Box Office Analysis & Recap: Shailene Woodley's 'The Fault in Our Stars' defeats Tom Cruise's 'Edge of Tomorrow'
Shailene Woodley continued to show her box office dominance as her film "The Fault in Our Stars" opened in the top spot. Inversely, Tom Cruise's own A-List status took a huge hit as his new film "Edge of Tomorrow" opened with weak numbers.
"The Fault in Our Stars" opened with a dominant $48 million. The numbers are certainly not unsurprising considering the original book's massive following. For Woodley, who stars in the film, this is the second straight hit of 2014. Earlier in the year, the actress' "Divergent" opened with a terrific $54 million on its way to a $148 million domestic gross. According to Box Office Mojo, 82 percent of the audience that went to see "The Fault in Our Stars" was made up of women; 79 percent of the overall audience was made up of people ages 25 and below. However, there are warning signs for the film. Almost 54 percent of its gross came on the first day and the second day at the box office saw a 52 percent dip, which is reportedly one of the biggest ever; the film actually ranks seventh of the list of biggest Friday-to-Saturday slides. Back in 2005, "The Ringer" fell an astonishing 72 percent between its opening and second day; no other film has dropped more than 55 percent from its Friday to Saturday gross. What this means for "The Fault in Our Stars" is that the holdover into next weekend will likely not be substantial enough to keep the movie in first place. However, a $100 million gross should be inevitable.
Angelina Jolie's "Maleficent" held steady in second place with a gross of $33 million, a 51 percent drop from last week's box office. The film has now grossed $127 million domestically but is still behind the numbers put up by other live action Disney movies of the past few years. "Oz: The Great and Powerful" finished with $144 million after its second weekend while "Alice in Wonderland (2010)" had eclipsed the $200 million mark by its second weekend. Nonetheless, the film should still be able to hit the $200 million mark.
"Edge of Tomorrow" was the latest in a long line of Tom Cruise box office busts. While the film received praise from critics, it languished where it mattered most for studio executives with an estimated $29 million; projections had the film topping $32 million and finishing second. Since Cruise's 2006 hit "Mission Impossible III," ony one film has topped the $30 million threshold on opening weekend; that movie was last year's sci-fi epic "Oblivion." However, "Oblivion" finished up its run with a paltry $89 million in domestic gross; since "2006" only one Cruise-headlined film has grossed over $100 million and that movie was "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," a franchise film. In essence, Cruise's allure as an action star seems to be losing its steam and it is likely that this latest foray into science fiction will fail to top $100 million yet again. Interestingly enough the film performed much better overseas as it made $111 million and was the number one film.
The fourth spot went to "X-Men: Days of Future Past," which experienced a 54 percent drop from its previous gross; the film has now made a total of $189 million and is primed to be just the third X-Men movie to cross the $200 million threshold. The other movies in the franchise to achieve the feat are "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "X2;" the films that have come after 2006's "The Last Stand" have all fallen short. This is a good turn of events for the franchise as it seemed that moviegoers had soured on the X-Men brand. The highly-regarded 2011 "X-Men: First Class" only brought in $146 million while the 2013 "The Wolverine" film remains the worst-grossing "X-Men" film with only $132 million. The big question regarding "Days of Future Past" is whether it will catch the $214 million grossed by "X2" or the $234 million brought in by "The Last Stand." The 2006 film had already crossed the $200 million threshold by the time it finished its third weekend while "X2" had only made $174 million; "Days of Future Past's" fate will ultimately depend on word of mouth and other incoming competition.
Rounding out the top five was "A Million Ways to Die in the West," which only brought in $7 million; the film has only grossed $30 million and will fail to reach $100 million. "Godzilla" raked in $5.9 million as the sixth film on the list and now has a total of $185 million in domestic gross; the film will hit the $200 million mark, but will struggle to get there as another 50 percent drop next weekend would mean that the film gets in about $2.9; the film brought in a little more than $5 million during the past week.
Seventh place went to Zac Efron's "Neighbors," which grossed $5.2 million, while Adam Sandler's "Blended" continued to struggle with only $4 million this weekend; that film has only grossed $36 million throughout its theatrical run. Jon Favreau's "Chef" put up a modest $2.6 million, a 36 percent increase from last weekend's haul; the film had received a boost from being added in another 674 theaters nationwide. Finishing off the top 10 was Disney's "Million Dollar Arm" which only managed to bring in $1.8 million; the film has grossed $31 million thus far.
Other films that opened this weekend included "Holiday," "Obvious Child," "Ping Pong Summer," "Citizen Koch" and "2 Autumns, 3 Winters." Sundance hit "Obvious Child" had the best opening of the films with an average of $27,000 in just three theaters; "Citizen Koch" brought in $10,200 in one theater while the other openings failed to average more than $2,000 per theater despite having bigger openings.