Weekend Box Office: MacFarlane Flops, 'Maleficent' Reigns

This week’s new movie releases are performing as expected so far over the weekend. That means that “Maleficent” is doing respectably, and “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is teetering on the brink of disaster. That’s the way that predictions for the weekend indicated that things would happen, and as much as Seth MacFarlane was probably hoping for a surprise, it doesn’t look like he’s going to get one.

After estimates for Friday showings were turned in, “Maleficent” was on track for a weekend take of about $65 million. That’s substantially less than the opening weekend grosses of the last few big-budget films—“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” and “Godzilla” all took in much closer to $100 million on their opening weekends, and “X-Men: Days of Future Past” raked in $111 over last week’s long holiday weekend. “Maleficent” couldn’t be considered a disappointment with its opening, but with a production budget of $175 million, it’s going to need a strong long-term performance to be successful in the long run.

“A Million Ways to Die” had a budget of only $40 million, but it might struggle even to make that much back. It’s on track to earn only $17 million for the weekend, a fraction of the opening-weekend take of Seth MacFarlane’s last film, “Ted.”

“X-Men” will likely place second for the weekend. “Godzilla,” which has faded fast after a strong opening weekend, will probably come in fourth, behind “A Million Ways.”