Critics were wondering before last weekendwhether Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnsonwould be able to solely carry ‘SanAndreas’ to success like he did with ‘Journey2: The Mysterious Island’, or if the movie would perform below expectationslike Johnson’s previous solo blockbuster-failure ‘Hercules’.
Surprisingly San Andreas rocked theatresworldwide, and surpassed all prior predictions by grossing 53 million dollarsin the United States and $60 million in other markets for a total of $113 million worldwide. The filmfinished in #1 position in 56 markets, and received positive criticism, meaningit will continue to perform well in the following weeks.
The movie is a great accomplishment not onlyfor the studio Warner, but for Johnson himself, who finally proved that he doesnot need to be part of an assembly, such as the ‘Fast and Furious’ or the‘G.I.Joe’ flicks to carry a movie to success.
Part of the achievement was due to The Rock’sabove-average participation to promote San Andreas, like setting the selfieworld record at the London premiere with the help of his fans, while part ofthe triumph can be credited to poor / non-existent new competition.
In fact the only other notable movie openinglast weekend, ‘Aloha’ barely made$10 million in the United States even though it starred popular Hollywood facessuch as Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Bill Murray and Alec Baldwin.
‘Aloha’ wasn’t the only movie which performedbelow expectations, as ‘Tomorrowland’continues its disappointing run with only being able to gross $133 million afterits first two weeks running.
Meanwhile lowerbudgeted ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ have continued togrow their own success, with the former reaching $228 million, the latter $280million in total worldwide.
‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ managed togross for nearly $30 million, even though it’s been running for several weeksnow. This brings the movie to a worldwide sum of $1.32 billion, edging a littlecloser once again to the $1.5 billion mark.
