Pamela McClintock of THR:
Everyone wants to live next door to Seth Rogen and Zac Efron.
Exceeding all expectations, their new Universal film Neighbors laughed its way to a $51.1 million domestic debut over Mother's Day weekend -- the No. 4 three-day opening of all time for an R-rated comedy. Rose Byrne also stars in the movie, which easily toppled holdover The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Neighbors also soared overseas, where it grossed a hefty $34.4 million from 29 countries, placing No. 1 in 17 of those, including the U.K., Australia and Germany.
Domestically, Amazing Spider-Man 2 fell to No. 2 as it declined 59 percent in its second weekend, more than Sony would have liked, grossing $37.2 million from 4,324 locations for a domestic total of $147.9 million. Comparisons to the first Amazing Spider-Man are problematic, since that film debuted over July Fourth week on its way to earning $200.5 million by the end of its second weekend.
The superhero sequel is still in good shape, and continues to do big business internationally, where it earned $69.5 million over the weekend for a foreign total of $403 million and global haul of $550.2 million.
Heading into the weekend, box office observers predicted a close race between Neighbors, playing in 3,279 theaters, and Amazing Spider-Man 2 (each was expected to gross around $42 million).
Neighbors is a victory for all involved, particularly Rogen and Efron (it is by far Rogen's best opening for a live-action title). The comedy also starts off Universal's summer in style, and rolls out three weeks before the studio debuts another R-rated comedy, Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West.
Directed by Nick Stoller, the filmmaker behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Five-Year Engagement, Neighbors was produced by This Is the End team Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver. (Rogen and Goldberg also directed that 2013 end-of-the-world comedy.) Nathan Kahane and Joe Drake's Good Universe is also a producer.
The R-rated Universal story follows a young couple (Rogen and Rose Byrne) with a new baby, whose quiet suburban lifestyle is ruined when a rowdy frat moves in next door. Interestingly, the well-reviewed film only earned a B CinemaScore.
The Hangover: Part II still sports the top weekend opening of all time for an R-rated film ($85.9 million), followed by Sex and the City ($57 million) and Ted ($54.4 million).
The other two movies opening nationwide over Mother's Day weekend failed to wow.
Moms' Night Out, hoping to take part in the boom enjoyed by a recent string of faith-based movies, opened to $4.2 million from 1,044 theaters, a relatively small footprint. The movie, placing No. 7 and costing a modest $10 million to make, hoped to lure Christian females of all ages. Ironically, it was beat by fellow TriStar faith-based film Heaven Is For Real, which placed No. 4 in its fourth weekend with $7 million, putting its domestic total at a stunning $75.2 million.
Starring Patricia Heaton and Sarah Drew, Moms' Night Out revolves around a stressed-out mother of young children who attempts an outing with other moms from the same congregation -- in the same way.
Independent animated film Legends of Oz placed No. 8 with $3.7 million from 2,525 theaters. Production company Summertime Entertainment is facing a major hit, considering it cost $70 million to make. It's one of the worst openings of all time for a film opened in 2,500 to 3,000 locations.
At the specialty box office, director Jon Favreau's well-reviewed food-truck film Chef cooked up a strong opening, grossing $204,201 from six theaters for a location average of $34,034. Favreau also stars in the indie comedy Sofia Vergara, John Leguizamo and Scarlett Johansson.
Next Up: Gareth Edwards' great looking Godzilla reboot finally arrives...I said after I watched the teaser trailer and the overseas trailer that I thought that it was it safe to say that I am 99 % sure that this film will be far superior to the dreadful 1998 film by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin...I still think that...Fingers crossed kids. Counter to that is Disney's true story baseball biopic Million Dollar Arm. The film is based on the true story of how sports agent J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm) and his partner Aash Shah ("The Daily Show" regular Aasif Mandvi) discovered professional pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel through a reality show he staged in India using Cricket players.
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