Weekend Box Office: Cruise in Control

Tom Cruise’s career took a hard hit in the early 2000s. Over the past four years, his personal life has slipped back out of the public eye and, in the process, the actor climbed back up to the top of the box office. This weekend marks Cruise’s highest opening since 2005’s ‘War of the Worlds‘.

As the only new wide release of the weekend, it’s no surprised that ‘Oblivion’ opened in first place. The surprise is how much the film earned. On 3,783 screens, the science fiction action flick opened $2 million above expectations with $38.1 million. IMAX presentations account for $5.5 million of that total. ‘Oblivion’ has already grossed $112 million in the ten days that it has been open overseas. With these solid numbers, the $120 million film is predicted to cross the $100 million mark domestically and the $200 million mark internationally.

Last week, the Jackie Robinson sports drama ‘42‘ crushed baseball movie records. This week, it slipped 34% and pull in another $18 million, giving the $40 million film a ten-day total of $54 million. Also holding tight is five-week-old ‘The Croods‘. This $9.5 million weekend pushed its domestic total up to $154 million. Surprisingly, the $427 million worldwide total is only $60 million away from passing fellow DreamWorks title ‘How to Train Your Dragon‘.

The fourth and fifth place spots were filled by sequels that aren’t proving nearly as successful as their predecessors. In its second weekend, ‘Scary Movie 5‘ slipped 55% to claim $6.2 million. Over its first ten days, the horror spoof has only earned $22.9 million – which might seem like a lot, but shows the franchise’s decline when you take into account that ‘Scary Movie 4‘ debuted to $40.2 million.

The other declining franchise is ‘G.I. Joe’. After four weekends in theaters, ‘Retaliation’ is only at $111 million domestically, with seemingly no way to meet the $150 million domestic run of 2009’s ‘The Rise of the Cobra‘. While U.S. audiences aren’t sticking with ‘Joe’, international audiences are still going crazy for it. To date, the fifth place movie has grossed $211 million overseas.

While no other wide releases opened against ‘Oblivion’, two of the three bigger indie titles made some noise. Faith-based baseball flick ‘Home Run’ pulled in $1.6 million from just 381 screens, solidifying a debut in the #12 spot. On only 188 screens, the $2 million Sundance film ‘‘Filly Brown‘ debuted to $1.3 million, enough to land in the #13 spot. The only film in the Top 10 with a per-screen average better than its $7,250 was ‘Oblivion’ with $10,085.

The third big indie release that didn’t perform well was Rob Zombie’s ‘The Lords of Salem‘. On 354 screens, the $1.5 million horror flick only earned $622,000, for a per-screen average of just $1,757.

Top 10:

1. ‘Oblivion’ (Universal) – $38,152,00

2. ’42’ (Warner Bros.) – $18,025,000

3. ‘The Croods’ (Fox) – $9,500,000

4. ‘Scary Movie 5’ (Weinstein) – $6,296,000

5. ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ (Paramount) – $5,775,000

6. ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ (Focus) – $4,746,000

7. ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ (FilmDistrict) – $4,500,000

8. ‘Evil Dead’ (TriStar) – $4,100,000

9. ‘Jurassic Park 3D’ (Universal) – $4,008,000

10. ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful’ (Buena Vista) – $3,048,000

2 comments

  1. ‘Oz’ is currently the world’s highest grossing 2013 movie. Yet, it already seems forgotten. I never hear anyone praise or hype it. Weird.

  2. Oblivion was a lot better than i expected even with it’s less than original storyline. It’s all about the execution on this one.

    Not really sure why people give Tom Cruise a hard time other than basic human envy at a man who’s had the kind of life most of us can only dream about.

    This movie is something you don’t want to miss on an Imax Screen. It really is something amazing to see.

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