Maleficent headed into the weekend box office battles with hopes of dethroning X-Men: Days of Future Past while also staving off a brand new Seth MacFarlane comedy and a roaring Godzilla. While the movie was full of CGI, battles with demons and a giant dragon, it was still enough to win the weekend and come out in first.
Maleficent opened its weekend box office debut with a decent $70. While that is far below movies like Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it is still a nice take for what could have been a risky proposition, a re-telling of a classic fairy tale. It did much better than the last time this happened, with Snow White and the Huntsman ($56.2 million), so that is a victory in and of itself. Maleficient also received an “A” CinemaScore, which means it should hang around for awhile.
X-Men: Days of Future Past dropped 64 percent, which is expected with so many blockbusters coming out. It will be interesting to see who survives in 2015 when there are huge movies hitting through the entire summer.
A Million Ways to Die has to be seen as a major disappointment. While $17 million weekend box office might be decent for some comedies, Neighbors proves that more should be expected now. As a matter of fact, this opening is $37 million lower than Ted’s and might make it look like MacFarlane’s fans are tuning out.
Here’s the complete weekend box office breakdown:
Weekend Box Office
| Position | Title | Weekend | Total |
| 1 | Maleficent | $70.0M | $70.0M |
| 2 | X-Men: Days of Future Past | $32.6 | $162.0 |
| 3 | A Million Ways to Die in the West | $17.0 | $17.0 |
| 4 | Godzilla | $12.2 | $174.6 |
| 5 | Blended | $8.4 | $29.6 |
| 6 | Neighbors | $7.7 | $128.6 |
| 7 | The Amazing Spider-Man 2 | $3.7 | $192.7 |
| 8 | Million Dollar Arm | $3.7 | $28.0 |
| 9 | Chef | $2.0 | $6.9 |
| 10 | The Other Woman | $1.4 | $81.1 |
Weekend box office estimates courtesy of Box Office Mojo