San Andreas, the earthquake themed disaster movie from director Brad Peyton and starring Dwayne Johnson has gone straight to the top of the US box-office in its opening weekend. The film, which revolves around the impact of the worst earthquake ever, made an estimated $53.2 million since it opened on Friday. That makes it Johnson’s biggest opener ever as a solo leading man.
San Andreas, which we kinda liked here at THN as a watch-once popcorn fest, literally blew away the competition this weekend, taking neary four times the amount of the movie placed in the number two spot. That movie was Pitch Perfect 2, which added another $14.8 million to its haul, which now stands at $147.5 million in its domestic terriotry. It is also performing exceptionally well overseas. If you include those monies you’re looking at $228 million total gross. Impressive for a movie which only cost $29 million to make. Universal must be acca-loving it.
At three this week is Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland. The Disney effort starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson and Hugh Laurie has failed to impress both critically and commercially. A huge budget means that the total $133 million that it has taken so far worldwide is far short of the cost of making it and the huge promotional tour that Clooney and co. have just completed. The film took $13.8 million this past weeked, a 58% drop from last week where it debuted at the top spot.
Mad Max: Fury Road is showing that George Miller‘s post-apocalyptic movie has legs. The Tom Hardy starrer, which has just had a sequel greenlit by Warner Bros. has made another $13.6 million over the past three days in America, taking its total gross to $116 million after three weeks. Not bad considering the R-rating and more limited audience reach.
Rounding out the top five is another of the year’s big blockbusters, Joss Whedon‘s Avengers: Age Of Ultron. The Marvel movie is doing as expected and currently sits as the sixth highest grossing movie of all time worldwide. Not bad, but you do have to consider that Furious 7 is fourth on that list…
In contrast to the five movies above, Cameron Crowe‘s Aloha debuted to a very poor $9.3 million over the three days. The film, which stars Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Alec Baldwin and Bill Murray, opened to poor reviews, and you can’t help but wonder if the delayed September release in the UK will switch to a more limited run now before switching to the home markets.
Next week sees the debut of Entourage: The Movie in the US (the UK has to wait a couple more weeks for that), as well as the Melissa McCarthy/ Jason Statham/ Jude Law comedy Spy from writer/ director Paul Feig, and the horror sequel Insidious Chapter 3.
See how they all fared at the same time next week.
