NORTH AMERICA: 4-Day Weekend Actuals: 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Arrives with Strong $110.6M; 'Blended' Stumbles with $17.7M

By Daniel Garris

Fox's X-Men: Days of Future Past debuted in first place this weekend with a strong $110.58 million take over the four-day holiday frame. That was towards the lower end of the massive pre-release expectations for the highly anticipated 3D comic book sequel. Without adjusting for ticket price inflation, Days of Future Past delivered the fifth largest four-day Memorial Day weekend take of all-time (behind only 2007's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and last year's Fast & Furious 6). X-Men: Days of Future Past took in $90.82 million over the three-day frame. That represented the fourth largest three-day debut of 2014 thus far.

Compared to previous X-Men films, Days of Future Past is running a very impressive 83 percent stronger than the $60.55 million four-day start of 2011's X-Men: First Class and 10 percent below the $122.86 million four-day debut of X-Men: The Last Stand (though it should be noted that neither of those films had the advantage of higher priced 3D admissions). X-Men: Days of Future Past received a strong A rating on CinemaScore and will hope to hold up better than previous X-Men films going forward thanks in part to the early positive audience reaction and its very strong critical reviews.

After exceeding expectations last weekend, Warner's Godzilla came back down to earth this weekend with a second place four-day take of $38.44 million. The 3D sci-fi action remake was down a sizable 59 percent from last weekend's three-day frame. Clearly, mixed word of mouth, natural fan-driven front-loading and the new competition from Days of Future Past all took a toll on Godzilla this weekend. With that said, Godzilla has still grossed a strong $155.79 million through eleven days of release. That places the film 5 percent behind the $163.61 million eleven-day take of 2011's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Godzilla took in $30.95 million over the three-day weekend.

Warner Bros. had far less impressive results with Blended, as the comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore opened in third place with just $17.74 million over the four-day frame. Blended opened below its already relatively modest expectations for a film starring Sandler. Audiences weren't in the mood for another pairing of Sandler and Barrymore and the film's very poor critical reviews didn't help matters either. It should be noted that with an A- CinemaScore and strong early holding power as the weekend went on, Blended appears to be going over better with audiences than it has with critics. But after such a soft debut and with Universal's A Million Ways to Die in the West arriving this coming Friday, word of mouth likely won't help Blended out much in the long run. Blended took in $14.28 million over the three-day frame.

Fellow comedy Neighbors placed in fourth over the four-day frame with $17.12 million. The successful modestly budgeted Universal release continued to display signs of front-loading, as it was down 32 percent from last weekend's three-day frame. While holding power for Neighbors has been underwhelming thus far, in the bigger picture the film has already grossed a very impressive $116.80 million through 18 days of release. Neighbors took in $14.02 million over the three-day weekend.