This weekend, Avengers: Age of Ultron will break the all-time opening record, which its predecessor set back in 2012 at $207.4 million. To end the suspence, $222.6 million is my prediction, and my reasons are simple. First, sequel bump. Second, it’s selling pre-order tickets (per Fandango.com) faster than both Iron Man 3 and the original Avengers. The box office is ready to explode, summer season is beckoning, and this thing is going to launch like a space shuttle. The only thing that might cause it to miss this number is the running time, but the first one was long too, and theaters will have it playing on two or three screens.
Let’s quickly run through the rest of these because they are very small fry by comparison.
Furious 7 will put another $9.7 million in the bank. It’s had a great run, the first billion dollar film in the franchise, and a massive $650 million ahead of Fast & Furious 6. Impressive.
Did anyone on here see The Age of Adaline? It feels like something I’ll watch on a plane. Thankfully it probably only cost about twelve dollars to make, and so they’ll gratefully scoop up the $7.3 million from its sophomore frame.
Lastly, my current favorite film of 2015, Ex Machina. $4.0 million is the call, and I’d really love to see a budget here. CGI and a house, that was the total outlay, and the slow burn roll-out has been clever. It could reach $30 million worldwide, which will likely get writer/director Alex Garland some real cash to throw at his next project. That’s solid sauce.
I turn it over to you, let’s get Avengeful!
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
