In news that should surprise absolutely no one, the massive disaster movie starring Dwayne Johnson stomped all over the box office this weekend, effortlessly topping the top 10. San Andreas may not have matched flashier, more high concept “CGI buildings fall down” adventures like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, but it has proven that audiences will still flock to mass destruction like no one’s business.

Oh, and Aloha opened, but there’s not much to say about that.

FilmWeekendPer Screen
1San Andreas$53,215,000$14,089$53,215,000
2Pitch Perfect 2$14,381,000 (-53.3)$3,929$147,540,000
3Tomorrowland$13,803,000 (-58.2)$3,475$63,188,000
4Mad Max: Fury Road$13,625,000 (-44.7)$4,186$115,915,000
5Avengers: Age of Ultron$10,920,000 (-49.7)
$3,383$427,070,000
6Aloha$10,000,000$3,552$10,000,000
7Poltergeist$7,800,000 (-65.5)$2,406$38,267,000
8Far From the Madding Crowd$1,420,000 (-37.9)$1,574$8,362,000
9Hot Pursuit$1,370,000 (-62.4)$947$32,351,000
10Home$1,150,000 (-34.4)$1,057$170,409,000

 

With a weekend gross of $53 million, San Andreas marks the biggest non-Fast and Furious opening of Dwayne Johnson’s career. The big meta-question here is whether or not people went to this movie because they love Johnson or because they like watching buildings fall down. In any case, The Rock does have a habit of attaching himself to things that ultimately make money, whether he’s the number one draw or not. Looking to the future, it’s trick to predict exactly how far this movie is going to go. $53 million is a strong opening, but it’s going to get decimated when Jurassic World arrives in less than two weeks. $100 million feels like a sure thing, but it’s hard to imagine this one getting much higher than $150 million, which is middling for this kind of expensive blockbuster. We shall see.

The only thing less surprising than San Andreas taking the top spot is Aloha bombing in sixth place with only $10 million. Cameron Crowe’s latest film has been the subject of a weak marketing campaign and toxic reviews and its opening weekend is almost identical to that of Elizabethtown, one of the most infamous bombs of the past few years. You just know that Bradley Cooper is having a long chat with his agent right now as they discuss whether or not this will totally derail his American Sniper momentum or slightly tarnish it.

Like last weekend, the two real winner in the top 10 were holdovers. Pitch Perfect 2 is going to leave San Andreas in the dust when all is said and done. It added $14 million in its third weekend, putting it within spitting distance of $150 million. Mad Max: Fury Road continued to ride strong word of mouth and its $13 million weekend has comfortably resting beyond the $100 million mark. The former should hit $200 million and the latter $150 million (at least). Yes, there is room in a crowded summer for a female-oriented musical and an artful, R-rated action masterpiece.

However, things weren’t so great for other holdovers. Tomorrowland slipped to third place with $13 million, bringing it to a current total of $63 million. That’s not a disastrous number, but it’s definitely lower than what Disney wanted. The film still has a shot at $100 million and it’ll easily outgross John Carter, so it certainly won’t be the biggest Disney-distributed bomb of the past five years or anything like that.

Meanwhile, Poltergeist took the massive drop that every horror movie takes in its second weekend, but with a little luck, $60 million looks possible. Surely no one thought it would do more than that, right?

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