Another weekend for Furious 7 on top and it just might be four in a row with a lackluster lineup next weekend before Avengers: Age of Ultron officially kicks off the summer season on May 1. With $29 million this weekend, Furious 7 is up to $294.4 million domestically ($1.15 billion globally) as it already became the fastest film to cross $1 billion worldwide on Friday this past week. It’s also Universal’s first film to ever cross $1 billion during its initial release (Jurassic Park achieved that mark in 2013 during its 3-D re-release) and it took only 17 days to do it, besting the likes of The Avengers, Avatar and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, all of which took 19 days to join the billion dollar club.
The studio was also sure to share several other milestones the film has crossed such as:
- Second-biggest worldwide opening of all time ($397.2 million) behind only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
- Highest-grossing domestic ($147.2 million) and international ($250 million) openings in Universal history.
- Biggest April and Easter opening.
- Highest opening since November of 2013 domestically.
- All-time highest opening weekend of any film in 29 territories.
- Universal’s highest-grossing film of all-time in 26 territories.
- Record-breaking opening day in China ($63.5 million) beating the previous record held by Transformers: Age of Extinction ($36 million).
While it’s well shy of the $31.9 million the first one brought in back in 2009, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 still managed to bring in $24 million this weekend and those in attendance only seemed to think it was mildly worse than the first one giving it a “B-” CinemaScore compared to the “B” from back in 2009. It’s my opinion moving this thing to Las Vegas was the big problem. They’re going for family dollars and families aren’t thinking anything set in Vegas will be wholesome enough for their little kiddos.
Coming in third is Universal’s new low budget horror film, budgeted at only $1 million, the Blumhouse production of Unfriended scored $16 million in its first three days. Of course, that $1 million is representative only of its production cost and not the marketing campaign Universal waged, but it’s still impressive how Jason Blum manages to continually grab hold of moneymakers when it comes to low budget horror. I was correct in thinking this was one that wasn’t going to sit well with audiences despite the love it received from some critics (though, not me). Several people walked out of my press screening and the “C” CinemaScore tells me a few may have walked out of their paid screenings this weekend as well.
The Disneynature brand seems to be on the decline as Monkey Kingdom opened to only $4.7 million, which matches Bears last year, but is far from the $10.6 million Chimpanzees brought in back in 2012. Maybe audiences just felt like this was a double dip and they can only allot so much time to the simians in the cinema?
Elsewhere, Ex Machina expanded into 39 theaters nationwide and added another $814,000 to its total for a $20,879 per theater average. True Story starring Jonah Hill and James Franco didn’t do so hot nabbing $1.9 million from 831 theaters and Lionsgate’s Child 44 starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and Gary Oldman was not only hidden from many critics, it also did horrible in its opening, bringing in $600,000 from 510 theaters.
Next weekend sees the release of The Age of Adaline, Little Boy and a limited release of Russell Crowe‘s directorial debut, The Water Diviner. Which is to say, look for Furious 7 to enjoy one more weekend on top.
