‘Tomorrowland’ Nosing Out ‘Pitch Perfect’ For No. 1; ‘Mad Max’ Holds Strong; ‘Ultron’ To Cross $400M – Box Office Saturday

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3rd UPDATE, Saturday 11:00 PM:  Tomorrowland grossed around $11.7M to $12M today compared to Pitch Perfect 2‘s estimated $10.5M to $10.7M to push the musical comedy away from the No. 1 position for the 3-day and 4-day weekend. Sunday will be another strong moviegoing day  because of Memorial Day. If the trajectory holds, odds are that Disney’s sci-fi extravaganza will gross anywhere between $32M and $33M for the 3-day compared to an estimated $29M to 32M forPP2. However, in terms of return on investment, the prize still goes to Universal’s modestly budgeted PP2 which just pitch-slapped past the $100M. We have two movies in the top three right now shouldering big budgets with smaller takes than anyone expected — Tomorrowland and Warner Bros.’ Mad Max: Fury Road, which is still holding strong in its second weekend for the No. 3 slot.

2nd UPDATE, Saturday, 8:18 AM: This morning, it’s a dead heat. Disney’s George Clooney-starrer Tomorrowland and Universal’s female-powered musical Pitch Perfect 2 both made around $9.7M yesterday and are on a collision course for the 3-day weekend, with about $32.8M each. And the 4-day is too close to call as well. Tomorrowland may end up winning by a nose as most estimates put them slightly — but only very slightly — ahead. Still, Tomorrowland had the advantage of its $725K preview added into the Friday gross.

Today is family moviegoing day, so it will be interesting to see if the Disney film gets a small boost going into tomorrow. The big difference is that Tomorrowland has most all of the IMAX screens so PP2 is performing this well without the higher ticket prices albeit adding 87 screens. With only a 52% slide in its second weekend, PP2, as reported below, will also pass $100M this evening after only nine days in release (not including preview night Thursday). PP2 may also hold better tonight. Both movies appeal more heavily to the female demo so these two films are battling mightily for those wallets.

The next three titles — the male-driven Mad Max: Fury Road, the reboot of the old horror classic Poltergeist and the superhero cluster flickAvengers: Age of Ultron — are also only a small percentage apart. The other big news is that Warner Bros. is enjoying a wonderful hold this holiday weekend as Fury Road rides into its second weekend, with a drop of only 44% after adding just a handful (20) of theaters. At the end of the four-day weekend, they will be hovering slightly under $100M whileUltron will have climbed past $400M on Sunday for Disney and Marvel.

Finally, Poltergeist is actually expected to do decent business for a horror film. It should end up with about $24M for the 3-day and pull in right around $30M for the 4-day. Although it garnered a C+ CinemaScore, it is the first horror film to come around in four weeks for genre fans and that had to help. We’ll see if it holds as word-of-mouth might hurt it during this long weekend.