Two other newcomers, the comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and the horror film Unfriended, opened slightly better than expectations, but the box office was still down 10% from the same weekend last year—though that has to be seen as something of victory considering the fact that Captain America: The Winter Soldier debuted with $95 million on this weekend a year ago, while there was no blockbuster debut this past weekend.
Furious 7 dropped just 51% as it brought its domestic total to $294.4 million, and with ten days before Avengers: Age of Ultron debuts here in the states, Furious 7 has a solid shot at earning more than $350 million here, though it is now trailing the performance of some major blockbusters like The Hunger Games in the domestic market. Furious 7 is “killing it” in China where it has earned $250 million in just eight days, making it the second highest grossing film ever in the Chinese market, trailing only Transformers: Age of Extinction’s record $320 million. Furious 7 could easily surpass Transformers’ record in what is now the second biggest movie-going market in the world.
The top new film of the weekend at the box office was Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, which took in an estimated $24 million versus $31 million for the original Kevin James rent-a-cop comedy. The first Paul Blart film, which opened in 2009, was a leggy hit that ended up with $146 million in the domestic market, but there is no chance that the sequel, which received a rare “0% positive” rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and a lousy “B-“ CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences, gets even near that neighborhood. The Paul Blart sequel will likely end up with just under half the earnings of its predecessor, but given the film’s modest budget, it will make money.
Speaking of modest budgets, the “found footage” horror film Unfriended brought in an estimated $16 million, the biggest debut for an original horror film since The Conjuring in July of 2013. While this critic finds most “found footage” films absolutely wretched, it must be said that Unfriended’s social media theme works very well in that format, and the film got a 65% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a very good mark for any sort of horror film. Audiences however were less impressed given the movie a lousy “C” CinemaScore, which could cloud its prospects. But since Universal picked up the movie for $1 million, it is already well in the black. Given its social media theme, it is not surprising that women made up 60% of the film’s audience, which both very young (74% under 25) and quite diverse (40% Hispanic, 32% Caucasian, 12% African American, and 9% Asian).
Dreamworks animated feature Home, Fox’s Nicholas Sparks’ romance The Longest Ride, and the Kevin Hart/Will Ferrell comedy Get Hard, all had modest declines from modest totals. Home looks like it will end up with a domestic total close to that of The Croods, while the jury is out on The Longest Ride, and Get Hard is still creeping towards that $80 million mark, which it should cross next weekend.
Three other new films debuted rather disappointingly. The Disney nature film Monkey Business earned just $4.7 million, but could pick up steam this week with special Earth Day promos. Fox Searchlight’s True Story, which stars James Franco, bowed at #11 with just $1.9 million from 831 theaters, while the Tom Hardy-starring Child 44 earned a pitiful $600K from 510 venues.
Alex Garland’s excellent robot movie Ex Machina expanded to 39 theaters and brought it $814K and should expand further next weekend.
Be sure to check back here next week for news on Avengers: The Age Ultron’s international debut, as well as on the domestic bows of the World War II drama Little Boy and the Blake Lively-starring romance The Age of Adaline.
