Another May weekend, another big number one debut. For the fifth weekend in a row, a new release has taken the number one spot at the box office. Two weeks ago, it was Godzilla and last weekend, X-Men: Days of Future Past. This weekend, it was the Walt Disney live-action fantasy Maleficent’s time to shine. Angelina Jolie’s first starring role in four years conjured up big numbers in its debut, easily beating the Seth MacFarlane comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West while knocking the wind out Marvel’s money-making mutants.
Alice in Wonderland opened to $116 million four years ago and wound up earning $332 million domestically and one billion dollars worldwide. Suffice to say, Disney began to see dollar signs all over the possibilities of live-action variations of classic children’s tales, such as The Wizard of Oz and Sleeping Beauty (Cinderella arrives in 2015). 2013’s The Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz: The Great and Powerful, debuted with a huge $79 million and finished its domestic run with $234 million. The latest attempt to mine Alice in Wonderland gold is Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie. The “untold” story of the iconic villain from Sleeping Beauty (Thank God that’s been rectified), Maleficent arrived on 3,948 screens this weekend where it conjured up a great $70 million.
The last time we saw Jolie in a starring role was back in December 2010 when she headlined alongside Johnny Depp in the dreadful The Tourist (she provided a vocal performance for 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2). In addition to the tabloid magnet, Maleficent also stars Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley and Sam Riley and was directed by newcomer Robert Stromberg. Critics were evenly split on the $175 million production (a 50% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) while ticket buyers appeared to be happier with what they saw (“A” rating on CinemaScore). Maleficent’s opening is Jolie’s first #1 debut in nine years. Overseas, the fantasy epic has earned a huge $100.6 million since Wednesday.
After arriving on the scene over the Memorial Day weekend with a massive $91 million, X-Men: Days of Future Past fell a steep 64% in its sophomore session to $32.6 million on 4,001 screens. After ten days the acclaimed sequel has earned a big $162 million. Days of Future Past appears to be following the same pattern that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Godzilla have gone on: open spectacularly in North America, fade fast, and watch overseas dollars pile up.
One advantage that Days of Future Past had was strong midweek business, which should help it be a slightly bigger success than either of those underperforming blockbusters. Days of Future Past may finish domestically around the $210-215 million mark with significantly more from overseas markets, which will help make it the biggest hit of the 14-year series thus far (as of this writing, its foreign haul stood at $221 million).
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane made his live-action directorial debut two years ago with the raunchy R-rated comedy Ted. The film was a creative and financial hit, opening to $54 million and working its way to $212 million. Reviews were solid and the film even managed to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
His follow up feature, the western comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West, appears to be another story altogether. Like Ted, West is an envelope-pushing, raunchy R-rated feature released by Universal Pictures. Unlike Ted, however, critics and ticket buyers appeared to be completely disinterested (you can also forget about any sort of award nominations as well). Critics slammed the feature, which was directed by and stars MacFarlane (vanity project, anyone?), Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi and Amanda Seyfried. They found a new way for West to die: a toxic 33% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
As for the MacFarlane faithful and any other individuals who ponied up the dough to see the film on opening day? They gave the film an iffy “B” rating on CinemaScore. Despite Universal’s best efforts to market the film including spoiler a major cameo in the advertisements, A Million Ways to Die in the West could only muster $17 million in its first three days on 3,158 screens, roughly 70 percent lower than the opening for Ted. Overseas, where westerns — comedic or not — aren’t exactly the biggest moneymakers, West earned $10 million in its first three days.
Warner’s monster epic Godzilla continued to lose steam in its third weekend. The Big Lizard earned an estimated $12.2 million, a decrease of 60%, on 3,501 screens to bring its total to $174.6 million. The film lost most if not all of its high-earning IMAX screens this weekend to Maleficent, which no doubt helped with the sizable decrease in business. Godzilla is looking to head back into the cinematic ocean with roughly $195 million by the end of its domestic run. The studio’s Adam Sandler comedy Blended landed in fifth place for the weekend where it earned $8.4 million from 3,555 screens. Off 41% the film has earned $29 million so far and should wind down its run near the $45 million mark.
Outside the top five:
6. Neighbors (Universal) $7.7 million (-45%); $128.6 million
7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Sony) $3.77 million (-52%); $192.7 million
8. Million Dollar Arm (Disney) $3.7 million (-47%); $28 million
9. Chef (Open Road) $2 million (-11%); $6.9 million
10. The Other Woman (Fox) $1.4 million (-61%); $81.1 million
Next weekend’s box office race should prove to be one of the more interesting ones of the season. Warner’s excellent Tom Cruise Sci-Fi adventure Edge of Tomorrow and Fox’s young adult drama The Fault in Our Stars both arrive on the scene to take on Angelina Jolie. Given the advance buzz on Fault, don’t be too surprised if the Shailene Woodley drama takes the top spot away from Maleficent from at least Friday if not the entire weekend. Then again, ticket buyers could take heed of the great advanced reviews that Tomorrow has been getting and make that the number one feature instead. Tune in next weekend to find out.
