Box Office Weekend: Week 4 Isn’t Weak for Furious 7

Fourth time is the charm? It certainly seems to be for Furious 7, which held on to the first-place spot for a fourth week in a row. While it is now only bringing in a fraction of its opening day income (an estimated $18.3 million), it has become the highest grossing film of the franchise and a top contender for the year…although it will have stiff competition next weekend in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which has already had a massive overseas opening. But oddly, despite its success, Furious 7 is leading a massive trend this week at the box office…namely, a refusal to release its production costs. In fact, seven films out of the top ten have no budget numbers to compare…including what will likely remain one of the top ten grossing films of 2015.

In a strange and hopeful twist, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 remains as critically slammed as ever, but at an estimated $15.5 million remained in the second-place spot, and has a slim chance to break even on its costs. It did face stiff competition from newcomer The Age of Adaline, which debuted at $13.4 million. Reviews are uneven for the fantasy-romance, but with an unreported budget it is hard to say whether it is a success; despite release under the Lionsgate Films banner, there might be a high price to have been paid for several of its stars (Harrison Ford in particular).

Home remained in fourth with an estimated $8.3 million, and despite being somewhat disappointing in release stateside, it has managed to be a mild success when counting foreign box office. On the other hand, it might be within reason to assume Unfriended, despite an unreported budget, has been a major success. Falling into the notoriously low-budget found footage genre and comparing budgets of the most recent entries, its weekend estimate of $6.3 million might be enough to cover its entire budget, let alone the $25.2 million it has made so far. But in sixth place comes a surprise…Ex Machina, in its third week of release, made the jump to wide release and picked up an estimated $5.4 million for its troubles, though whether that success will last for the sci-fi thriller remains to be seen.

A fall from grace is likely in store for Liam Neeson in The Longest Ride, whose estimated $4.4 million and $30.4 million in total are a far cry from his Taken success, while Get Hard bested its critical beat-up, with an estimated $3.9 million bringing in $84 million in domestic total over a $40 million budget. And despite only $10.3 million in total revenue, the DisneyNature series’ latest entry, Monkey Kingdom, is riding more on reviews than revenue; with an estimated $3.6 million, it is the worst performing title in their catalog, but whatever it might cost will likely be swallowed in the face of Disney revenue in other ventures (i.e., The Avengers: Age of Ultron). However, the Weinstein Company has very few ways to bolster what could be a loss on Woman in Gold, as an estimated $3.5 million has brought the Helen Mirren/Ryan Reynolds-starring drama only $21.6 million in domestic earnings, and little else overseas.

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Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."

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