Audiences Are Gonna Go Mad For Pitch Perfect 2 (Box Office Predictions)

Sequels to bigger movies (such as The Empire Strikes Back, Age of Ultron, The Hangover: Part II and The Dark Knight Rises) are inevitably gonna make less money than their predecessors, mainly because those enormous grosses are the exception, not the norm. On the other hand, sequels to lower grossing films (such as 22 Jump Street or T2) tend to make more, due to both audience demand and the final gross of the first film leave room for growth.

The second category is where Pitch Perfect 2 finds itself, as its first film had a leggy box office run resulting in $65 million, a total this sequel can easily beat. After all, the cast members of the first movie (such as Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson) have grown quite a bit in popularity since the last film, and the home video sales for the first Pitch Perfect were exceptional. The audience for this franchise has grown tremendously, and this sequels gonna prosper because of that fact.

How will it go? Well, it won't surpass the first ones final gross in one weekend, but it won't be far off. I suspect this one will be frontloaded, resulting in huge Thursday night and opening day numbers, which will make up a large chunk of its opening weekend. Still, this has a very good shot of crashing past $50 million in three days, which will be an extremely impressive result considering the features extremely small $29 million budget.

After years of anticipation, the newest Mad Max movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, arrives to movie theaters everywhere. This ones had an incredible marketing campaign, starting with Comic-Con footage that was easily the most buzzed about footage shown at the convention (its reception was so enormous, in fact, that Warner Bros. put the Comic-Con trailer on the internet, a rare occurrence). Since then, trailers have been quite memorable, emphasizing unique visuals and the two stars (Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron) in equal measures.

It's hard to tell if this will have much overreach to the general moviegoing public, though the ecstatic reviews will certainly help lure the more skeptical to the movie theater. I'm not sure it can get over $50 million for the frame, but it should have no problem landing in the mid-to-high $40 millions for the frame.

With Mad Max entering the fray, Avengers: Age of Ultron will take a dive from the no. 1 spot for sure, though it's doubtful it loses more than Iron Man 3 did in it's third frame. I suspect a third weekend dip somewhere in between Iron Man 3 (50%) and The Avengers (45%), which could take it over $40 million, making it only the fifth movie to make that much cash in its third weekend of release.

Below are my opening weekend and final gross predictions for this weekends new releases, as well as my projections for the weekend box office Top 5.

Pitch Perfect 2
Opening Weekend: $56 million
Total Gross: $140 million

Mad Max: Fury Road
Opening Weekend: $48 million
Total Gross: $130 million

1) Pitch Perfect 2: $56 million
2) Mad Max: Fury Road: $48 million
3) Avengers: Age of Ultron: $40 million
4) Hot Pursuit: $5.8 million
5) The Age of Adeline: $3.5 million