Box Office: ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ Opens Huge, While ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Finishes a Strong Second

Box office estimates continued to rise for Pitch Perfect 2 as the weekend went on. At first it was expected to finish somewhere around $40+ million, then $50, then around $63 million and BOOM, estimates come in and we’re looking at a $69.2 million opening for the female-driven sequel. It’s hard to determine just how much of an increase over the first one that is given the first one only debuted in 335 theaters and even in its second weekend was only in 2,770 theaters, compared to the 3,473 theaters the sequel opened in.

Budgeted at a meager $29 million and serving as Elizabeth Banks‘ feature directorial debut, the film also scored an “A-” CinemaScore from opening day audiences. It will be really interesting to see how this one does next weekend. The first film dropped only 37.6% in its first weekend after wide release and while reviews weren’t nearly as enthusiastic for Pitch Perfect 2 as they were for the first film, I still think this one has a chance for very long legs. One thing is for certain, with this kind of opening, Pitch Perfect 2 is a blockbuster and you can expect Pitch Perfect 3 to be announced soon.

Oh, and as a final note, Pitch Perfect finished its domestic run in 2012 at $65 million… Goes to show, sometimes a movie can find its audience at home.

Interestingly enough, while the “pitches” were dominating the box office, Mad Max: Fury Road was doing pretty well for itself given its R-rating, though given its budget it looks like a failure by comparison. Opening with $45.4 million, Max performed ahead of the equally R-rated Kingsman: The Secret Service, which opened at $36.2 million earlier this year and is now over $127.3 million domestically. And, for a more on-par comparison, it opened right around Lucy‘s $43.8 million opening last July, before that one went on to $126.6 million domestically, which is really to say you can probably expect somewhere around a $126 million run stateside while the international box office will tell the final story on this franchise refresh as the big difference between Max and the films I’m comparing it to is the budget. Kingsman was only $81 million while Lucy was only $40m.

Budgeted at $150 million, Mad Max only scored a “B+” CinemaScore from opening day audiences, which is a bit of a letdown, though the same score Kingsman earned and ahead of Lucy‘s C+. To no surprise the film played heavily to a male audience (70%), with 35% of the overall audience coming in over the age of 35. I gotta say, how this one isn’t attracting more 18+ moivegoers is beyond me, but so be it, they’re missing out on the best action film to hit theaters in their lifetime.

Landing in third is Avengers: Age of Ultron with $38.8 million as it hit China theaters six days ago and has already amassed $156 million in the burgeoning market as the film’s worldwide total is now at $1.14 billion making it the eighth highest grossing release of all-time, but will it match The Avengers at $1.51 billion?

Then we come to last week’s new “comedy” release, Hot Pursuit, which dropped 59% to $5.7 million, yet, was still the fourth place film for the weekend as three films dominated and the rest of the crowd fought for the scraps.

Next weekend sees the release of Disney’s Tomorrowland with a bit of mixed buzz behind it and Poltergeist, which appears won’t be screening for all critics. It could be an interesting weekend considering I know Disney is hoping for big things with Tomorrowland, but it might be coming at a time when no one is really all that interested.

Movie News

Marvel and DC

X