OPENINGS: HOT PURSUIT (MGM/Warners) is looking for a very small Mother’s Day drop of 15% so that it can reach $13.3M for the weekend. Even if it gets there, that’s a dull number, and Pursuit, which was probably intended by Reese Witherspoon (who also produced) as a box office corrective after her indie stint in Wild last year, may find itself not even matching Wild‘s $37.9M total. Its overseas start was unpromising, with $1.4M in 21 markets.
PITCH PERFECT 2 (Gold Circle/Universal) doesn’t open here until Thursday night, but it’s off to a strong start overseas, with $8.8M in just a few foreign territories.
THE D TRAIN (IFC) received an atypical 1009-theatre opening from the usually very cautious IFC, which appears to have been overtaken by the sheer thrill of having a Jack Black comedy in its line-up. This isn’t School of Rock, though, and the result was a disaster: a per-screen average that didn’t even reach $500 and a $470K weekend total.
HOLDOVERS: AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (Marvel/Disney) behaved like an ordinary blockbuster, falling 60% from its opening weekend to $77.2M, narrowly (by $1.6M) the #2 second weekend of all time. The Avengers dropped only 50% in its own Weekend 2, suggesting that the current $60M spread between the movies will get considerably wider. Overseas, Ultron is starting to tail off with a $68.3M weekend–but China is just around the corner, and that will make next week’s numbers huge again. Currently the mega-franchise entry is at $562.4M overseas and $875M worldwide, but reaching the $1.5B global total of Avengers may be a stretch.
With the combination of Mother’s Day, Ultron‘s decrease and the lack of giant sports events on Saturday, all holdovers are claiming strong holds. THE AGE OF ADALINE (Lionsgate) is reporting a mere 10% drop to $5.6M, and it could end up at a handsome $40M+. FURIOUS 7 (Universal) dipped 21% to $5.3M (after a $19.8M weekend overseas, it’s now at $1.47B worldwide), and PAUL BLART: MALL COP 2 (MGM/Columbia/Sony) fell 12% to $5.2M, aiming at $70M in the US–a tidy sum, if far from the first Blart‘s $146.3M. WOMAN IN GOLD (Weinstein) is actually reporting a 3% increase from last weekend to $1.7M, although it’s still unlikely to get much beyond $30M in the US.
EX MACHINA (A24) expanded once again, by 57% to 2004 theatres, and grew by 52% to $3.5M. It now looks like it could get as high as $25M+, an excellent result for a cerebral thriller with no star power and little gore.
LIMITED RELEASE: FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (Fox Searchlight) expanded to 99 theatres and continues to do OK business with a $7700 per-theatre average. 5 FLIGHTS UP (Focus Intl/Universal) had a decent $2700 average at 87 theatres despite also being available on VOD. MAGGIE (Roadside), also on VOD, had a less impressive $1700 average at 79. WELCOME TO ME (Alchemy), yet another VOD title, expanded to 133 theatres with a $1400 average. IRIS (Magnolia), now in 33 theatres, had a $2600 average. SAINT LAURENT (Sony Classics) had a modest start with a $9K average at 4 NY/LA theatres.
NEXT WEEKEND: Hollywood aims at distinctly different demos with MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (Warners) and the aforementioned Pitch Perfect 2.
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