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Third is Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise Groundhog Day film that takes place on the battlefield. Despite strong reviews and an interesting premise, Edge of Tomorrow got buried, but that was likely due to unfortunate scheduling rather than Cruise himself. Edge earned $1.8 million from Thursday previews, which were included in the opening day total of $10.7 million. That Friday amount is simply too low for a film that cost $178 million to make, but with good reviews and a global presence, it is too early to hammer it on it (many will regardless, a la Pacific Rim). The weekend for Edge of Tomorrow came in at $29.1 million, lower than Oblivion ($37.1 million open), but higher than anything else Cruise has released since 2006 (remember that the first weekend of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was IMAX only).

Tom Cruise will need his global audience to come out in force if Edge of Tomorrow even hopes to see a profit. However, I connect Edge of Tomorrow with the Cruise/Spielberg collaboration Minority Report. That one had a budget of $102 million, and opened to $35.7 million on the domestic side. It was as well received as Edge of Tomorrow (91% for Minority Report, 89% for Edge of Tomorrow), and also had to tussle with a different demographic on opening weekend, as it was against Lilo and Stitch, and beat the kids flick by less than half a million. Minority Report went on to earn $132 million domestically and $358 million worldwide, and that was in 2002. I would not at all be surprised if a decade later, Edge of Tomorrow does better overseas than Minority Report, but like Maleficent, it needs to earn a half-billion worldwide, which is going to be stretch for this one, no matter how you slice it. I like a comeback story, though, so I’ll wait until next weekend to dig the grave.

Fourth spot goes to X-Men: Days of Future Past, which is swooning in a very similar way to that of Godzilla and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. In its third weekend, X-Men earned $14.7 million, which means it was off by 55% compared to last weekend, and follows a 64% drop last weekend. As a comparison, Godzilla fell 67% and 61% over its second and third weekends, and Spider-Man 2 fell 61% and 53%. With its huge $200 million budget, X-Men need $600 million worldwide to prove profitable for Fox, and it looks like it will get there. It has a domestic tally so far of $189.1 million, and had pulled in $345 million overseas at the time of this writing, so it is still on the track to success.

Fifth is A Million Ways to Die in the West, which is opened softly last weekend to $16.8 million. Things didn’t improve for the Seth MacFarlane flick, as it fell 57% to $7.2 million. Still, with a budget of only $40 million and a total so far of $30.1 million, no one will get hurt too much by A Million Ways, but it will mark the first big screen failure for MacFarlane after the success of Ted.

Sixth is Godzilla, which earned another $6 million this weekend, giving it a drop of 51%. It has a running total of $185 million on the domestic side, and will be our second $90 million plus opener that struggles to get to $200 million plus at the domestic box office. The $160 million creature feature has already earned $200 million overseas, and still has yet to open in what could be its biggest markets (China and Japan). The worldwide gross has reached $385 million so far.

Neighbors, the low budget comedy, is seventh this weekend. The Seth Rogen flick earned another $5.2 million and fell 36% compared to the previous frame. The $18 million budgeted release from Universal has now earned $137.8 million domestically, and another $80 million from overseas cinemas.

Eighth is Blended, the Adam Sandler miss from Sony. Blended earned only $4 million and declined 50%. It has a total so far of $36.5 million against a $40 million budget. Ninth place goes to Chef from Jon Favreau and Open Road Films. Chef added 674 runs to its platform release, and took in $2.6 million, up 36% from last weekend. It has earned $10.4 million so far. Tenth goes to Million Dollar Arm, which picked up another $1.8 million this weekend. The Disney film slid 49% this weekend and has a running total of $31.3 million.

Overall this weekend, the box office keeps humming along nicely. The top 12 films this weekend grossed a powerful $156.3 million, well ahead of last year’s top 12, when The Purge led the box office to $143.4 million, as The Internship flopped. Next weekend should also be huge. Fox takes the reins of How to Train Your Dragon away from Paramount for the sequel, and Sony releases 22 Jump Street, re-teaming Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Add to that second weekends for The Fault in our Stars and Edge of Tomorrow, and we should have a significant showdown.

Top Weekend Box Office for 6/6/14-6/8/14 (Estimates)
Rank	Film	Distributor	Estimated Gross	Weekly Change	Running Total
1	The Fault In Our Stars	Fox	$48,200,000	New	$48,200,000
2	Maleficent	Disney	$33,523,000	- 52%	$127,370,000
3	Edge of Tomorrow	WARNER BROS.	$29,105,000	New	$29,105,000
4	X-men: Days of Future Past	Fox	$14,700,000	- 55%	$189,101,300
5	A Million Ways To Die In the West	Universal	$7,189,000	- 57%	$30,087,970
6	Godzilla	WARNER BROS.	$5,950,000	- 50%	$185,043,000
7	Neighbors	Universal	$5,200,930	- 36%	$137,801,425
8	Blended	WARNER BROS.	$4,050,000	- 50%	$36,509,000
9	Chef	Open Road Films	$2,600,000	+ 36%	$10,361,695
10	The Amazing Spider0man 2	Sony	$1,900,000	- 50%	$196,288,000
11	Million Dollar Arm	Disney	$1,822,000	- 49%	$31,347,000
12	Belle	FOX SEARCHLIGHT	$765,000	- 39%	$7,579,300
	Also Opening/Notables
	Holiday	Reliance	$413,102	New	$413,102
	Obvious Child	A24	$81,000	New	$81,000
	Supermensch	Radius/twc	$25,000	New	$25,000
	Citizen Koch	Variance Films	$10,200	New	$10,200
	2 Autumns, 3 Winters	Film Movement	$2,000	New	$2,000
	Night Moves	Cinedigm	$50,546	+ 110%	$81,332
	Words And Pictures	Roadside Attractions	$275,000	+ 252%	$535,000
	The Other Woman	IFC Films	$485,000	- 65%	$82,210,800
	Rio 2	Fox	$735,000	- 34%	$125,644,600
	Captain America: the Winter Soldier	Disney	$439,000	- 30%	$255,886,000
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations

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