Weekend Estimates: Age of Ultron Projected to Fall Short of Record
May 3, 2015
The Avengers: Age of Ultron looks set to fall just short of the all-time box office record this weekend, based on Disney’s Sunday morning weekend projection. There were already signs it would struggle after Friday’s numbers were announced, and Saturday’s $57 million day leaves the film with much too much to do on Sunday to break the record. Disney is projecting $187.66 million as of this morning, and I expect the film to come in a shade below that, based on other tracking. It’s pretty hard to call $188 million a disappointing weekend, although it is short of most expectations. The film still has plenty of entries in the record books to celebrate.
The film will record the second-biggest weekend of all time, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe now holds the top three spots on that list, Iron Man 3’s $174.1 million holding third place. Its opening day was also the third-biggest ever, and, if one doesn’t consider The Avengers a sequel, it can take the title for best weekend for a sequel!
The rest of this weekend’s chart pales in comparison to Age of Ultron, with The Age of Adaline taking second place with $6.25 million, and no wide releases daring to compete. The most notable debut comes from Far from the Madding Crowd, which will pick up $172,000 or so from 10 locations for a theater average of $17,200.
Three other films look like they will top a $10,000 theater average: Iris, with about $67,000 from six theaters; Welcome to Me is projected to earn $38,168 from two locations; finally, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck will bring in another $36,000 or so from three venues.
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Record openings, The Age of Adaline, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Welcome to Me, Far from the Madding Crowd, Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, Iris, Marvel Cinematic Universe