Tom Cruise’s sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow got the bronze medal this week, earning a decent but unspectacular $29.1 million. For a film with a major star and a $178 million price tag, that is pretty poor, although it was in line with its modest box office expectations. Although reviews were strong and word-of-mouth could keep the film running throughout June and July, Warner Bros. probably hoped to thwart the opening of a drama with a $12 million budget. The film did skew toward adult moviegoers (73% of audiences were over 25), which means it could still hold up well, due to the lack of competition for older crowds this month.
For comparison among past Cruise openers, it made more than Knight and Day ($20.1 million after a Wednesday opening), but less than Oblivion ($37.1 million). Tomorrow opened at around the same level as another action-heavy futuristic thriller with a bankable actor: last summer’s Elysium, ($29.8 million). Elysium took advantage of a rather empty August month and closed with $93.1 million. Sci-fi films tend to fall more rapidly than many genres, but with good word-of-mouth and a lack of action films this month (until Transformers: Age of Extinction), Tomorrow could reach Elysium‘s levels, domestically. The good news is that the film has already crossed $140 million worldwide, where Cruise is a less polarizing star.
Speaking of rapidly dropping sci-fi films, X-Men: Days of Future Past kept with its descent and placed in fourth, making $14.7 million, down 55% from last weekend. Although it is days away from surpassing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to be Marvel’s biggest title of May, this X-Men has virtually no chance to be the highest-grossing film in the franchise, domestically. With $189.1 million so far, expect the time-travel flick to close with around $215 million, or a few bucks more than X2 made back in 2003.
Plummeting to fifth place and single digits this weekend was Seth MacFarlane’s western-comedy hybrid A Million Ways to Die in the West, with $7.2 million. Dropping 57% from its disappointing opening weekend, lousy word-of-mouth obviously had an effect among paying crowds. With only $30.2 million so far, the comedy will end its run with a lower take than Ted‘s opening weekend. Expect a total just under $45 million.
On the limited release front, Bollywood thriller Holiday took in $413,000 from 144 theatres, for a modest per-screen average but enough to make it into the Top 20 at the North American box office. Meanwhile, Obvious Child, the Sundance fave starring Jenny Slate, made a splash in its three theatres, earning $81,000 (or $27,000 per screen). That film is set to expand throughout June.
Here are the box office estimates for the Top 10 films at the North American box office, the weekend of June 6 through 8, 2014:
1. The Fault in Our Stars – $48.2 million (NEW)
2. Maleficent – $33.5 million ($127.4 million total)
3. Edge of Tomorrow – $29.1 million (NEW)
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past – $14.7 million ($189.1 million total)
5. A Million Ways to Die in the West – $7.2 million ($30.2 million total)
6. Godzilla – $6 million ($185 million total)
7. Neighbors – $5.2 million ($137.8 million total)
8. Blended – $4.1 million ($36.5 million total)
9. Chef – $2.6 million ($10.4 million total)
10. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – $1.9 million (196.3 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.
