Box office: 'Pitch Perfect 2' races past 'Mad Max: Fury Road' for massive $64M debut

Females, and especially the younger set, are proving their might once again at the box office.

Elizabeth Bank's Pitch Perfect 2 is easily beating George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road at the North American box office, grossing a stunning $28 million Friday from 3,473 theaters for a whopping $64.3 million weekend, or that's the projection anyway.

That doesn't mean Fury Road is a slouch, although it cost Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow a pricey $150 million-plus to produce. The sequel, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, grossed roughly $16 million Friday from 3,702 locations for a $41 million-$43 million weekend (official Friday numbers weren't immediately available).

Universal spent a modest $29 million to make Pitch Perfect 2, a sequel to the a sleeper hit that grossed $115 million at the worldwide box office in fall 2012. Appealing heavily to younger femmes, the follow up marks the feature directorial debut of Banks and stars Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and Hailee Steinfeld (Steinfeld is a new addition).

Pitch Perfect 2 earned an A- CinemaScore from audiences, as well as good reviews from many critics.

Fury Road is an all-out hit among reviewers, sporting a 98 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences gave it a B+.

Heading into the weekend, tracking suggested both films would open in the $40 million range.

Both Fury Road and Pitch Perfect 2 ould be a sizeable player overseas, where it opened to a rousing $2.3 million in France Thursday, timed to its screening at the Cannes Film Festival. In Paris, it scored the biggest opening day of the year so far. It also did big business in Australia (Miller's home country) and New Zealand.

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