Huh. My daughters did complain that all their friends were seeing it on Friday night - I guess that was a nationwide phenomenon.
This does happen with movies whose fans are pre-emotionally invested in them, for example Twilight had 50% of its box office on Friday night (compared to Fault’s 54%). Fault also did a smash-up job with working social media to get people there on Friday night.
On a side note, Harry Potter 7.2 was also at 54% Friday/weekend, but weirdly enough Harry Potter 1 was only at 35%. I remember it being a bigger deal than that, but I wonder if I overestimate how influential the books were before the movie.
While the OP’s prediction has been convincingly refuted, the question of “By how much?” remains.
The 3rd Friday numbers are in and are pretty good for the Big M. $5.9M and a drop of only 42% since last Friday. Might hit $17M+ for the weekend. (Father’s Day is weakish, especially for kids films.)
Note that this is a nicer drop than last weekend. Despite How to Train Your Dragon 2 coming out. Why? HTTYD2 is going to underperform! Predictions were in the $80M range and it might only reach $60M. It was predicted to smash 22 Jump Street but may well end up behind it.
(The original was a slow opener, building over time. But the sequel is not going to repeat this.)
Disney is jumping for joy over DreamWorks’ “low” opening.
So Angie’s film is definitely going to coast thru $200M domestically and somewhat above. It’s going to make really good, but not giant, bank.
(And yeah, The Fault In Our Stars is dropping fast.)
Dragon 2 probably won’t reach 55M this weekend. Maleficent looks like…maybe 225M now?
An early estimate for the weekend for HTTYD2, based on Saturday numbers, is now $50M.:eek:
Maleficent will hardly know it has competition.
In terms of box office so far this site states domestic is now over $170 M with worldwide over $443 M. Seems like $200 M domestic is going to be hit anyway. Clearly neither an out of the park home run or a strike out. More a solid double. (So far in 201 place for all time most domestic gross above the likes The Matrix, Batman Returns, several recent Bond films, Kung Fu Panda … but well below ones including Alice in Wonderland.)
I hope to see it this week end but the interest is more from my wife and I than our 13 year old daughter who we might be able to convince to come with us. Which likely says something.
A small drop this Friday, around 31% from the previous week. Might actually make it to $250M.
Worldwide, it has now passed The Lego Movie in grosses. TLM is certainly considered a big hit. OTOH, TLM’s production budget is 1/3 less and no doubt correspondingly less promo costs.
HTTYD2 fell 59% from last Friday. Ouch! Dreamworks has got to baffled as to what happened there. Some say the movie is too dark. And Maleficent isn’t?
Maleficent has now made $521,580,000 in 24 days. Too bad a movie that’s made over half a billion dollars in less than a month is a box office bomb.
Projected to cross $200M domestic today. A $8M+, 36% drop, weekend. $16M in the past week. Trending more and more like a kid film. Should cross $230M, close to $240M. The 4th of July falling on a Friday is going to mess things up for a film like this. Family films benefit from holidays but not so much when they fall during the weekend period.
The overseas numbers are slow to come in, but should be over $400M by now. Earned $22M in its first week in China (a late opener there).
At $600M worldwide, Disney’s share should cover production, promo, etc. So I’m assuming officially* in the black (!) now. Video and merch will be significant gravy.
It will finish around the same as the new X-Men movie, better than Godzilla, not as much as the Captain America sequel. All with budgets in the same general range, all considered quite successful.
- Well, if you’re not doing Hollywood accounting.
For comparison’s sake, Captain America: The First Avenger didn’t triple its budget the way Maleficent has – and neither did Thor (which admittedly missed it pretty close), or Batman Begins (which didn’t), or Man of Steel: each successful enough to justify a franchise, but all of 'em falling short of three-to-one.
Heck, even Daniel Craig doesn’t always hit the 3:1 mark as James Bond.
Bumping to note that, thanks to being in the top ten during Fourth-of-July weekend, Maleficent is now past the 3.5x mark: $630 million on that $180 million budget.
Yeah, and it just opened in Japan, where it knocked Frozen out of 1st place, where it had been for 16 weeks. Frozen made $240 million in Japan alone! Maleficent won’t make anywhere near that, but since the trailer has been running in front of Frozen all this time, the Disney-fanatical Japanese have had a lot of time to get excited about it. I’d expect it to make at least $100 million more in Japan.
The weekend box office was way off overall. 4th of July, Hurricane Arthur and really crappy openers. (And a crappy Event Film holdover.)
But Maleficent made $6M for the weekend with a really great 26% drop. Best hold in the top 10. And $12M for the week getting to $214M domestic.
It is the only film left in the top 10 that’s been out 6+ weekends. At number 7, it’s trucking along fine. (Oddly, Edge of Tomorrow is also holding well despite its poor opening.)
Checking releases down the road, the only major kids movie I see due is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on August 8th. And even then it’s not complete overlap in demographics. The Lady in Black could hang around a while.
This is so amazing - it will be the all-time box office winner in Japan, even adjusting for inflation…the last movie I can see that was even close was Howl’s Moving Castle in 2004 at $190M.
I suspect they’re keeping Edge of Tomorrow in enough theaters to break the 100M barrier…the average daily $ are anemic, but it’s still on 1500 screens.
Angelina Jolie has way longer legs than I expected. 
Titanic made $204 million in Japan back in the day.
And yet “Frozen” still wins! Japan has been in a multi-decade deflationary spiral that began, remarkably, in 1997; that 204M is worth about the same now as then.
Bumping to note: another weekend in the Top Ten, another jump up the all-time box office chart – to #72, passing Man of Steel’s $668 million with $669 and counting. (It cost a lot less to make than Man of Steel, but we’ve already covered that.)
It’s currently number 4 for the year. It will soon pass the *X-Men: Days of Future Past *for number 3 but won’t pass The Lego Movie. OTOH, Transformers: Age of Extinction will overtake it at some point as well as no doubt several other movies. Should remain in the top ten for the year, probably.
It averaged $1M/day during it’s 6th week of release. Down to “only” 2000 screens.
I forget, for excusable reasons, that the pathetic Planes: Fire And Rescue abomination is coming out this weekend. Too many parents are going to be taking kids to see this. What a waste of time and money. Sadly it’s going to be competition for Maleficent.
Have you seen “Planes: Fire and Rescue”? At this moment it doesn’t have a critical consensus at Rotten Tomatoes. (Two Freshes and two Rottens).
So, another weekend in the Top Ten, another jump up the all-time box-office chart: at $697 million, it’s passed The Hunger Games and the latest Mission: Impossible flick to hit #68, close behind three of the Twilight blockbusters.