On the last calm weekend before the start of the always turbulent summer movie season, the underserved older female audience showed up at theaters to enjoy the male-bashing revenge comedy The Other Woman, which earned an estimated $24.7 million and succeeded in knocking Captain America: The Winter Soldier out of the top spot that it had dominated for three straight weeks. Two other newcomers made only modest bows, but strong performances from holdovers (other than last week’s bombs, Transcendence and A Haunted House 2) powered the total of the top 12 films to another substantial 23.9% improvement over the same frame last year when Pain and Gain debuted with $20.2 million.So far the box office is running way ahead of last year’s record total, but that may be about to change with the "official" start of the summer season next weekend. This year’s summer lineup appears at first glance to be weaker than 2013’s, but time will tell.
Meanwhile overseas, Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opened in a number of markets including Russia, Italy, South Korea, and Japan earned $67 million and bring its global total to $132 million. Next week ASM 2 kicks off the summer movie season here in the states and opens in 29 other markets including China, India, and France.
The Other Woman, which stars Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, and Kate Upton as jilted women bent on getting revenge on the snake who dumped them (GOT’s Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), struck a chord with older women. Women made up a full 75% of the opening weekend audience, and 65% of the debut crowd for the PG-13 comedy was over 25.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier slipped just 37.3% in its fourth weekend as it earned $16 million, bringing its domestic total to $224.89, making it the highest-grossing April release of all time. Worldwide, Winter Soldier has now earned $645.2 million, which means it has now surpassed Iron Man 2 ($624 million), and Thor: The Dark World ($644.8 million). It appears that Winter Soldier has a great chance to catch Man of Steel ($668 million), which means that that it would only trail Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy (from Sony), Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3, and The Avengers on the all-time superhero films’ box office chart.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): April 25-27, 2014 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | The Other Woman | $24,700,000 | 3,205 | $7,707 | $24,700,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | $16,048,000 | 3,620 | $4,433 | $224,888,000 | 4 |
| 3 | Heaven is for Real | $13,800,000 | 2,705 | $5,102 | $51,911,000 | 2 |
| 4 | Rio 2 | $13,650,000 | 3,703 | $3,686 | $96,158,000 | 3 |
| 5 | Brick Mansions | $9,600,000 | 2,647 | $3,627 | $9,600,000 | 1 |
| 6 | Transcendence | $4,105,000 | 3,455 | $1,188 | $18,472,000 | 2 |
| 7 | The Quiet Ones | $4,000,000 | 2,027 | $1,973 | $4,000,000 | 1 |
| 8 | Bears | $3,606,000 | 1,720 | $2,097 | $11,153,000 | 2 |
| 9 | Divergent | $3,600,000 | 2,066 | $1,742 | $139,463,000 | 6 |
| 10 | A Haunted House 2 | $3,265,000 | 2,310 | $1,413 | $14,246,000 | 2 |
The Christian-themed Heaven Is for Real, which actually came in at #2 last week when the final tally was in, continues its strong box office showing, even after the Easter weekend has come and gone. Dropping just 38.7%, Heaven for Real earned $13.8 million and brought its domestic total to $52 million, not bad for a movie that cost just $12 million. This film’s success is going breed imitators who are going to want to tap into the underserved audience for religious films.
Fox’s Rio 2 continues to underwhelm on the domestic front as earned $13.6 million during its third weekend of release, bringing its domestic total to $96.2 million. Rio 2, which cost over $100 million to produce, will cross the $100 million mark domestically this week, but it remains behind it predecessor, and it needed a strong performance overseas to make its way to "hit" status. Fortunately for Fox, Rio 2 has earned 72% of its worldwide total of $344 million overseas.
Brick Mansions, which was filmed in the ruins of Detroit, was a labor of love for the late Paul Walker, the actor who died in an auto crash while on hiatus from filming Fast & Furious 7. The parkour-filled Brick Mansions, which is a remake of the French film Banlieue 13 (literally "suburb #13"---in France, unlike the U.S., poverty is more often found in the suburbs than in the inner cities). Brick Mansions’ $9.6 million debut has to be seen as a disappointment, but opening weekend audiences gave the film a "B+" CinemaScore, which provides some hope that the modestly-budgeted film ($28 million) might make it into the black.
Actually making money must seem like just a faint hope for Transcendence, the Johnny Depp-starring science fiction original directed by cinematographer-turned-director Wally Pfister. The Warner Bros. film dropped a steep 62.5% in its second weekend, earning just $4.1 million and bringing its domestic total to just $18.5 million. The big problem is that Transcendence isn’t doing much better overseas. So far the film, which cost at least $100 million to produce, has just earned $51. 6 million worldwide.
In spite of a dearth of horror movies in the theaters (Oculus slipped to #15 in its third frame), The Quiet Ones lived up to its name with a modest $4 million debut in over 2000 theaters. If The Quiet Ones doesn’t manage to generate great word of mouth, and it’s "C+" CinemaScore does bode well in that department, its stay in the top ten will be extremely brief.
Disney’s nature documentary Bears debuted poorly last weekend, but dropped just 25% in its second weekend as it earned $3.6 million and brought its domestic total to $11.2 million.
