Gabbing Geek Box Office Report- Not a Better Tomorrow

Memorial Day Weekend used to be the kickoff to the summer movie season. That practically starts in March these days, but it is still prime real estate. Who won the week?

* Coming in first this week was the George Clooney led Tomorrowland, grossing a meager $42M. What a huge disappointment for Disney and Brad Bird. This movie cost between $200-$300M to produce and market. It sadly didn’t connect with the audiences or critics. I saw it this weekend and really enjoyed it.

* Finishing second with $38M was Pitch Perfect 2 in its second weekend losing out to Tomorrowland by just a few million. But for a precipitous drop of 65% week over week, Disney would have been equally embarrassed by Tomorrowland not even earning the top spot. In case you missed it, I called a 65% drop off for this movie in last week’s column.

* Number three this week was Mad Max: Fury Road, dropping a respectable 48% and netting $32M. I bet the geeks a coffee last week that this one wouldn’t get a sequel made given the hefty budget. These domestic numbers won’t get it there but we’ll have to wait and see how the global numbers look. It has made $124M so far in the global markets.

* Pulling in at #4 this week was the debut frame of 80’s horror remake Poltergeist with $27.7m for the holiday weekend. It performed a little better than anticipated, which is good because I like Sam Rockwell, but this movie will drop hard like all spooky ghost movies do in the second weekend.

* Rounding out the top five this week was Avengers 2 with $5.8M. Per Mojo, the film “crossed $200M in China. It’s also expected to cross the $400M mark here domestically and is the only film to do that so far this year. Internationally the film will cross the $800M threshhold for a $1.2B worldwide take. It still has to keep going to eclipse Furious 7‘s $1.5B worldwide gross, which is seems likely to do.”