5/31/2015
Box Office: 'San Andreas' Rocks 'Aloha' with $53M Debut
1. San Andreas (review here)- $53.2M
When was the last time we had a truly star-driven disaster film? It's been awhile, but credit Dwayne Johnson for bringing it back in a huge way with San Andreas' $53M opening weekend. Remember that last summer gave us the less-than-starry disaster flick Into the Storm, which only amassed $47M domestic ($160M worldwide0, so Johnson already has that one beat. We can probably expect San Andreas to do equally well overseas, if not vastly better given Johnson's worldwide profile. This also looks to perform better than last year's Hercules, which Johnson was only able to carry to $72M stateside, although globally it did much better. This also goes to show the strength of Johnson and director Brad Peyton as a duo. Their first film together was 2012's Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which came out of nowhere with $335M and started that whole "Franchise Viagra" label Johnson's been slapped with.
2. Pitch Perfect 2- $14.8M/$147.5M
3. Tomorrowland- $13.8M/$63.1M
After a soft opening weekend, Disney's Tomorrowland dropped 59%, totaling $64M after two weeks. The $190M (!!!) sci-fi/fantasy film has been pegged as a total disaster, but it's not quite at John Carter levels. Worldwide the film has hit $133M and should at least nail the break-even point. But when you throw in the costs of marketing, then take a look at the high-caliber cast and wholly original premise it still looks like a huge disappointment. In fact, Disney is so disappointed by these numbers they canceled Tron 3 as a result.
4. Mad Max: Fury Road- $13.6M/$115.9M
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron- $10.9M/$427M
6. Aloha (review here)- $10M
So everybody knows Cameron Crowe's Aloha has been getting ripped by bad press. The Hawaiian natives are pretty restless about the whiter-than-Hell cast (it's really not that big of a deal), and the film sat on Crowe's shelf for a few years, only to reemerge and get ripped by ex-Sony chief Amy Pascal. The question has been whether the A-list cast of Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone, and Bill Murray would still lure in audiences. The answer, clearly, is "nope". The trailers and TV spots could never nail down what in the world the film was actually about, only to have critics largely bash the film for being an unfocused mess. Shocker. Sony hasn't put the full weight of their marketing machine behind this one so clearly they knew what was up.
7. Poltergeist- $7.8M/$38.2M
These numbers aren't terrible for the $35M remake of the classic Poltergeist, but they were bad enough to cause massive changes to the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's It.
8. Far from the Madding Crowd- $1.4M/$8.3M
9. Hot Pursuit- $1.3M/$32.3M
10. Home- $1.1M/$170.4M