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Pitch Perfect 2

As expected, Pitch Perfect 2 was the top film on Friday, but with a good bit higher than expected figure. The musical comedy earned $27.8 million on Friday, with $4.6 million of that coming from Thursday evening showings. This is a…slight increase from $1.7 million Pitch Perfect earned on its first day of release in 2012 (in just 335 theaters). It’s a rare example these days of legitimate word-of-mouth and building the audience through the home video release. Of course, there is no way that this is not an amazingly front-loaded Friday, as the target audience of younger females are among the first to turnout to something they want to see at theaters. A weekend multiplier of 2.4, with the Thursday earnings removed and added back in at the end give Pitch Perfect 2 a still really stunning $60.2 million weekend.

Mad Max: Fury Road

The action film that is getting virtually universal acclaim was a distant second place on Friday with $16.7 million, with $3.7 million of that attributed to Thursday night previews. Given that it’s been 30 years since the last Mad Max film, a huge box office weekend was probably unlikely, but with the absolutely incredible reviews and word-of-mouth, there is a good chance for it to have a solid hold over next weekend, when it’s the Memorial Day holiday frame. Less likely to be front loaded as compared to Pitch Perfect 2, Mad Max: Fury Road will get off to a still pretty good $40.2 million weekend, and I still actually expect it to finish ahead of Pitch Perfect when all is said and done in a month or two.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

After two weekends at the top, Age of Ultron dips another 52% from last Friday to $10 million to land in third place. But don’t feel too bad for it, it’ll be creeping closer to the $400 million mark by the end of the weekend. Buoyed last weekend by a really strong Saturday, that trend should continue today though to a lesser extent since it doesn’t seemingly have theaters all to itself anymore. Still, a third weekend of $35.3 million is absolutely fine.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	Pitch Perfect 2	60.2
2	Mad Max: Fury Road	40.2
3	Avengers: Age of Ultron	35.3
4	Hot Pursuit	5.8
5	Furious 7	3.6
6	Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2	3.3
7	The Age of Adeline	3.1
8	Home	1.9
9	Ex Machina	1.8
10	Far From the Madding Crowd	1.4