Holidayland at the Box Office
Monday, May 25, 2015 at 3:00PM Memorial Day Weekend 4 day estimates are in and though it was a week weekend overall - Tomorrowland was soft which is quite scary since its budget was decidedly not -- but the three top holdovers are all bonafide hits with moviegoers.
Tomorrowland reached for a giant pot of gold, came up short.
TOP FIVE WIDE
May 22-25 Weekend
01 Tomorrowland NEW $41.7
02 Pitch Perfect 2 $38.5 (cum. $126) Review
03 Mad Max: Fury Road $32.1 (cum. $95.5) Review & Podcast
04 Avengers: Age of Ultron $27.8 (cum. $410.9) Review & Marathon & Podcast
05 Poltergeist NEWbutOLD $26.5
If you adjust for inflation Avengers: Age of Ultron might end its run as only the seventh highest grossing superhero flick of all time behind (in this order) The Avengers (2012), The Dark Knight (2008), Spider-Man (2002), Batman (1989), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Superman (1978), though the latter is within reach if it can hold its theaters. Which is not to say that it isn't a massive hit; the sequel shouldn't have any problem topping the 2015 box office unless the final Hunger Games film unexpectedly outgrosses all previous installments or there's an anomaly American Sniper like behemoth somewhere in the next 7 months.
In other notable news, The Age of Adaline and Ex Machina both lost nearly half their screens to new releases but continue to do respectable business. Meanwhile, Far From the Madding Crowd keeps expanding and now has $6 million in the bank domestically. Well done Fox Searchlight for a costume drama without bankable stars and with good but not 'give this all the Oscars!' reviews. (See, other prestige-loving distributors? Not everything needs to be released in December.) I've been meaning to review it. Soon, my darlings... possibly even today. 'Let no man steal your thyme!' And at the arthouses Sony Pictures Classics had a decent weekend. Wild Tales is inching ever closer to $3 million in the US (which is a big deal gross for foreign films these days -sigh) and internationally it's much bigger, the biggest smash from Argentina since the Oscar winning The Secret in Their Eyes (2009). And finally Saint Laurent is currently the number #1 platform release with $210,000 so far and playing at 59 locations.
What did you do for the holiday?
Reader Comments (25)
Don't think Star Wars will top it? Unless you are counting money made in the calendar year.
I saw PP2, not as good as the first but glad it's making a lot of money.
I saw the 1973 "Lost Horizon" which lived down to its reputation beautifully. Been a while since I saw a bad movie that fun, so consistently surprising in its wrong decisions.
Saw (how´s this for variety?): The snowtown murders (not a huge fan but very well made so I still look forward to seeing Macbeth) and The Boxtrolls (quite lovely).
Ryan -- oh right. star wars. jeez i'm forgetful
I saw Mad Max: Fury Road and Citizenfour. LOVED both of them. Snowden is my hero. I wonder what the general American public thinks of him
And I really liked the newest episode of Game of Thrones. Things are shaping up big time
I saw Saint Laurent -- only me and 2 other peeps in the theater, but I loved it. Gaspard and Aymeline stuck out the most. I agree with what I heard though, it went over about 20 mins.
"Welcome to me" & there it is, like every year a performance that SHOULD get nominated for an Oscar that won't: Kirsten Wiig is nothing short of BRILLIANT in it.
Mad Max like everyone else. It's always fun to see a movie that cultivates obsessive love in my non-movie fanatic friends, who are 20-something girls who don't really hew to superhero blockbusters or "50 Shades," either. They loved watching it; they loved breaking it down afterwards, and plenty of them want to watch it again as soon as possible. That's a rarity. Was initially caught up in the MM thinkpieces like everyone else, but then went back to looking at pictures of Tom Hardy with dogs.
Dave S "Did you see the uncut version of "Lost Horizon" with the infamous male fertility dance which has to be one of the funniest and gayest production numbers ever. Love this movie like you said its a classic example of what-where-they-thinking cinema. I saw "The Avengers 2" which was not as good as the first- it's a case of more is not better.
Saw SPY! So fricking good. Rose Byrne steals the show - I want a piece dedicated to her and her underrated comedy chops. She constantly takes the less flashy roles (Helen, Kelly) and walks off with the movie. McCarthy was great but yeah, I can't stop thinking about half of Byrne's lines and believe she deserves more recognition for being one of the funniest women working today.
Jaragon - Yup, the whole damn thing. My favorite details were the persistently floppy dance stylings of Sally Kellerman, and the abruptly dark ending.
So sick of Marvel, cartoon, and DC films. I know it's the summer season, but they squeeze all other adult product out of the marketplace. Clooney has got to be crushed - that is a lot of money down the drain, and Monuments Men also bombed for him.
Saw The Babadook. Holy poo-flinging bug fuck that was terrifying. Brilliant, but terrifying.
