The big surprise of this lovely summer weekend wasn’t that X-Men: Days of Future Past opened large.
Everyone was expecting sizable returns on Bryan Singer’s all-star fusion of the past and present versions of the franchise’s characters, and its estimated $91 million weekend — which is projected to hit $110 million once today’s Memorial Day grosses come in — was in line with those expectations.
Even the precipitous drop for Godzilla — which earned $31.4 million in its second weekend — was expected, given the massive opening and the short attention span of audiences. (I was personally hoping word of mouth would shore it up, but it looks like everyone who wanted to see Gareth Edwards’ ingenious kaiju movie already did.)
No, the real shock was that Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore’s reunion comedy Blended sank like a stone, opening with just $14.2 million to scrape into third place ahead of Neighbors, which earned $14 million in its third week of release. The two films might even swap spots after today’s grosses are tallied, which would be even more humiliating for the folks at Happy Madison.
Not that I’m sympathetic, mind you. Sandler’s been allowed to get away with subpar product for far too long, and I’m delighted that people are starting to figure it out. Seriously, as long as Terry Crews is blameless, I’m fine with the Sandler machine breaking down.
Oh, and in case you missed my repeated tweets about it, and Friday’s NOW web column, it will be my honor to host an evening with Terry Hayes — including a screening of a new digital restoration of The Road Warrior and a post-viewing conversation — down at the Lightbox tonight. Show starts at 7 pm. Tickets are still available. It’d sure be nice to see you there.
I have to say, that’s one of the funniest photo/hidden-text combos you’ve ever done. Monitor, meet coffee!!
😀
Aw, thanks! And here I was worried it might be too obscure a reference …