Well, I was 1 for 2 as far as new releases at the box office this weekend as Pixar’s Monsters University took the top spot and World War Z had a much bigger than expected opening.
Monsters University had the second largest Pixar opening after 2010’s Toy Story 3 with an estimated opening weekend of $82 million. My prediction? $82.1 million! Gold star! Clearly, family audiences were ready to embrace the prequel to the 2001 original.
Brad Pitt scored the biggest opening of his career as the zombie thriller World War Z exceeded forecasts with an impressive $66 million. I only projected for $43.8M. Oops. A lot of the pre-buzz involving Z was negative with stories about budgets overruns and reshoots. Positive reviews and a shrewd marketing campaign helped turn that buzz around and audiences responded.
Man of Steel took the three spot in its second weekend with $41.2 million, dipping below my $47.7M projection. Rounding out the top five, This Is the End was fourth with $13M (higher than $11.3M projection) and Now You See Me was fifth with $7.8M (above my $6.5M projection).
I’ll have projections up for next weekend’s openers, White House Down and The Heat, up soon… stay tuned!
