Friday Box Office: 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Off To Huge Start
The movie has only been out since midnight on Thursday, but X-Men: Days of Future Past is already off to the races, kicking off the weekend with a Friday so strong that pundits are predicting a debut weekend of well over $100 million. This would allow X-Men: Days of Future Past to surpass Captain America: The Winter Soldier as the year's biggest opening (the Marvel action epic opened in April to $95 million).
Despite the recent sexual abuse allegations surrounding director Bryan Singer, as well as his attempts this week to have the charges dismissed, public excitement for X-Men: Days of Future Past was in no way damaged as some industry pundits theorized. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the movie could possibly reach as high as $115-$120 million before the Memorial Day Weekend is over.
The movie, which unites actors from the original X-Men trilogy (such as Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen) with the stars of X-Men: First Class (such as Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender), cost over $200 million to make, yet the strong reviews, promising opening, and international box office receipts means the movie should easily make back its budget. Naturally, X-Men: Days of Future Past is unquestioningly taking the top spot this weekend, knocking off last week's champ, Godzilla.
Godzilla is expected to take the No. 2 spot with an estimated three-day gross of about $34 million, which would mean a 63% drop from last weekend's $93.2 million debut. The extra day from the Memorial Day Weekend should bump Godzilla up to $43 million by the end of the holiday, but this will not be enough to prevent X-Men: Days of Future Past from cutting deep into its business. There's no way of knowing, right now, what kind of staying power X-Men: Days of Future Past will have, especially with other summer movies -- such as Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow, and A Million Ways To Die In The West -- on the horizon. But this is an unbelievably strong start for the new superhero action film.
That said, Godzilla is still doing much better than the latest attempt at getting people to care about an Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore reunion, as Blended is tanking. The film, which cost $45 million to make, is expected to have real trouble reaching Warner Bros.'s $18 million debut projections, which illustrates just how far Sandler has fallen as a box office draw (and Barrymore with him, as this doesn't even touch their first two pairings, The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates). Blended is now among Sandler's weakest openings of the past five years, as the film was only able to best That's My Boy, which debuted to a low $13.5 million in 2012.
Needless to say, this is going to be a huge Memorial Day Weekend at the box office. We'll be back with updates as the weekend rolls on. In the meanwhile, let us know what you went to see this weekend, if anything, in the comments!
Credit: 20th Century Fox