Box office analysts felt that Joss Whedon’s Age of Ultron would have enough left in its third weekend to grab enough of a share of the male audience to keep Mad Max: Fury Road from topping the female-targeting musical Pitch Perfect 2, and they were right, at least in predicting the outcome.  George Miller’s fourth Mad Max film did well, earning $44 million in its first weekend, which is more than the third installment in the franchise did in its entire run, but Age of Ultron brought in $38 million, which definitely helped Pitch Perfect 2, though the latter did so well, earning an estimated $70.3 million, that it is extremely doubtful that Fury Road would have prevailed even if Age of Ultron had mysteriously disappeared from theaters.

With three films over $30 million on the same weekend for the first time since the last weekend of 2014, the total of the top 12 films was up 4.4% from a strong weekend a year ago when Godzilla roared into theaters with $93.2 million.

Pitch Perfect 2 pulled an “Austin Powers” by earning more as a sequel in its first weekend than its predecessor earned in its entire domestic box office run ($65 million).  Produced for just $29 million, Pitch Perfect 2 is already in the black after posting the best opening ever (not adjusted for inflation) for a musical film.  Unless the film is totally front-loaded, Pitch Perfect 2 stands a good chance of outdistancing such musicals as Grease ($188 million), Chicago ($170 million), and Les Miz ($148 million).  Pitch Perfect 2 averaged a stellar $20,342 per venue compared with $12,004 for Fury Road and $9,083 for Age of Ultron.

There is little doubt as to which demographic group made Pitch Perfect 2 a hit—females made up 75% of the opening weekend audience, which also skewed young with 65% under 25, and gave the film a solid “A-“ CinemaScore.  Caucasians made up 61% of the crowd, with Hispanics at 18%, African Americans 9%, and Asians at 7%.  Pitch Perfect 2 managed the second-biggest opening ever for a film directed by woman (and the best ever for a first time director of any gender) trailing only Fifty Shades of Grey ($85 million).  Given the smashing opening of Pitch Perfect 2, Marvel might want to consider hiring director Elizabeth Banks to helm one of its distaff superhero epics.

George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t come close to matching Pitch Perfect 2, but it still posted a most impressive weekend.  With a stellar 99% positive rating from the critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, some thought the fourth Mad Max film would soar above its $40 million tracking number, but reviews, positive or negative, don’t appear to have that much effect on action film blockbusters.  Reviews and word-of-mouth may matter more in subsequent weeks, and their collective effect might become apparent if Fury Road continues to do well through the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

In spite of the fact that Mad Max: Fury Road strikes a huge blow for gender parity in action films thanks to the performance of Charlize Theron, who is really more of the lead than Tom Hardy’s Mad Max character, the audience for the film was 70% male.  Perhaps Warner Bros. should have picked another weekend, when Fury Road wasn’t going up against a female film-magnet like Pitch Perfect 2, but it is hard to argue against Fury Road’s solid opening, which was better than the lifetime theatrical earnings of any of the previous 3 Mad Max films (the bloated third film in the series, Beyond Thunderdome ended up with $36.2 million in 1985, which translates to $82 million in today’s ticket prices).

For a property that hadn’t been seen on screens for thirty years, Mad Max: Fury Road understandably played a bit older than the typical blockbuster with just 46% of the crowd under 35, but considering its “R” rating and the age of the property, Fury Road definitely made some converts among young action movie fans.  Miller’s orchestrating of outstanding stunt work and his subtle use of CGI in the service of relatively realistic-looking action set-pieces didn’t come cheap—Fury Road cost $150 million to produce—but it appears that contemporary audiences have responded to the Australian director’s gritty action epic in a big way.  The first three Mad Max films were cult hits, but Fury Road has expanded the franchise into an international blockbuster that will earn multiples of what the first three films in the franchise managed.

Meanwhile Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide grosses on Friday.  Age of Ultron earned $156.3 million during its first weekend in China, the second highest debut in Chinese box office history, and foreign earnings will be key if the film is to come close to the $1.5 billion earned by its predecessor.  On the domestic front Age of Ultron fell 50% in its third weekend, not a bad showing in the face of direct competition from Mad Max: Fury Road.  With a domestic total of $372 million, Age of Ultron has soared past Furious 7 and is poised to become the first 2015 film to pass $400 million in the domestic market by next weekend.

The rest of the top ten posted very weak numbers.  The Reese Witherspoon / Sophie Vergara comedy Hot Pursuit dropped 59% in its second frame and earned just $5.8 million.  No other film in the top ten earned more than $3.6 million.  The arty sci-fi film Ex Machina earned $2.1 million as it struggles toward a domestic cumulative of $20 million, while the literary adaptation Far From the Madding Crowd, which stars Carrie Mulligan, added 190 screens to bring its total up to 289 and earned $1.3 million with a middling per-venue average of $4,498.

Be sure to check back here next week when Disney debuts Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, which stars George Clooney, and Fox unveils a remake of the 1982 horror film Poltergeist.