Even with competition from The Fault in Our Stars last weekend and How to Train Your Dragon 2 over the past three days, Maleficent has fended off two big films with a similar audience. The Disney fantasy dropped 45% to take $19 million and third place. Maleficent is playing better with families than initially expected, though. With a $163.5 cume so far and little coming out for a female audience over the next month, it should pass $200 million by the end of June. The film has an outside shot to be May’s biggest grosser in the United States too, beating out behemoths like Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
After a more restrained opening last weekend, the Tom Cruise sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow stabilized in its second weekend. It took fourth place, with an estimated $16.2 million, a 44% drop from last weekend. Sci-fi films tend to get big drops on their second weekend, so that hold is a good sign for the film as it moves forward. Ultimately, Edge should edge Oblivion‘s $89.1 million at the domestic box office and could even flirt with the $100 million mark if good word-of-mouth continues.
As for last week’s impressive opener, The Fault in Our Stars did not shine quite as brightly in fifth place, with $15.7 million. It is one of the rare films to post a lower gross on its second Saturday than its second Friday without a holiday on the Friday, a sign of its massive teen audience. Regardless of its hefty 67% drop, the tearjerker has already taken in $81.7 million. With summer weekdays and a lack of competition for female audiences, a total at around $115 to $120 million (or around ten times the film’s small budget) is expected.
On the independent film front, sci-fi fans did not answer to The Signal, which debuted far outside of the top 20 with $146,000 from 120 theaters (for a pathetic $1,217 per screen, lower than any film in the Top 10). Things were better for David Michod’s tense drama The Rover, which debuted to $70,000 in five theaters. While a decent opening, the thriller with Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson had a lot of buzz from last month’s Cannes Film Festival and was expected to have a better platform opening.
Here are the box office estimates for the Top 10 films at the North American box office, the weekend of June 13 through 15, 2014:
1. 22 Jump Street – $60 million (NEW)
2. How to Train Your Dragon 2 – $50 million (NEW)
3. Maleficent – $19 million ($163.5 million total)
4. Edge of Tomorrow – $16.2 million ($56.6 million total)
5. The Fault in Our Stars – $15.7 million ($81.7 million total)
6. X-Men: Days of Future Past – $9.5 million ($205.9 million total)
7. Godzilla – $3.2 million ($191.3 million total)
8. A Million Ways to Die in the West – $3.1 million ($36.9 million total)
9. Neighbors – $2.5 million ($143.1 million total)
10. Chef – $2.3 million ($14.1 million total)
NOTE: These numbers are weekend estimates based on Friday and Saturday’s estimated takes. Actual numbers for the 3-day weekend are reported on Monday afternoon.