I saw IT FOLLOWS in a theater that me and my husband had all to ourselves, our own private scary movie. It was less scream-out-loud frightening than it was creepy as fuck. I'm not sure it adds up to anything big, but stylistically it felt fresh and I was interested in it all the way through to its SPOILER ambiguous ending.
Age of Ultron (Friday) was "well-made," "entertaining," but ultimately meh for me: superhero CG smash-'em-up destruction fatigue.
Mad Max: Fury Road (Saturday) was a RUSH. I appreciate Tom Hardy even more than I did after Locke, and don't get me started on Theron and Hoult. Can you believe that George Miller is 70 and John Seale is 72?
No movies in theaters this weekend (after doubling up on AGE OF ULTRON and MAD MAX last weekend), but I did catch PREDESTINATION on DVD. Time travel paradoxes generally annoy me, but I'm still thinking about this one. Basically, this is the movie I wanted LOOPER to be. Also, Sarah Snook is as terrific as advertised. And gotta hand it to Ethan Hawke again - his screen presence still bugs me, but he does know how to pick his projects. Maybe I'll go see GOOD KILL next.
I'll probably be the only one around here, but I saw Tomorrowland this weekend. It's not a bad film really, but it is a narrative mess and too long for what it was doing, even though there's so much of it that works. George Clooney is as reliable a screen presence, but Britt Robertson and especially Raffey Cassidy steal the show (the latter should be a shoo-in for a Young Actor or Actress BFCA nomination) and with so much pessimism about the future in other movies, it's good to counter-program with some wide-eyed optimism.
I also saw Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem (which just arrived in Mexico) and it's brilliant. Often feels like it's a better fit for theater, but the drama is so delicious that it's never boring and there's even some humor to liven the film up when it needs it (personally, I love having an excuse to brush up on my Hebrew as well).
I was up at 5am on Sunday morning watching the Eurovision final live (after watching the delayed telecasts of the semi-finals on Friday and Saturday nights). I went to bed again after it and didn't wake up until 2. Friend and I went to go see SPY that afternoon and it was perfect grey day entertainment. I thought it was hilarious. I wonder whether it will do well when released in America or if later in the year would have worked better. Hmmm. Either way, I loved it.
Saw WELCOME TO ME (loved), HOME (cute), and now GRACE OF MONACO: LIFETIME VERSION (OK).
Mindless entertainment alert: Poltergeist. Needless to say that Sam Rockwell (who gets more attractive with each movie), Rosemarie Dewitt, Jane Adams, and Jared Harris all deserve better than this toothless remake, which is neither scary nor suspenseful -- just kinda there. I did appreciate the Mad Men connection, however, with Dewitt and Harris.
I saw Far From the Madding Crowd at BAM this weekend and quite enjoyed it. I thought the cinematography, the costumes, and especially the score were nomination-worthy. The music was simply rapturous. And between this and Skylight, I think I'm starting to "get" Carey Mulligan.
Nathaniel, did you not see It Follows or White God? Those were the best things I've seen in 2015 so far I think, though I have yet to partake in Mad Max: Fury Road. It is already quite the year for great films in non-traditional realms.
Finally saw Kingsman: The Secret Service, which was great fun (minus Samuel L. Jackson's stupid, pointless lisp) until the last ten minutes or so, which made me remember the review here about the pointless violence and I have to say I agree. Nearly every decision made in that final sequence showed a reckless disregard for human life that made me deeply uncomfortable, to say the least. I tried to get on the film's wavelength in an attempt to enjoy it, but I just couldn't. It came perilously close to ruining the whole movie for me. And this is a movie in which Colin Firth does nothing but badass spy stuff in bespoke suits, which should be an unruinable premise.
I'm pretty proud of Fox Searchlight for turning Far from the Madding Crowd into a hit. It really defies all reason except for the one that states that there really is an audience for period literary romance.
I finally saw it last night, and quite liked it - it's full of flaws, but when a movie is that gorgeous it's easy to sweep them under the rug. Michael Sheen has never been better, Schoenaerts was as gorgeous as ever, and Mulligan is just the best.
Tomorrowland: The early frontrunner for the year's most disappointing movie. The chase sequences at the center of the film are great, and I like the main characters, but it's saddled with an unnecessary prologue, a framing device that really doesn't fit very well (George Clooney's character, especially, almost feels like a completely different character than everywhere else in the movie, including the ending which is supposed to sync up with it), and a seriously underdeveloped climax.
Basically, I'd much rather go watch Mad Max: Fury Road again, which apparently makes me part of the problem.
I saw Welcome to Me and while Wiig was wonderful, the movie as a whole was good but somehow underwhelming. There was just something missing, as if the movie didn't really have anything to say about the story or characters. And Jennifer Jason Leigh was wasted.
Also Mad Max - oh my god, it was like a visual and aural assault for two hours but still managed to be enjoyable. I was surprised that the a major studio would allow a beloved male title character of a big action movie franchise to almost take a backseat to a new female character but Hardy and Theron worked well together. And I loved the group of badass older women that, if I read the end credits correctly, are call the Vuvalini. Ha!