Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron dropped 59.6% in its second weekend, but still easily topped the box office with a $77.2 million total.  While Ultron’s total is well below the 2012 Avenger’s record-holding total of $103 million, it is still the second best second frame total, trailing only Whedon’s first Avengers film.  The Reese Witherspoon/Sophie Vergara comedy Hot Pursuit, was never expected to beat Age of Ultron, but its $13 million debut was below expectations and didn’t help the overall box office total, which was off 5.3% from the same weekend last year when the raunchy R-rated comedy Neighbors opened with $49 million.

Age of Ultron is clearly not going to catch the original Avengers lofty domestic box office total of $624.4 million, but it may have a chance at the 2012 film’s international total of $1.5 billion.  Age of Ultron currently has earned $562.4 million outside of North America for a worldwide total of $875 million, which already puts it third among all Marvel Studios films, trailing only the 2012 Avengers and Iron Man 3 ($1.2 billion).  By the time Age of Ultron opens in China this week it will be near the $1 billion mark, and given the recent success of blockbusters like Transformers: Age of Extinction ($300 million) and Furious 7 (approaching $400 million) in the Chinese market, Age of Ultron could make up its domestic losses in China, where the first Avengers film made only $86 million.

The question, which will be answered over the next few weeks, is where will Age of Ultron end up on the domestic side?  Ultron’s 59.6% second weekend drop was a bit less than The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (-62%) and a bit more than Iron Man 3 (-58%).  If it plays out like Sony’s last Spider-Man movie, Ultron will end up around $400 million, but if it conforms to Iron Man 3’s path it should end up around $450 million.  Whatever the final domestic total, Age of Ultron is already a huge hit, and likely to become an even bigger one as its international run plays out.

Hot Pursuit, which teams Reese Witherspoon and Sophia Vergara, would appear at first glance to be perfect counterprogramming to the male-targeting summer blockbusters.  Witherspoon does have a strong box office pull, especially in the South, so Hot Pursuit’s $13.3 million was disappointing, the worst showing for a Witherspoon comedy since 2010’s How Do You Know.  With a rating of just 6% positive on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it is clear that the critics almost uniformly hated the film, and opening weekend audiences gave it a lousy "C+" CinemaScore grade.  Females made up 62% of the film’s audience, which was definitely on the older side with 82% over 25 and 46% over 50.  Prospects for Hot Pursuit are limited at best, especially with another female-targeting film Pitch Perfect 2, which did very well this weekend in Australia and New Zealand, opening nationwide next weekend.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): May 8-10, 2015
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Avengers: Age of Ultron	$77,203,000	4,276	$18,055	$312,589,000	2
2	Hot Pursuit	$13,300,000	3,003	$4,429	$13,300,000	1
3	The Age of Adaline	$5,600,000	3,070	$1,824	$31,529,000	3
4	Furious 7	$5,272,000	3,004	$1,755	$338,420,000	6
5	Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2	$5,190,000	3,201	$1,621	$58,075,000	4
6	Ex Machina	$3,470,000	2,004	$1,732	$15,722,000	5
7	Home	$3,000,000	2,495	$1,202	$162,116,000	7
8	Woman in Gold	$1,652,000	1,080	$1,530	$26,978,000	6
9	Cinderella	$1,574,000	1,034	$1,522	$196,166,000	9
10	Unfriended	$1,412,000	1,701	$830	$30,943,000	4

The news for the other "wide release," the Jack Black-starring The D Train, which opened in just over a thousand theaters, was even worse.  The film earned just $469,185, one of the worst openings in history for a film debuting in over 600 theaters.

Lionsgate’s The Age of Adaline, which stars Blake Lively and also targets a largely female audience, is showing some modest “legs.”  It dropped just 9.7% in its third frame as it earned $5.6 million and brought its domestic total to $31.5 million.

The overall declines of the films in the top ten were generally very small, but so were the totals that they generated with Age of Ultron responsible for almost twice as many dollars as the nine other members of the top 10 combined.

Two films that are gaining momentum slowly are Alex Garland’s sci-fi robot saga Ex Machina, which added 725 theaters (bringing its total to 2004) and moved to #6 as it earned $3.5 million, and the Nazi-stolen art drama Woman in Gold, which has earned almost $27 million so far.

But the sad fact is that with so many studios avoiding competing head-to-head with blockbusters like Furious 7 and Age of Ultron there is a dearth of new movies in the top ten, where the totals fall off steeply in slots two through ten.

Be sure to check back here next week when the heavily-hyped Mad Max: Fury Road debuts along with the heavily-anticipated Pitch Perfect 2.