“Mad Max” Gets Pitch-Slapped at Weekend Box Office

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

 

BOX OFFICE REPORT 

May 15-17, 2015(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. Pitch Perfect 2 (70.3 million)2. Mad Max: Fury Road ($44.4 million)3. Avengers: Age of Ultron ($38.8 million)4. Hot Pursuit ($5.7 million)5. Paul Blart 2 ($3.6 million)

The competition got pitch-slapped. The Barden Bellas sang their way into the top spot with a commanding performance. Pitch Perfect 2 made an astounding $70.3 million in its first weekend. That's more than the first one made during its entire run. It's also the third-biggest opening ever for a live-action comedy (behind fellow sequels The Hangover Part II and Austin Powers in Goldmember). It's also the second-biggest opening ever for a live-action movie directed by a woman, trailing only Fifty Shades of Grey.

Mad Max: Fury Road also delivered an impressive opening for a dormant franchise. $44.4 million isn't a record by any means, but it's more than any of the previous Mad Max films made in the U.S. (Granted, that was 30 years ago.) That's also 80-year-old director George Miller's best stateside debut. Yes, Fury Road even blew away both Happy Feet films.

Meanwhile, Avengers: Age of Ultron became the year's biggest movie domestically on Friday. Barring some major surprise, it will stay that way at least until Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in December. Hot Pursuit fell even further, and may not make back its modest $35 million budget. Even Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 managed to do better than that.  

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: I'll See You in My Dreams, the senior citizen romance with Blythe Danner. It averaged $16,333 on three screens.

- Things went from bad to worse for The D Train. The film dropped a staggering 95.5 percent and shed nearly 850 screens. It made a very ugly $123 per screen.

- There's not a lot of hope for faith-based drama Where Hope Grows. The film opened on 276 screens, but didn't even crack half-a-million dollars.   

Next week: It could be a very interesting weekend at the box office. You've got Poltergeist, which is yet another "˜80s remake, but horror fanatics will probably flock to it. Then there's Tomorrowland, which has gorgeous visuals but has been nearly impossible for Disney to market. Fans will flock back to Pitch Perfect 2, but the word-of-mouth is extremely good for Mad Max: Fury Road. So who will be No. 1? I'm just going to bet the movie with the most handsome lead, and say George Clooney's Tomorrowland will be No. 1 in a photo finish with $42 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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