It may be Memorial Day Weekend, meaning there is one more day for people to flock to the cinemas before returning to work, but the weekend box office officially comes to a close today. As expected, X-Men: Days of Future Past has won the top box office spot, pulling in an estimated $90.7 million over three days. Deadline reports it had a significant drop of 18% since Friday–never a good thing. X-Men: Days of Future Past did not do as well as last week’s BIG opener Godzilla, with a total of $93.1 million. There is still time for the final amounts to be adjusted, so anything can happen.
It may be Memorial Day Weekend, meaning there is one more day for people to flock to the cinemas before returning to work, but the weekend box office officially comes to a close today. As expected, X-Men: Days of Future Past has won the top box office spot, pulling in an estimated $90.7 million over three days. Deadline reports it had a significant drop of 18% since Friday–never a good thing. X-Men: Days of Future Past did not do as well as last week’s BIG opener Godzilla, with a total of $93.1 million. There is still time for the final amounts to be adjusted, so anything can happen.
Now Godzilla is in a bit of trouble, one may say. It’s second weekend gross is coming in at $31.4 million, a far cry from opening weekend (down 66%). But it did not have much competition last weekend and given the crowded summer movie season, Maleficent and Edge of Tomorrow are sure to give both Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past a run for the money in the coming weeks, the drop is not a big shock.
With both Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past earning a 4-clock production review here on FilmFracture it is great to see moviegoers flocking to well-deserved big budget blockbusters opening the summer movie season.
As for Adam Sandler’s Blended, moviegoers were not so kind to the third pairing of Sandler and Drew Barrymore in a romantic comedy of the Sandler sort. Blended is estimated at making a paltry $14.2 million. That may not sound like small change but when you compare it to fellow comedy Neighbors, which came out 2 weeks ago, and made $13.9 million this week alone you can see why Blended‘s opening is far from ideal. Audiences may have liked the film, giving it an A- CinemaScore (shocking, really), but critics were not so kind. FilmFracture’s own Anthony Taormina said in his review of Blended that the viewing experience is “a war of attrition. Either you submit to the puerility or better yet you become numb enough to survive it.”
Perhaps it is time for Adam Sandler to retire? Or find a new schtick? Gone are the days of Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, and Big Daddy. We are now being forced to witness the horrors of Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy. Something needs to change, and fast, in the Adam Sandler movie universe. May I suggest switching to animation, as Hotel Transylvania was quite fun. Or taking a well-deserved and much needed break from moviemaking. You can always come back Sandler, with new material that will make everyone rethink why they asked you to leave in the first place. Or just make better movies–the logical choice, of course.
The weekend box office top five movies finds X-Men: Days of Future Past in #1, Godzilla at #2, Blended at #3 (until it fades into obscurity next week), Neighbors at #4, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 at #5 (I bet you already forgot about that one, huh?). An honorable mention has to go to Chef, opening in more theatres this weekend but on a very small run across the States. Chef may be number 9 on the box office list, but it was 15 last week; the momentum of word-of-mouth is helping this great indie pic from Jon Favreau reach more and more moviegoers weekly. It comes highly recommended by FilmFracture too–read the review to see why.
Until next week…when Angelina Jolie’s witchiness goes up against the mutants (from more than one movie).
Sources: Deadline Hollywood, Box Office Mojo, CinemaScore
Kathryn Schroeder, News, 2014, Weekend Box Office, Godzilla, Blended, Neighbors, Chef, X-Men: Days of Future Past