The Age of Ultron, which opens here next week, is currently running about 44% above the level of the first Avengers film, and is expected to do much of its damage overseas. The Age of Ultron doesn’t open in China until May 12 and won’t debut in Japan until July, so the film’s final tally won’t be known until the end of the summer season.
China is where Furious 7 has really been crushing it with a record $323 million gross (remember that Universal only gets 25 cents of the ticket dollars in China versus 50% of the dollars from the domestic market), that eclipsed Transformers: Age of Extinction’s previous record of $319 million. So far Furious 7 has earned $320 million in North America, but also a billion from overseas territories for a grand total of $1.3 billion, which puts the film at #5 on the all-time list of box office champs (not adjusted for inflation). Only James Cameron’s Titantic and Avatar have earned more money outside of North America than Furious 7, and while Furious 7’s domestic box office run is nearly over now, it has established by domestic and foreign sales marks that will be difficult for other even higher profile 2015 releases to match.
Second place this week went to the much maligned Kevin James comedy sequel Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, which dropped just 35% and earned $15.5 million, bringing its total to $44 million. While this PG-rated sequel is no hit, it is doing better than might be expected for a film that couldn’t manage to scrounge up a single “positive” review on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes site. Comedies, horror films, and action pictures remain the categories where the divide between the critics and the movie-going audience remains the largest. Good reviews can help (see Furious 7), but bad notices are not necessarily the kiss of death for genre films.
The “female Dorian Gray” saga The Age of Adaline, which stars Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively as a woman who does not age, managed to sneak into third place with a total of $13.4 million. With a cost of just $30 million, this “romantic” film, which was backed by a very modest ad campaign, is a good example of summer “counter-programming.” While it is off to an OK start, it will need to hang around theaters for quite some time to make it into the black.
Fourth place went to Dreamworks Animation’s Home, which added $8.3 million as it brought its domestic total to $154 million, while Universal’s micro-budgeted horror film Unfriended continued to rake in the coin, adding $6.2 million to bring its domestic total to $25.2 million (versus a cost of $1 million).
The most exciting film in the top ten this week is Alex Garland’s sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, which expanded from 39 sites to 1,255 theaters as it earned $5.4 million. Aided by some provocative TV ads, Ex Machina already has the chattering classes excited, and would appear to have an outside chance at becoming a sort of District 13 sci-fi hit that attracts both serious moviegoers and enough mainstream genre movie fans to insure success.
Things did not go as well for Little Boy, the faith-based World War II homefront drama that reaped just $2.8 million from 1,045 locations and debuted in 13th place. Last year Hollywood managed to score some solid box office successes with modestly-budgeted, religiously-themed films, but the going has been a lot tougher in 2015.
Be sure to check back here next week to see how Whedon’s Avengers: The Age of Ultron fares on the domestic front where expectations are sky high for another record-setting weekend.
