If there’s one thing I learned from watching box office trends, it’s to never underestimate the power of a teen romance novel. (Fun fact: teenagers still read. See? We’re not horribly screwed after all!) As was the case with the Twilight saga, The Fault In Our Stars managed to dominate the box office this week according to BoxOfficeMojo, taking in $48.2 Million in its first week on a budget of only $12 Million. Yes, they already made a profit three times their budget and they did it in three days. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go scour the YA fiction section at Chapter’s to see what I can turn into a movie.
Maleficent took a step down to number two this week, earning $33.5 Million in its second week. Also of note: The two biggest movies this weekend, in the middle of the summer blockbuster season, are female lead movies. I’m kind of hoping this turns into a thing down the road, because a little balance would be nice.
The big story at the box office this week is The Edge of Tomorrow, which only did $29.1 Million despite a star-studded cast and some pretty decent reviews. And while it didn’t do so hot over here, the good news is that it pulled together overseas and earned an accumulative $111 Million on the international box office according to Deadline. So yes, the movie is still successful, just in a slightly different way than expected.
X-Men: Days of Future Past continues to keep chugging along at a respectable pace, throwing another $14.7 Million on the pile. Which is what happens when you merge two incredibly successful versions of an incredibly successful franchise. It’s a money printer, essentially.
A Million Ways To Die In The West, on the other hand, didn’t do so hot, earning $7.1 Million this weekend. Thankfully, comedies generally aren’t too expensive to make, so chances are it will at least make back its budget, but comparative to Ted this wasn’t quite the runaway smash it could have been.
Jeremy Feist is an (ahem) entertainer from Toronto, Canada. He writes, acts, and performs on stage, and has been a writer for Popbytes for almost three years now. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, his incredibly dumb but cute puppy, and his immortal cat.
