PITCH PERFECT 2 (Gold Circle/Universal) is shaping up as one of the best investments of the summer season, with an opening day estimated by Deadline at $27M (including $4.6M from Thursday night)–almost equal to its entire production cost. Pitch 2 may be frontloaded, as movies aimed at young women often are, but even so, it has a chance of beating the entire $65M US gross of the first Pitch Perfect in just 3 days, and should follow that movie’s bonanza in home viewing and music download success.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (Village Roadshow/Warners) is the other side of that coin, with a production cost that’s been pegged at $150-200M (which means $300M+ with worldwide marketing included), and an opening day that feels low at $17M (including $3.7M from Thursday night). It may not get past $45M for the weekend, and at that pricetag, will become the latest action spectacle to require huge overseas success to find its profits.
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (Marvel/Disney) fell 50% from last Friday to $10.5M, on its way to a $35M weekend that would be down 35% from the 3d weekend of the original Avengers. As of Friday, Ultron was running nearly $70M below Avengers at the same point in their runs, and that distance will widen. The important Ultron number, however, will be coming from far away: its opening China results, after a Tuesday opening there.
HOT PURSUIT (MGM/Warners) wanted a Mother’s Day weekend opening and the price it paid for that was a 2d weekend straight in the path of Pitch Perfect 2, which is engulfing ts female audience. Pursuit plunged 60% from last week’s opening day to $1.6M on Friday, and without a holiday on Sunday, it may stay at nearly that rate all weekend for $6M, a dismal result.
Nothing else made more than $1M on Friday, and THE AGE OF ADALINE (Lionsgate), PAUL BLART: MALL COP 2 (MGM/Columbia/Sony) and FURIOUS 7 (Universal) will all be facing weekends in the neighborhood of $4M. EX MACHINA (A24) held extremely well, down just 17% Friday-to-Friday despite losing more than 10% of its theatres, and should be close to $2M for the weekend.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (Fox Searchlight) expanded to 289 theatres, nearly tripling its run, and went up around 75% from last Friday for a likely $1.3M weekend, giving a so-so $4500 per-theatre average.
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