The Weekend Report: Pitch Perfect 2 Unseated Age of Ultron?

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

I would have thought it going into it, but Age of Ultron has finally been unseated as the uncontested king of the box office.  Hell, it was even beaten out for the #2 slot.  Both of those have been handily won by the weekend's newcomers: Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road.

That's not to say that Age of Ultron's been slacking on the job, however.  It did cross over the billion dollar mark globally and now has the biggest opening weekend that China's ever seen.  But three weeks into the summer is enough to topple even the best of movies, I suppose.

Audiences came out in droves to see the acapella comedy, even more than was initially expected.  Although expected to only do about $50 million in business in its debut weekend, Pitch Perfect 2 walked away with more than $70 million in the bag.

Reviews for it have been especially divided, however, despite its success.  About half of the people that I spoke with about it were about as happy with it as they'd expected to be.  The other half were decidedly disappointed.  At least two people that I spoke to fell asleep during the movie.  Nobody is claiming that it's as good as the first one was.

Fury Road, the belated sequel to the Mad Max series, did about as well as it was expected to, raking in a bit under $50 million.  While Pitch Perfect fans were a bit more divided in their assessment of their viewing selection this weekend, seemingly everybody who saw Mad Max left the theater jubilant.  I expect enthusiastic word of mouth will help what will doubtless prove to be the greatest action movie of the summer.

Box Office Standings:

1)  Pitch Perfect 2 - $70.3m
2)  Mad Max: Fury Road - $44.4m
3)  Avengers: Age of Ultron - $38.8m
4)  Hot Pursuit - $5.7m
5)  Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 - $3.6m
6)  Furious 7 - $3.6m
7)  The Age of Adaline - $3.2m
8)  Home - $2.7m
9)  Ex Machina - $2.1m

10)  Far from the Madding Crowd - $1.3m

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

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