In last week’s box office report – you know, the weekend where Universal’s Furious 7 dominated – I ended the report by indicating that the car-action franchise would finish its second weekend with at least $55 million. Looks like I wasn’t far off with my prediction as Vin Diesel and company remain #1 at the box office with an estimated domestic haul of $60.5 million. Having already recorded all-time records for a film opening in April plus on Easter weekend, its performance for a second weekend nearly cracked the top 10 all-time. In terms of numbers and slotting, Furious 7 has the twelfth-best second weekend, between Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises ($62.1 million) and Toy Story 3 ($59.3 million).
Worldwide, the seventh entry in the Fast & Furious franchise is firing on all cylinders. It has earned $548 million internationally to bring its ten-day total to $800.5 million. Not bad for a series that started as “Point Break with cars” to become “Rio Heist” and now it is somewhere in Mission: Impossible territory with the IMF replaced by Dom’s “family”.
That was the big story for the weekend. In other news, Nicholas Sparks romance adaptations are wearing thin. The Longest Ride was savaged by critics but it did received an ‘A’ CinemaScore from audiences. Yet debuting on 3,366 screens and finishing in third place with $13.5 million – behind the animated Home ($19 million) – is not a strong opening. This is less than a year after the Sparks adaptation The Best of Me opened at $10 million. Not playing into the film’s success is the unproven talents of Scott Eastwood (yep, one of Clint’s siblings) and Britt Robertson, who will be co-starring in Brad Bird’s Tommorowland this summer with George Clooney. Though this could very well be a slow start for a Sparks adaptation. After all, in June 2004, The Notebook opened with $13.4 million and was one of the sleeper hits of that summer and ultimately grossed a little more than $81 million in the US, making it the most successful Nicholas Sparks adaptation to date.
Disney’s live-action Cinderella continues to perform well both home and abroad. In five weeks it has made $410 million worldwide. The second chapter in the Divergent saga, Insurgent, is having a rocky performance. With production costs estimated at $110 million, $114.8 million in domestic earnings is worrisome. But Lionsgate is already committed to finishing the franchise, again following the Harry Potter/Twilight/Hunger Games formula by making two films out of the last installment.
The independent scene dominates the bottom half of the top 10. The Weinstein Company expanded the release of Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds by more than 1100 screens. It finished the weekend with $5.8 million to bring its two week total to $9.3 million. Radius TWC’s horror release, It Follows, had the lowest drop in attendance with 19.4%. Playing on 1,633 screens has helped the movie, which was originally to have been strictly a VOD release, be one of the best independent success stories of 2015. Over five weeks it has made an estimated $11.8 million. The Al Pacino-starring Danny Collins expanded from 83 to 739 screens and as a result saw its audience increase by 360%. The musical drama earned $1.6 million. Finally, the Noah Bumbach comedy While We’re Young starring Ben Stiller expanded from 34 to 246 screens and made $1.3 million.
In NY/LA both Ex Machina and Clouds of Sils Maria opened. Alex Garland’s sci-fi film recorded an impressive $62.5k per-screen average at four locations, while IFC’s drama starring Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart made $70k at three locations.
On tap for the weekend is the latest Disneynature documentary Monkey Kingdom (narrated by Tina Fey), Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Skype horror movie Unfriended and Child 44 starring Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman (but only on 500 screens? WTF?). When the original Paul Blart opened in January 2009 it had an impressive $31 million debut. The sequel could very well have an opening near that amount. I’m going to predict Paul Blart 2 as the new #1, followed by Furious 7, then Unfriended.
Full Top 10 below.
01. Furious 7 – $60,591,000 ($252,522,000)
02. Home – $19,000,000 ($129,554,000)
03. The Longest Ride – $13,500,000
04. Get Hard – $8,635,000 ($71,201,000)
05. Cinderella – $7,225,000 ($180,773,000)
06. The Divergent Series: Insurgent – $6,850,000 ($114,848,000)
07. Woman in Gold – $5,852,000 ($9,303,000)
08. It Follows – $2,027,000 ($11,798,000)
09. Danny Collins – $1,600,000 ($2,497,000)
10. While We’re Young – $1,377,000 ($2,355,000)
