The Fault in Our Stars Ahead of Divergent and Maleficent Its Opening Day

Shailene Woodley is on her way to having her second big hit of the year as the 20th Century Fox adaptation of John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars is about to join her earlier hit adaptation of Veronica Roth’s Divergent by opening over $50 million.

In fact, “Fault’s” estimated opening day gross of $26.1 million–which includes $8.2 million from Thursday previews and special higher price ticketed events–is ahead of the $22.8 million that Divergent made its opening day back in March. It went on to gross $54.1 million that weekend, although by comparison, it also did only $4.9 million on Thursday night while school was still in session. Since school is out in many areas, the teen audience for the original novel were just as able to see it on Friday rather than waiting for the weekend, which could mean “Fault” is slightly more frontloaded. Still, it looks like it’s likely to match or slightly surpass the opening of Divergent.

Although it also made more on Thursday (and Friday) than Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent, last week’s #1 movie with over $69 million, it’s likely to still end up below $60 million for the weekend.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise’s sci-fi action flick Edge of Tomorrow, directed by Doug Liman and co-starring Emily Blunt, opened in second place with $10.7 million and is on its way to less than $30 million for the weekend. It’s very likely that the action movie which mainly is targeting males of a certain age may have been hindered by the NBA and NHL finals taking place over the past few nights. There’s a chance it could even fall back to third place behind the second weekend of Maleficent by tomorrow.

Check back tomorrow for the full box office report.