If 2014's Days Of Future Past is the high watermark by which the main X-Men movies are to be judged, then Apocalypse has been falling short both critically and commercially. Facing scathing reviews, it opened to $80 million across the four-day Memorial Day Weekend (still impressive, but down from the previous film's $110 million in a similar period) and took the top spot at the US box office, according to studio estimates.
Internationally, the film had been doing decent business, clocking up $185 million for a current worldwide total of $265.8 million. Now we'll have to see if it can keep momentum in the face of summer competition to get anywhere near Days' $747 million plus tally in cinemas.
And if we're using comparisons to previous films, Alice Through The Looking Glass, definitely didn't seem to match up to Wonderland. Despite a seemingly warmer reception from critics, the film has opened to a disappointing $34.1 million across the holiday weekend ($26.9 million Friday to Sunday). It's certainly a disappointing result for Disney, which has been having a banner year and is already past $4 billion worldwide. Wonderland, by comparison, racked up $116.1 million on its launch, on the way to cracking a billion itself. The sequel is likely to fall well short of that.
The Angry Birds Movie was pushed down to third, adding $24.6 million, while Captain America: Civil War fell two places to fourth with $19.7 million. Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising, known here as Bad Neighbours 2, slipped from third to fifth on $11.4 million. The comedy sequel has so far earned more than $40 million in the States and $70 million worldwide, which means it has some way to go to match the original's $270 million global figure, but has only been out for a couple of weeks.
The Jungle Book dropped to sixth, adding $9.2 million, while The Nice Guys took a tumble from fourth to seventh and $8.1 million. At eighth was Money Monster, which swiped $5.5 million from the punters, above Love & Friendship, which widened its release to 493 screens and jumped into the top 10 at ninth with an impressive $3.1 million. Finally at 10th we find Zootopia, which looks likely to leave the charts next week, but is still riding high, adding $1.1 million for a $336.1 million US total.