It wasn’t a great Saturday for either of the weekend’s big openings. According to preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere, 22 JUMP STREET (Sony/Columbia) fell more than 25% from Friday to around $19M. That’s a much heavier Day 2 drop than Neighbors (9%) or Ted (13%), and could pull its weekend down as low as $57M, although Sunday should be a fairly strong day due to Father’s Day (last year, This Is the End fell only 18% on that day), and $60M is still possible. That’s still enough to make 22 the biggest comedy opening of the year so far, just not quite as strong as opening day had suggested. It’s yet another lesson that movies are more front-loaded these days than ever, even when, like 22 Jump Street, they have the kind of rave reviews that would seem to imply strong word of mouth.
The news wasn’t any better for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (DreamWorks Animation/20th), which fell 8-9% on Saturday to about $17M. It now looks like a $50M weekend is its limit, and it’ll only get that high because of Father’s Day (last year, Epic slipped just 7% on that day). A Day 2 drop for a high-profile animated sequel isn’t unusual (Monsters University fell by 6%, Cars 2 by 9% and Toy Story 3 by 10%, although Madagascar 3 climbed 9%, and Rio 2 flew up by 29%), but it’s still a disappointment for a studio that was hoping for a big leap from the first Dragon‘s $43.7M opening weekend. The big question with Dragon 2 is how the typical sequel pattern of a fast burn-off will interact with this summer’s lack of competing cartoons.
MALEFICENT (Disney) had a $7M Saturday, up 21% from Friday (last week’s Saturday bump was 32%), giving it a likely $19M weekend. THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (20th) dropped about 10% from Friday to $5.6M, as it continues to quickly run out of steam. It’s less likely to benefit from Father’s Day, and may have a $16-17M weekend. On Saturday, EDGE OF TOMORROW (Warners) gained about 25% to $5.9M, and as it should get a fair number of dads on Sunday, it might hit $15M for the weekend–still nowhere near where the hugely expensive spectacle needed to be.
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