- With its main competition coming from a security guard on a Segway, fast-driving Furious 7 (NASDAQ:CMCSA) led the box office for a third straight weekend with a healthy $29M, to close in on $300M domestically.
- The Universal film outdrew the critically panned Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (NYSE:SNE), which clocked in with a surprisingly strong $24M. The film earned a fairly rare 0% on critic aggregator Rottentomatoes.com but is now projected to profit, considering its $30M budget.
- As presaged by its fast start, Furious 7 blew past the $1B mark in global box office a few days ago.
- Universal grabbed another win with Unfriended, an ultra-cheap ($1M budget) teen-bullying horror that earned $16M, good enough for third place over the $10.3M earned by animated feature Home (DWA +1.5%). In its fourth weekend, Home (the best bit of news for DreamWorks in some time) has tallied $142.6M.
- On the other side of the spectrum, Child 44 (LGF) -- which was banned in Russia -- debuted with just $600K in 510 theaters, a terrible trajectory for a film that cost $50M to make.