Box Office Results: The Fault in Our Stars Surpasses Expectations with $48 Million

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films and then check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office.

Women continue to dominate the box office as Shailene Woodley’s starring role in the adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (20th Century Fox), co-starring Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff and Laura Dern, brought them out in flocks this weekend to the tune of $48.2 million for its opening weekend. After Thursday previews that took in $8.2 million, the romantic drama was rolled out in 3,173 theaters where it reported $26 million on Friday (including the Thursday numbers) but then took a bigger than expected slide on Saturday to end up below earlier projections. Not that it’s too big a concern since the movie reportedly cost 20th Century Fox just $12 million to make, which means that it was profitable even before the end of day Friday.

You would think that $48 million would be a record opening for a romantic drama, but that still falls short of last year’s The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which opened to $50 million and ended up with $144 million total domestically.

Angelina Jolie’s starring role as the evil queen Maleficent in Disney’s large-scale fairy tale, fell to second place with $33.5 million, down 52% from its opening weekend. (In general, most of the returning movies took fairly hard hits this weekend as they started to give up theaters for the new movies.) It has grossed $127.4 million domestically with another $59.7 million added overseas this weekend to bring its worldwide total to $335 million.

Opening in 3,490 theaters, 300 more than “Fault,” the Tom Cruise-Emily Blunt action sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow opened with $29.1 million for third place. Normally, that wouldn’t be thought of so terrible for a Tom Cruise movie, but that’s a softer opening than last year’s Oblivion and the movie cost $175 million. On the other hand, the movie also topped the international box office with $82 million–with $25 million from China alone–for a global weekend total of $111 million.

Opening a week early in the UK, Sony’s 22 Jump Street, starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, scored $8.8 million ahead of its North American debut on Thursday, June 12.

20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past dropped to fourth place with $14.7 million, down 55% from last weekend, as it brought its domestic total to $189.1 million. It’s still going strong internationally with another $42 million added in 74 territories to bring its overseas total to $422 million and worldwide to $611 million.

Fifth place went to Seth MacFarlane’s R-rated Western A Million Ways to Die in the West (Universal), which was down 57% with $7.2 million and $30.1 million total.

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ take on Godzilla added just under $6 million to take sixth place with a four-week total of $185 million.

Universal’s hit R-rated comedy Neighbors, starring Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, took seventh place with $5.2 million, down just 35%–the best hold in the Top 10 for a non-expanding film–as it reached $137.8 million total.

The Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore comedy Blended didn’t fare as well in its third weekend, dropping 50% to eighth place with $4 million and a disappointing take of $36.5 million.

Jon Favreau’s Chef (Open Road) nearly doubled its theaters, expanding into 1,298 sites, where it was able to maintain ninth place with $2.6 million with a total gross of $10.4 million total.

The Top 10 took in $152 million this weekend, which was up slightly from the first weekend of June 2013 when The Purge (Universal) topped the box office with $34 million and the Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn comedy The Internship (20th Century Fox) opened in fourth place with a disappointing $17 million.

Oh, and Frozen is once again the #1 movie in Japan for the 13th week in a row.

As far as limited releases, A24’s indie comedy Obvious Child, starring Jenny Slate, opened in three theaters in New York and Los Angeles where it made $81,000 or $27,000 per site.

Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films.