“The Longest Ride,” the Nicholas Sparks adaptation starring Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood, rustled up $625,000 from Thursday night showings in its box office debut for Fox.
The PG-13 romance is the weekend’s only wide opener, and will be in 3,364 theaters as of Friday. “The Longest Ride” averaged $265 at the locations that begin showing it at 8 p.m. Thursday, on its way to what analysts project will be a weekend total in the low- to mid-teen millions.
That’s roughly on par with “The Best of Me,” which grossed $525,000 at Thursday night showings in 2,936 theaters last October. That one opened at $10 million, the lowest-ever for a Sparks adaptation, and topped out at $27 million for Relativity Media.
“Furious 7” is expected to easily repeat as No. 1 at the box office, with analysts projecting a $55 million second lap for Universal’s ultra-action epic, which passed $500 million at the worldwide box office on Thursday. The powerhouse sequel is at $174 million domestically and has taken in another $315 million from overseas.
The Weinstein Company is expanding the Helen Mirren-Ryan Reynolds drama “Woman in Gold” from the 258 theaters it debuted in last weekend to 1,504 as of Friday.
Based on the true story of the late Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee living in Los Angeles who fought the government of Austria to reclaim Gustav Klimt’s iconic painting of her aunt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Katie Holmes, Daniel Bruhl and Jonathan Pryce co-star in “Woman in Gold,” directed by Simon Curtis.
Debuting in limited release is “Ex Machina,” an R-rated British sci-fi thriller written and directed by Alex Garland. It tells the story of a computer coder (Domhnall Gleeson) who is hooked up with a artificially intelligent robot called “Ava” (Alicia Vikander). Oscar Isaac co-stars in the film distributed by A24, which has it in 41 theaters.