The Weekend Report: Furious 7 Waits Out Another Week on Top

In which I run down the big winners (and losers) at the box office this weekend

As predicted, this week looked a Hell of a lot like last week: with Furious 7 leading the pack, Paul Blart not falling too far behind, and everything else fall in line behind them.  Everybody's pretty much just waiting around for Age of Ultron to hit theaters this week, and we just might have an inside look at what that might look like.

Age of Ultron debuted overseas this weekend and its preliminary take is absurd.  It took $201 million in 30 countries, most of which constitute relatively small movie markets.  It hits stateside on the first, in China about two weeks later and in Japan well after that.

It's undoubtedly going to be a much bigger cash cow than The Avengers was, with some industry insiders predicting that it could make as much as $2 billion in its theatrical run.  Theaters are predicting opening-day crowds for three weeks after its actual opening day.  It's going to be an absolute monster at the box office.

The Age of Adaline's reasonably impressive take this weekend really shouldn't come as any surprise.  The only new release competing against it was Ex Machina, at that had an international release back in January and a much lower profile.  Age of Adaline had a somewhat unique premise, a cast that includes Harrison Ford and something that you really don't see every day: a female protagonist.

All the same, I was hoping to pass this one up, since it looks, for lack of a better term, boring.  It marketed itself as a second-rate Benjamin Button with a decent enough cast and that's exactly what I expect to find going into it.  But Becky wants to see it, so I'm going to have to sit through it at least once.  Then again, it may end up surprising me.

Ex Machina was something that I was looking forward to for a while, and something that you can expect a review for later today.  It had a trippy premise, a great, understated cast and some real directorial umph behind it in 28 Days Later's screenwriter Alex Garland.

The movie is part of a proud resurgence of challenging and intelligent science fiction to hit theaters in recent years.  Between this, Snowpiercer, Predestination and Under the Skin, "serious" sci-fi is alive and well (if still a little obscure). This is the kind of movie that will mess with your head as much as it does its characters, so whether that's the kind of experience you want in a movie will wholly determine how much (or if) you enjoy Ex Machina.

Box Office Standings:

1)  Furious 7 - $18.2m

2)  Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 - $15.5m

3)  The Age of Adaline - $13.3m

4)  Home - $8.3m

5)  Unfriended - $6.2m

6)  Ex Machina - $5.4m

7) The Longest Ride - $4.3m

8)  Get Hard - $3.9m

9)  Monkey Kingdom - $3.5m

10)  The Woman in Gold - $3.5m

So what movie did you see in theaters this last weekend?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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