--- description: Made for just $12 million, the movie of John Green's YA best-seller grossed $26.1 million on its opening day. title: Box Office: How the Stars Aligned for a Fabulous 'Fault' Weekend image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f9646ab9cf1e9bc/698696a33bc99977f41a3f99/the-fault-in-our-stars-fios-115-07416r_rgb.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Box Office: How the Stars Aligned for a Fabulous _Fault_ Weekend by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 7, 2014 6:16 PM CUT  Films about cancer, such as 'The Fault in Our Stars,' can offer a new understanding of humanity. Films about cancer, such as 'The Fault in Our Stars,' can offer a new understanding of humanity.James Bridges— Twentieth Century Fox by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 7, 2014 6:16 PM CUT The last word in _The Fault in Our Stars_ is “Okay.” The cancer-teen romantic drama, based on John Green’s beloved best-seller, did far better than okay in its box-office debut. The word might be “awesome:” $8.2 million at Thursday night previews and $17.9 million Friday, for an early total of $26.1 million. Industry swamis are predicting that _TFIOS_ could end the weekend with at least $50 million, perhaps as high as $57 million. The stars are aligned for the first weepie blockbuster of 2014. Produced for a pinchpenny $12 million, the movie stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as afflicted adolescents who meet at a cancer group-therapy session and fall splendidly in love. _TFIOS_ benefitted from a social-media blitzkrieg sparked by Green on his popular YouTube channel Vlogbrothers, and from the quasi-religious rapture of the book’s readers. This week the movie broke the Fandango ticket-sales record previously held by _The Vow_, the 2012 romance in which Channing Tatum had to win back the love of his amnesiac wife Rachel MacAdams. _The Vow_ opened to $40 million; _TFIOS_ will surely crush that number. **(READ: Corliss’s** [**review of** **_The Fault in Our Stars_**](http://time.com/2822847/the-fault-in-our-stars-movie-review/ "undefined")**)** It also took down Tom Cruise, whose sci-fi action film _Edge of Tomorrow_ earned just $10.7 million on Thursday and Friday. Though greeted warmly by critics (89% favorable on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate-review website, to 82% for _TFIOS_), the movie was hobbled by a leaden title and a complicated premise: guy fights and dies in battle, goes back to zero, fights and dies again. _Edge of Tomorrow_ will be big abroad, where the 51-year-old star remains a major attraction, but it also bears a hefty $175-million price tag for its budget — nearly 15 times the cost of _TFIOS_. The Cruise film gleaned a respectful B-plus from a CinemaScore survey of first-nighters, while _TFIOS_ aced a straight A. The signal embarrassment for Tom Terrific would be finishing his movie’s opening weekend behind two ladies: not just Woodley but Angelina Jolie, whose _Maleficent_ pulled a Thu.-Fri. number of $8.1 million and could win second place with a big turnout of kids at the Saturday shows. The numbers prove again that films aimed at females (_The Other Woman_), children (_The LEGO Movie_) or both (_Maleficient_) can be both popular and profitable. The early audience for _TFIOS_ was overwhelming women under 25\. The movie hit its target and, as word-of-mouth spreads, will expand it. **(READ:** [**Why** **_Edge of Tomorrow_** **is the summer’s smartest action film**](http://time.com/2822587/edge-of-tomorrow-movie-review/ "undefined")**)** If _The Fault in Our Stars_ finishes the weekend with $50 million, it will have registered the year’s eighth biggest opening. That might not sound so very impressive — except that the top seven are _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ ($95 million), _Godzilla_ ($93.2 million), _The Amazing Spider-Man 2_ ($91.6 million), _X-Men: Days of Future Past_ ($90.8 million), _Maleficent_ ($69.4 million), _The LEGO Movie_ ($69.1 million) and Woodley’s own _Divergent_ ($54.6 million). Most of these films had production budgets in the hundreds of millions. The least expensive was _The LEGO Movie_ at $60 million. You could make five _Fault_s for one _LEGO_. Another important distinction: All the higher-grossing films are fantasies, whereas _TFIOS_ exists in the real world, and concerns itself with people the movie audience might know, or be. Still of high-school age, Woodley’s Hazel and Elgort’s Augustus experience an entire life cycle of emotions in one summer: they love, grow, suffer, face death. Judicious in ladling out sentiment, the film not only makes viewers weep big fat tears, it also earns them. It should remind Hollywood how cathartic it is to have a good noble cry at the movies. **(READ:** [**Shailene Woodley’s tribute to TIME-100 honoree John Green**](http://time.com/70799/john-green-2014-time-100/%20 "undefined")**)** The opening-day success of the picture did not exactly astonish industry insiders; its social-media saturation led them to predict at least a $40-million weekend. What might astonish them is if _TFIOS_ were to match the $57-million opening in 2008 for _Sex and the City_, another pre-sold, female-pegged hit. The movie based on the HBO series was just for laughs; TFIOS hits the audience in its primal heart, cuing an almost religious fervor among its fans. Don’t be surprised if the movie gets plenty of repeat business from Green fans who read the book, saw the movie and want to feel, at least one more time, the imperiled glory of first and last love. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2841342/fault-our-stars-box-office/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2841342/fault-our-stars-box-office/"},"headline":"Box Office: How the Stars Aligned for a Fabulous Fault Weekend","datePublished":"2014-06-07T18:16:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:16:40.953Z","description":"Made for just $12 million, the movie of John Green's YA best-seller grossed $26.1 million on its opening day. 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