Box Office Week: X-Men: Apocalypse has a solid opening with $80 mil for the 4-day weekend but came in $30 mil short from Days of Future Past's opening. Meanwhile, Alice Through the Looking Glass flopped, opening at #2 with $34.1 mil for the 4-day weekend, $30 mil below predictions.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	X-Men: Apocalypse	$80,000,000	$265,831,017	1
2	Alice Through the Looking Glass	$34,174,000	$99,174,000	1
3	The Angry Birds Movie	$24,600,000	$229,453,309	2
4	Captain America: Civil War	$19,717,000	$1,107,893,948	4
5	Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising	$11,443,600	$77,180,180	2

Notable Box Office Stories:

• It was a soft Memorial Day week as both new franchises opened under predictions to varying degrees. First up is X-Men: Apocalypse, whose $80 mil 4-day total ($65 mil for three-day) is certainly impressive on a global sense, but in comparing it with other entries into the franchises it pails in comparison. First let's compare it to the most obvious film, X-Men: Days of Future Past which opened in 2014 in the exact same slot to $110.5 mil ($90 mil for three day). This definitely isn't the ramping up the series likely hoped, particularly since Apocalypse was the last fully planned X-Men film with the new young cast. However perhaps even more damning is what happened three months earlier, when Deadpool opened on a four day weekend to a whopping $152.1 mil, and that was R-rated with zero X-Men branding in the marketing. Domestically Apocalypse will probably have the same run as X-Men: First Class which ended its run at $146 mil. The real test is internationally, especially in China (where First Class didn't even open by the way) though potential competition from Warcraft may hold it back. The film will come out profitable but it will be interesting to see where Fox goes with all this, especially if the next film, an R-rated Wolverine solo film, does anywhere near as well as Deadpool. Could be Fox starts moving away from the bigger, splashier event X-Men films into more solo projects.

• Streaks can't last forever and Disney saw the destruction of two of their best streaks (live-action remakes of animated fairy tales, and 2016 in general) as Alice Through the Looking Glass flopped with a $31.5 mil opening at #2. This take was way below the hopeful $60 mil expectations of Disney and even the most cynical of predictions from tracking sites. There's plenty of blame to go around here including a long delayed sequel, the lowering of 3D sales, bad reviews of both installments, and maybe even some current personal issues with one of the stars. While many tracking sites seemed baffled by the move for a sequel so late in the game, Disney clearly thought that the $1 billion take of the first film was evidence the series had strong franchise potential, including ending the current film with what can only presumably be a setup for a Cheshire Cat solo movie. Well Disney is certainly not going back to Underland any time soon as the film will not even come close to domestically passing it's $170 mil budget. in foreign totals the film took in a solid $69 mil, mainly from China, but it's highly unlikely to increase in the coming weeks with such a large amount of competition. While the international appeal of Lewis Carrol's work will likely not make Through the Looking Glass as bad a flop as say Tomorrowland, it's certainly the first Disney film of the year that will take heavy losses. Don't cry for Disney though. Jungle Book just past Deadpool in worldwide gross so now the top three earning films of the year are from Disney. Oh and they past $4 billion in total gross this weekend.

• On the small scale side Love & Friendship seems to be the latest small indie darling to get a critic boost as Whit Stilman's dark comedic take on Jane Austen managed to squeeze into the top ten, coming in #9 with $3.1 mil. That's a pretty impressive take for a period piece only in 500 theaters, a per theater average of $6,319. This one is a bit of an oddity as it came long before any Oscar buzz (the film could be a contender for Best Costumes, Screenplay, and Actress in my opinion) and seems to be riding mostly on the great reviews, namely a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It will expand to more theaters next weekend so it should be interesting to see how long this goodwill will last.

• While the US doesn't get the film for another 2 weeks, Warcraft is opening very well in other countries in a strategic release plan. It seems Legendary is pretty sure any hopes for Warcraft 2 will come from international rather than domestic, as the film is slowly being released internationally, much longer than the way say Civil War was released. This week saw the film released in 20 territories. Of those Russia had the best opening where the film brought in an estimated $10 million followed by Germany at $5.9m. The film has gotten pretty bad reviews from American critics and the film's domestic tracking doesn't seem to be very high, so much of the success of Warcraft is still up in the air. Currently internationally it has earned $31 mil, but the real big test will be the Asian market. South Korea could be huge and China's take could end up being massive as the film's presales have surpassed Furious 7, a film which notably took in $390 mil in China alone. If domestic does bottom out and international soars it could be a very interesting new strategy in delivering product first to outside the US.

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
Star Wars: The Force Awakens	$936,641,878	$2,066,941,878	25
Deadpool	$362,781,653	$763,177,218	16
Zootopia	$336,177,645	$991,777,645	13
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	$328,843,925	$871,075,948	10

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
The Revenant	$183,637,894	$532,082,045	$135,000,000
Brooklyn	$38,322,743	$62,076,141	$11,000,000
Criminal	$14,708,696	$32,681,375	$31,500,000
Eddie the Eagle	$15,789,389	$45,561,674	$23,000,000

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Submitted June 01, 2016 at 12:00AM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/1PglZiN