Angelina Jolie doesn't star in as many films as she used to, but when she does they tend to be huge. And that looks to be the case with Maleficent, Disney's latest attempt to rebrand their animated classics as live-action tentpoles. The $70M debut is bolstered by an additional $100M overseas, putting a good sized dent in the budget that some estimate was around $175M. This still comes in under the opening weekends of Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful and Alice in Wonderland, both of which had visual effects by Maleficent director, Robert Stromberg. He has to be feeling pretty good right about now and this probably puts him high on Disney's list for future reimaginings after next year's Cinderella. Before now Jolie hadn't been in a live-action film since 2010's The Tourist, which banked $270M even though it was awful. She also starred in the random action flick, Salt, which further proved her box office mettle with $290M. It'll be interesting how Maleficent plays down the line as the reviews have been mixed and some of the material a little dark for kids.
2. X-men: Days of Future Past- $32.6M/$162M
More destructive than the Sentinels was the 64% skid for X-men: Days of Future Past, which is somewhat to be expected considering the strong competition. The film has now earned $383M worldwide and should have 20th Century Fox feeling pretty good about 2016's sequel, X-men: Apocalypse.
3. A Million Ways to Die In the West- $17M
The only thing more uncertain than a western movie at the box office is a comedy-western, and now Seth MacFarlane knows that fact intimately. A Million Ways to Die in the West opened to a flat $17M, and it's not as if we can blame the star-studded cast of Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, and Neil Patrick Harris. Part of the problem was the marketing which pushed a bunch of sight gags but not much more, and generally poor reviews (I thought it was okay) couldn't have helped. There wasn't a tumbleweed's chance in Hell that it would come close to matching the $50M+ debut of Ted, but the expectations were much higher given MacFarlane's past successes. Fortunately the film only cost $40M and has a earned an additional $10M internationally, so when all is said and done it will make a few bucks.
4. Godzilla- $12.2M/$174.6M
5. Blended- $8.4M/$29.6M
6. Neighbors- $7.7M/$128.6M
7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2- $3.77M/$192.7M
8. Million Dollar Arm- $3.7M/$28M
9. Chef- $2M/$6.9M
10. The Other Woman- $1.4M/$81.1M
