, it was a weak box office to end May, down almost 20% from the last two years.
In limited release, most new films struggled to hit the minimum $10K PSA, which marks a decent sized indie hit. RadiusTWC‘s "Heaven Knows What" fared OK, scoring $15k from two screens for a $7,500 per screen average. A24’s “Ex Machina” is outside the top 10 now, but is also the studio’s highest grossing film to date both domestically and globally. Also on VOD, Magnolia‘s "Results" scored a not so great $19,000 from 3 theaters for a PSA of $6,330, but the movie is also available on VOD and might be making up its numbers there.
1. San Andreas — $53,215,000
2. Pitch Perfect 2 — $14,381,000 ($147,540,000)
3. Tomorrowland — $13,803,000 ($63,188,000)
4. Mad Max: Fury Road — $13,625,000 ($115,915,000)
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron — $10,920,000 ($427,070,000)
6. Aloha — $10,000,000
7. Poltergeist — $7,800,000 ($38,267,000)
8. Far from the Madding Crowd — $1,420,000 ($8,362,000)
9. Hot Pursuit — $1,370,000 ($32,351,000)
10. Home — $1,150,000 ($170,409,000)