Box Office: ‘Paul Blart’ Sequel Opens to $22 Million; ‘Furious 7′ Still No. 1

Kevin James isn’t quite as fast as Vin Diesel at the box office, but he’s not entirely out of the race this weekend either.

Sony’s “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2,” playing in 3,633 theaters, should open to a solid $22 million domestically. That’s slightly below the debut for the 2009 original comedy, which opened to $31 million, but still better than the $16 million projections.

Universal’s “Furious 7″ will likely cruise to its third straight win with an estimated $26 million haul.

The racing blockbuster, directed by James Wan, just crossed $1 billion worldwide to become the fastest movie to ever reach the billion-dollar club. It should hit $300 million domestically next week.

Universal’s other release, low-budget horror film “Unfriended,” is logging in with $16.5 million this weekend. Not bad for a movie that cost not much more than $1 million to produce.

“Unfriended” tells the story of six teenagers who are terrorized by an anonymous person online. The project hails from micro-budget mastermind Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions. It was directed by Levan Gabriadze and was produced by Jason Timur Bekmambetov and writer Nelson Greaves.

This weekend’s biggest casualty, Lionsgate’s “Child 44,” earned just $230,000 from 510 screens. Based on the bestselling novel, the Tom Hardy-Gary Oldman drama reportedly cost nearly $50 million.

Also premiering this weekend is Disney’s nature documentary “Monkey Kingdom,” which landed with $4.5 million.

Fox Searchlight’s “True Story,” starring Jonah Hill and James Franco, earned $683,000 on Friday. The real-life crime drama is expected to gross over $1.5 million from 831 locations.

A24’s “Ex Machina” continues to soar in limited release. The sci-fi drama, which expanded to 39 theaters, averaged nearly $16,000 per screen for an estimated $621,000 weekend.

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