So, the news this weekend was that Avengers:Age of Ultron blew away the box office as expected, but in something of a surprise, came in about $30 million short of Disney's own expectations and could not beat or even tie its own record from last time around. The Avengers became the first movie to make $200 million in a single weekend back in 2012, but this one will have to settle for "only" $187 million, which is hardly a disappointment, but may indicate there's a ceiling on this superhero thing after all. Which is good news, as far I'm concerned. They won't just keep getting bigger and bigger, eventually people are going to move on, and I think this is the first sign of that.
In a far distant second place, The Age of Adaline settled for about $6 million, and the rest of the top five were in single digits as well, with Furious 7, Paul Blart and Home rounding out the chart. Surprisingly, with this opening guaranteeing that the Avengers sequel will earn less than its predecessor domestically (which was predicted in the long term), that leaves Furious 7 likely to hang on the title of now fourth highest grossing movie of all time worldwide, which will remain the story for the rest of the year, in my opinion. If a superhero movie can't outgross a car chase movie, that says a lot about the kind of thing the rest of the world likes to watch, doesn't it?
Top 5:
- Avengers: Age of Ultron- $187 million
- The Age of Adaline- $6.3 million
- Furious 7- $6.1 million
- Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2- $5.6 million
- Home- $3.3 million
In limited release, Carey Mulligan's period drama Far From the Madding Crowd opened on 17 screens with $172k, or a $17k per screen average, which is fairly decent, while Kristen Wigg's barely promoted Welcome to Me opened on two screens for a $19k average (this isn't really the time of year for robust specialty releases). Next week it's the Reese Witherspoon-Sofia Vergara buddy comedy Hot Pursuit, and Jack Black's indie The D-Train, but expect Avengers to be tops for a while, maybe the next month even.
